I pitch Mint to everyone from investors to engineers, young and old, and I do it pretty much the same way: Here's the problem in the market place, here's how we solve it, and here's how we make money.
Carefully calculate the potential size of your market to make sure you can grow. Before starting Mint, I knew that there were about 20 million people who had purchased 'Quicken' or 'Microsoft Money' over the years, and 80 million people using online banking in the U.S. alone.
If we were poor, we didn't know it 'cause I guess you don't miss what you never had. So, you know, we made do with whatever. We used to make our own toys, and we used to play with spinning tops and marbles. A pocket full of marbles, and you were rich - you didn't worry about no money.
I never really got paid for 'Tell It Like Is,' but I look back at it and say God knew what he was doing; he probably figured that if I had got money back in them days, I wouldn't be here now. That's okay. I'm here. And I'm still singing the song.
The NCAA makes so much money off of their kids, and they put ridiculous - absolutely ridiculous - restrictions on everything that they can do.
Social Security got passed because John D. Rockefeller was sick of having to take money out of his profits to pay for his workers' pension funds. Why do that, when you can just let the government take money from the workers?
My world was completely different to other boys my age. When I was six I was earning money, and by 10 I was paying more tax than the parents of other pupils. I feel a lot older than my years. Because I was working with adults, I had to mature a lot quicker.