We grew Mint from 0 to 1 million users in 6 months.
2 years later, Mint sold for $170 million.
Here’s how we got those first million users👇
But before I get there, here’s the quick background:
• I joined as employee #4
• #1 personal finance tracker
• Mint sold to Intuit for $170M in 2009
I found Mint and was like…
“HEY this is dope!”
So I pitched the founder on why I should be his Director of Marketing.
He laughed at me.
“You’ve never even worked in marketing.”
Good point.
But I wrote out a 6-month Mint marketing plan and launch strategy.
He hired me on the spot.
If you want a job, show don’t tell.
We had a problem though.
We had no product and 0 users.
My 1st job?
Get 100,000 users in 6 months.
Here’s how we did it:
Step 1: Deadlines are everything
Yes, your 5th grade Math teacher was right.
I also learned this from Zuckerberg.
→ Always set measurable deadlines
For Mint: 100K users in 6 months
Then you can reverse engineer how to get there.
Step 2: Who is the customer?
Ok, you’re probably thinking @noahkagan this one is obvious!
Everyone is the customer because everyone wants more money.
Wrong.
You need to make this super specific.
So I went to a million coffee shops and asked people questions.
Examples:
• Current financial strategy?
• Need help with most of your finances?
• How would your ideal personal finance tool work?
Our target customer: Young professionals + personal finance nerds
Step 3: Make No Product Look Sexy
We didn’t even have a product.
But I needed to build hype somehow.
Hype = Collect emails from people that fit our demographic
Here’s how we did this:
3) Can I pay you $1,000?
At the time, no one was sponsoring smaller finance blogs.
So I’d email the writers with sponsorship offers for $1,000.
It worked well and drove lots of email sign-ups.
Lesson: Search for undervalued marketing channels
The result?
When we launched we had 100,000 people on our email list.
In 6 months, we crushed our 100K goal to the tune of 1 million users.
Follow me @noahkagan for more threads about marketing and helping build AppSumo from $0-$85M in revenue.
To recap:
1) Set measurable deadlines
2) Talk to customers: who are they and what is the problem?
3) Build hype (or collect emails) by targeting places where they hang out online
Bonus: Use undervalued marketing channels like niche influencers
