Every company will say they are different, and that they actually care about their users and about building a good product. I'd definitely encourage anyone joining (or starting) a company to think about what the revenue model they are choosing means for the product and company long-term. This also explains a lot of the problems with the internet at large today-misaligned business models. It became a 'top-of-the-funnel' lead generation tool for other products. Many personal finance products are free, but make money by selling data or trying to upsell you on something else that you don't need (like, say, a credit card you don't need or a tax product that is overpriced ). Both those things happened with Mint.Īnother important pattern I've seen is that products, in the long-term, morph to take the form of their revenue model. One pattern I think we all see over and over again is when products get bought by a large company, they often lose their 'soul' (and the original team). Co-founder of a (yet to be launched) Mint competitor here.

Intuit mint founder