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