You probably know Mint, founded by Aaron Patzer in 2006.
Usually, startups are founded by a team. This guy founded it alone.
In 3 years, the company was acquired for $170 million.
Here‘s the path Aaron followed to achieve this result:
#1. Starting from 2006, Aaron focused on high-quality blogging.
Delivered finance tips, link roundups, videos and infographics.
#2. At the end of every blog post, he had a beta list email opt-in.
#3. Mint‘s articles went viral on Reddit and Digg.
#4. In 9 months, they built a list of over 20k emails before even launching their app.
#5. Asked their users to embed a badge saying “I want Mint” on their blogs and social media page in exchange for VIP access.
Result: got links on 600+ blogs while the users competed for access.
#6. Participated in startup events. Result: won TechCrunch40.
#7. Hired PR agency that secured Aaron about 550 interviews in a couple of years. For 1 week every two months, Aaron did a press tour.
