This is good advice for all aspiring entrepreneurs.

Cool he sold his "real problem" startup; but to suggest YouTube, facebook aren't solving "real problems" is interesting in the least.

Social media, music, video are real problems that people have, and need solutions to. The problem comes when a startup doesn't really solve anything new and just copies existing stuff.

Out of people who use Mint and who use YouTube, I'd bet many would pick Mint over YouTube if they had to pick one.

Honestly, if youtube or facebook vanished, and in this magical world, no one propped up a replacement. People would moan for a week, and then they'd go back to the same things they did before YouTube existed, with no change to anything practical in their life. People wouldn't go insane, they'd simple find other ways to waste time.

Not only this, but Facebook helps me organize the many people I meet each day, lets me easily keep in touch with people I care about, lets me know who is in each city I visit so I can arrange meetups, facilitates much of my social life (invites/mixers/who's going to what), provides introductions, etc.

Mint did not even exist two years ago, and people dealt with their finances then just fine. The difference between using Mint and not (in finance) is the same as the difference in using Facebook or not (in networking), in my opinion.

Facebook is useful for me, but I wouldn't pay for it if I had to.

I'd gladly pay for Mint.

Mint has nothing to do with taxes like axod says. It is about budgeting and tracking expenditures.

I used to get a statement in the mail each month from 4 different institutions related to bank accounts, credit cards, and investments. (Or check online at 4 different places). Then I would reconcile them with my checkbook / some pile of receipts to double check.

Now I go to one place 1-2 times a week and check against my receipts right away. It never builds up and takes significantly less time.

It also helps budget and gives you data to figure out where you are spending your money.

If you are not one of those people who has money to keep track of or you don't balance your checkbook, then sure the value is hard to see. But if you actually take care of your money it is immensely helpful and saves me time and money.

>> "If you are not one of those people who has money to keep track of or you don't balance your checkbook, then sure the value is hard to see."

I was really trying to work out why Mint seems to be valued highly in the US. I can see some of the differences now.

The idea of having a 'checkbook' is incredibly quaint to most people in the UK. No one uses checks anymore here, not for 10-20 years, we're used to free banking, online account management, direct debits/transfers, etc. The majority of people have direct debits (Automated bill payments) setup for all their bills. They have their pay paid automatically into their bank by transfer (All free of course).

Banks provide all the tools we need to manage our money for free generally. Some online banking tools even allow you to access other banks that you may have accounts with (With your approval), so you can see all your accounts from one interface, and get a better picture.

I still think the added burden of having to file your own taxes would make you more likely to need something like mint, but it's probably more the extreme differences in consumer banking that's the bigger reason.

If I had to pay my bills by check, I'd go insane.

I use my debit and credit cards all day. I never even use cash, primarily so that it all gets categorized automatically by Mint and I'm too lazy to do it for cash by hand.

But in my mind a debit card is the same as checks.

Of course I pay my bills online and have bank access online (you must to use Mint).

The difference I guess is that I'm using multiple companies. Why load up Bank of America, Vanguard, WSFS, Wachovia, Capitol One and Fidelity's websites and use 6 different interfaces on 6 different websites when I can use one unified one?

You seem to have an anti-US bias that you think we are stupid or something. It is a question of how you treat your money, not the tools available.

And you are horribly mistaken on the "burden of filing your own taxes", which again, has nothing to do with Mint. 99% of the work for taxes is done by the HR department at your office and by a tax accountant. I just hand the appropriate papers to the right people, and sign it at the end. Total timer per year: an hour at most. Maybe you shouldn't comment on things you obviously have no knowledge of.

Maybe that's why it's valued more there :/ (In the UK I'm not sure most people would see the value in it).

Facebook+youtube aren't just about wasting time. They're about communication and sharing information, which as social beings, is pretty important to most of us.

  Out of people who use Mint and who use YouTube

Facebook has 200 million users or so. The world has over 6 billion people. Hence, only 3% or so of the world's population uses Facebook. Moreover, Facebook is basically a rolodex. If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, people would use email instead. They would have no other choice.

Let's talk of real problems. Over 1,000 million people live in extreme poverty. That's 5x the total number of Facebook users. So you talk of people going insane if they lost Facebook, and I find that extremely distasteful when 100s of millions of parents everyday struggle to feed their children. I am not being sensationalist, I am just putting things in perspective. Americans whine when unemployment reaches record levels and they can no longer afford Starbucks coffee everyday, but guess what, some people have real problems, like lack of food, lack of potable water, drought, disease, war, etc. I suggest you take some months off and go backpack around this world to see how fortunate we spoilt Americans / Western Europeans truly are...

I have been to Africa. I have fed the hungry, healed the sick, and vaccinated children myself with my own two hands. Interestingly enough, I wouldn't be in contact with the friends I made over there without -Facebook-. So don't tell me that Facebook "is basically a rolodex", because for me it isn't.

"Most people would go insane if they couldn't access youtube or facebook. Social media, music, video are real problems that people have, and need solutions to."

Hence, it's about people's problems, not entrepreneurs' problems. Of course, it all depends what we mean by "people" and "problems". Fortunately, most Americans do not suffer from Malaria, Dengue, Cholera... most Americans are able to feed their children and have access to potable water. Same for Western Europeans. So, if by "people" we mean the richest 5% of the world's population, then social media may be a problem indeed. But what about the other 95%? Are they untermenschen of some sort?

"This is HN. Let's not discuss that", I hear you reply. Well, yes and no. We talk so much about software, but (personally) I would like to see some more diversity here on HN. I would like to hear more stories of some inventor who comes up with a cheap desalination technology, or some grad student who find out a really cheap way of diagnosing certain diseases. These may not make a huge change on the top 5% of the world's population, but it could have a huge impact elsewhere. There are markets for cheap, efficient technologies and solutions, but there aren't that many incentives. Facebook and Twitter are luxuries. Let's try to keep that in mind for the sake of keeping our feet firmly on the ground...

This is a naive viewpoint. I am not going to argue that Facebook is somehow better than a cure for malaria, but the problem facebook solves - 'how can I efficiently keep in touch with the many different people I know?' - is important enough for individuals to find it very useful, and the network effects, plus what we learn about large-scale social networks, may well turn out to have broader implications. For example, a recent CDC study drew the conclusion that the most effective way to handle the current swine flu problem might be to target vaccinations towards young (< 40) adults who are the most likely to spread the disease, as opposed to those who are generally stereotyped to be the most vulnerable. In fact, the CDC have been employing social media in order to disseminate information about the flu, which has proved more economical then the usual strategy of news conferences and advertising. This was hardly part of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook strategy, but it turns out his product is becoming useful for such tasks.

Youtube seems even more flippant than facebook, devoted as it is to sharing video for entertainment purposes. On the other hand, if I wish to learn about malaria or some other serious problem, YouTube offers a way to access video about subject almost immediately. Putting such stuff on TV reaches a wider audience than any given YouTube video, but by necessity a passive audience and only at a given moment in time, rather than when someone is motivated and active enough to seek out that information. Again, not the goal of YouTube, but such a useful fringe benefit that we now take online video availability as as essential factor in future internet growth...and indeed, MIT are using YT as part of their strategy for OCW. One person's luxury can easily turn out to be someone else's utility.

Frankly, I think HN is quite good about propagating news of innovative non-computer hacks as well. Dean Kamen's water purification system was recently the subject of extensive discussion, and the criteria for what constitutes hacking is already pretty loose - tech-related, cheap and innovative generally qualify.

But how does being judgemental towards the ignorant help the unfortunate?

That's a really good point. I think it's not a matter of helping the unfortunate, but a matter of not insulting the unfortunate. I was fortunate to have been born in a relatively rich country. Others were less fortunate. I may not have the power to change things, but at least acknowledging the bigger problems, prioritizing them and putting things in perspective is the at least respectful. Someone who's miserable about Facebook's server outage is, basically, implying someone who is miserable because his son is dying of some preventable disease and he can't afford the healthcare...

Note I never said facebook was the "biggest" real problem or even one of the biggest. That is the poster's gross distortion of my post to strengthen his argument.

- curing cancer

- cheap water purification

- vaccines for tropical diseases (the U.S. / European pharma companies have very little incentive to work on them)

- energy-efficient desalination

- energy-efficient computing systems

- efficient solar panels and cheap fuel cells

- easy access to high-quality learning materials (MIT OCW rocks)

and you think of YouTube, Facebook. Do you want to include Twitter, too? For Christ's sake, the "social media" virus has infected a lot of minds here on HN. Let's put things this way: 5,000 people die everyday all over the world of preventable water diseases, and you're talking of social media as a real problem?

Indeed. You can love chocolate and your family. Just like you can view facebook, mint AND curing cancer as "real problems".

I'd hope so. This is not a save-the-world forum. It's Hacker News. We do think more about server problems than cancer when we are on here. It does not mean we consider server problems to be a bigger problem than cancer.

My original post was about relative use of Mint vs. Facebook. You're making it facebook vs. cancer. A more appropriate argument would be facebook/mint vs. cancer which is a completely valid debate(except I'll probably end up agreeing with you wholeheartedly)--just not for this thread.

Having taken a brief look at your submission, I find them great, and hope no outsiders are voting them down because they are too technical.

Online communication is an invaluable net win for everyone. Social media is just one type of communication but a valuable force for good.

Well done for saying we should cure cancer though.

That was cliché, I admit. In any case, cancer is only one problem. Cancer is a very difficult problem that kills many people. There are diseases that kill as many or more people than cancer, and that are easier to fight than cancer, but that no one pays attention to...

Why is that? Because cancer kills rich people too, while some diseases only kill poor people. Poor people cannot pay for vaccines, or top-notch healthcare, or even basic healthcare actually... so there's no market there. Bill Gates wrote all about it, so I am not claiming to have found anything new. Thanfully, Gates has the money to do something about it, while I barely have the money to pay my rent (I live in California, after all).

And it's slimy how TC implies that because Mint launched at TC50, it caused Mint to be acquired.

Plenty of bubble valley hyping up about how it couldn't have happened anywhere else etc etc. Bleugh.

Hm. So, they got their start in the valley and then hired people all over the world? It reads like an ode to the valley absolutely till the last paragraph...

  1. This was written by Mint's founder, not TC
  2. This *is* a success story for TC
  3. There's nothing wrong with self-promotion :)

http://media.fuqua.duke.edu/Content/Groups/EES/2008/Patzer_3...

I'm not sure I would sell - $170m seems rather low. Furthermore, they have so much room for expansion, which only will be crippled by working under a tax software company. They might be trying to automagically do your taxes for you, but they don't have enough relevant information without having it to be the same hassle as using the software.

TechCrunch is currently down for some scheduled maintenance. In the meantime, please check out the other sites on our network of blogs for the latest in tech news:

The above is followed by a list of links. Been this way for at least a week now.

Can someone please tell me how they are able to access websites with scripts? What languages do they use to do that?

Say it ain't so! :)