Everyone knows that MINT has a great product, but few know the strategic moves. To the point, what did it take to get there? How much did it cost to get started? When and how was it smart to raise money such that both the founder and the investors walked away happy? Aaron opened up MINT.com's books - and his old slide decks - tonight to share some shockingly frank details with the startups in attendance. Even more generously, he was happy to have his lessons be blogged for a more public audience:

The straight shot: Why should you raise money, and how much?

• Step 1: When you're ready with an Idea: Raise $100K from friends and family, and use it to build a prototype.
• Step 2: Once the prototype is done: Raise < $1M in seed capital, and get into market with an alpha launch.
• Step 3: After that initial launch has traction: Raise $5-10M, and use it to prove/scale the model.

Garage Phase: What are the costs and milestones?

• Founders: $30K/year living expenses
• Engineering 1st hires: $30-50K/year
• Office: $400/cube/month
• Tech: $10K
• Legal: Deferred payments for 0.50 - 0.75% of company

Roughly, 2 founders + 1 engineer/contractor = $150K/year burn. This gives you 6 - 9 months of runway before you need to raise a seed round.

In order to get that seed round, you'll need to understand your competition, and come up with projections. Everyone knows this will change...but you need to show your thinking around it anyway. As an example, MINT originally projected $30/user/year for lead-gen and CPA. (Aaron noted that the company is pretty close to this today. But this is the exception rather than the rule.) Know how the business model works. People do X behavior and it turns into $Y income, add up those $Ys and it's a $Z business. If you can walk people through these assumptions convincingly, you'll get that seed round.

Seed Round: What are the next costs and milestones?

• Salaries: $50 - 90K/year ($450K/year for 5 people)
• Overhead: +20% ($100K/year)
• Legal: $25K + $2K/month ($50K/year)

MINT.com raised $750K in its seed round to cover these expenses for 12 months, which is about how much time you'll need to develop into the Series A stage. [UPDATE: when the funding market is moving slowly, you need more time, and therefore more seed $. The 2009 market is moving more slowly than is the market in which MINT raised its Series A.]

What model do you build next in order to raise the Series A? Testing and learning from your seed model, show user growth, retention, COGS, revenue per sale/user, and profit. The accumulated loss is how much you need to raise, and a well-thought-out funding strategy combined with an understanding of (hopefully good) business economics is what will speed the Series A process along.

Series A: Now what?

• Salaries + Overhead: $200K/year/person
• COGS: Varies, but even one-time expenses magically add up to $150K/month
• Legal: $10-50K/month

Total burn for a 30-person team: $6M/year. Naturally you don't start out burning this much, as it takes time to grow the team. However the numbers work out, your goals should be the same: Get profitable within 2 years. Raise the capital you need to do this without much distraction.

If you want to raise more after this in order to grow more aggressively or extend otherwise, your success in achieving those first two goals will speak for itself.

The responses (and generous retweets!) were terrific, so I wanted to share them here - many folks wanted to see the list. And isn't it flattering to know when people characterize your hard work as interesting? Apologies in advance for cut-and-paste rather than an organized list, but I couldn't resist. The links all worked and it was a nice way to credit everyone.

Many thanks to all that suggested ideas and/or retweeted:

1. 
   heathr20x200, neighborgoods chick-started start ups
2. 
   RossAdina Levin is my co-founder [Socialtext]
3. 
   bpm140Micki Krimmel's Neighborgoods and Cyan Banister's nudie thing.
4. 
   
   0 more result since you started searching. Refresh to see them.
   
   tismoi@christine Check out @astianyc; contact Springboard Enterprises; @collectivee; @astiasf - they should all have info on women led cos!22 minutes ago from web
5. 
   gregoryleroy@christine RT: "woman-founded startups" Very cool. Thanks for posting that!
   
6. 
   StructuralInt@christine It's my own startup, so I'm biased: http://structuralintegrator... I write software for engineers to share data between apps.
7. 
   MaryTreselerRT @ericries: RT @christine putting tgthr a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply w/ any that U think R interesting!
8. 
   brantcooper@christine I'm working w/ San Diego-based social commerce startup headed by women. Contact me if you'd like details.
9. 
   Eric_ModCloth@christine ModCloth!
10. 
    crcarletonRT @ataussig: @christine Boston Power is one that comes to mind in energy. ME: Christine, let me know if you need info on Boston-Power?
11. 
    annimaniac@christine Wordnik and Modcloth are two amazing female-founded startups
12. 
    geekstack@christine Don't know of any women-founded startups but I'd love a copy of the list to feature in the GeekStack game
13. 
    michaelanschel@christine Check out @NicaGuide a woman owned startup based in MN that does guided eco tours to Nicaragua www.tourstonicaragua.com
14. 
    tara_kelly@christine women-founded startups -> that's me. Tara Kelly, Passpack.com online password manager. Based in Italy (coming to SF next month)
15. 
    marcuthay@christine Take a look at @annavikky she is fight poverty with @2aidorg
16. 
    WonderEventsRT @christine putting together list of women-founded startups for someone-please reply with any that you think are interesting!
17. 
    apsinkus@christine 3 women-founded Boston companies I follow: Communispace (@CommunispaceCEO), RunMyErrand (@labusque), Daily Grommet (@julespieri)
18. 
    apsinkusRT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply with any that you think are interesting!
19. 
    williampietriRT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply with any that you think are interesting!
20. 
    bkalex@ericries @christine I'd say @jessicamah has a great thing going with indinero! Check them out :)
21. 
    Kaltura@sethkenvin Thanks, Seth! Michal definitely rocks. @christine Let us know if you'd like to connect with Michal directly. http://bit.ly/L8Eys
22. 
    ideasprojectRT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups for someone...pls reply with any you think are interesting!
23. 
    GreenbizStartupMe, though - for now- we're still preping 2start RT @ericries @christine putting together a list of women-founded #startups. pls reply!
24. 
    ventilla@christine Ohai by Susan Wu, Whatever Niniane Wang is working on, and Parrotview by Elizabeth Yin. Look forward to the list.
25. 
    ericriesRT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply with any that you think are interesting!
26. 
    hatchmyhouse@christine http://bit.ly/dudqu :)
27. 
    thinkmaya@christine My startup Memetales, was founded by me. We are in closed beta
28. 
    merigruber@women2 For @christine Here's a few Aspera Software, Mobissimo,: Kachingle, Integrated Archive Systems, Blurb, Offerpal Media
29. 
    shaheroseOH: when they say you can't, you just do it! Msft pearls of wisdom event with @Christine @women2 + more http://yfrog.com/abjakj
30. 
    anarsimpson@christine Samasource.org CEO is one that should be on your list @leila_c
31. 
    Vosmek#Astia clients respond to @christine who is putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups.
32. 
    Vosmek@christine I have such a long list... but let's start with SimOps http://www.wildpockets.com/about 20 hours ago from TweetDeck
33. 
    herstartup@christine in response 2 your rqst. my company www.HerStartup.com . pleased to meet you.
34. 
    herstartupRT @women2 @christine putting 2gether a short/diverse list of women-founded startups. plz reply w/any u think are interesting!
35. 
    women2RT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply with any that you think are interesting!
36. 
    jbposell@christine MyShape
       
    
37. 
    manukumar@christine In re: women founded startups, 2 more for your list: @wildpockets @backboard
38. 
    ataussig@christine Boston Power is one that comes to mind in energy.
39. 
    aptuscollab@christine @batchblue by @pmohara, @mriggen. Epivax by Annie de Groot.
40. 
    shaherose@christine i do! happy to help. when do you need this? we are working on one for @women2 anyway!
41. 
    alexismichelle@christine ---> RT @toddcronin: @alexismichelle I believe foodzie has a female founder
42. 
    sethkenvin@christine Kaltura (Michal Tsur 25% of a pretty egalitarian founding team & she's especially impressive)
43. 
    alexismichelleRT @christine: putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups for someone...please reply w/ny that u think are interesting!
44. 
    LoganFrederick@christine Check out Elizabeth Lessner from Columbus Ohio. Might not count as "startup" with four/five restaurants, but great entrepreneur
45. 
    launchboxdig@christine KeenGuides (http://www.keenguides.com) has two female founders.
46. 
    kevinmarks@christine @oneforty by @pistachio, @sixapart by @dollarshort, @dabble by @maryhodder, @neighborgoods by @mickipedia, @hunch by @caterina
47. 
    agoldfisher@christine women founded startups of interest: Moxsie.com and Mobissimo Travel. If I give it some thot, I can come up w/ more
48. 
    zachcoelius@christine susan co-founded Triggit with me.
49. 
    joshpaul@christine Revolution Foods (http://revfoods.com/)
50. 
    AvramC@christine ZipCar, Robin Chase, a very important company that could eventually be a big part of the US transportation infrastructure
51. 
    mikesimonsenRT @christine: putting together a list of women-founded startups...please reply with any you think are interesting! [want to see the list]

Stock option comparables are hard to come by, so I thought I should post what I dug up for our CEO. Here's the best quick and dirty breakdown that I was able to find, courtesy of Venture Hacks - the ranges are from two years ago, but they still seem about right given what I see in the range of cap tables hitting my desk.

"To allocate the option pool from the hiring plan, use these current ranges for option grants in Silicon Valley:

Title Range (%)

• CEO 5 - 10
• COO 2 - 5
• VP 1 - 2
• Independent Board Member 1
• Director 0.4 - 1.25
• Lead Engineer 0.5 - 1
• 5+ years experience Engineer 0.33 - 0.66
• Manager or Junior Engineer 0.2 - 0.33

"These are rough ranges – not bell curves – for new hires once a company has raised its Series A. Option grants go down as the company gets closer to its Series B, starts making money, and otherwise reduces risk.

"The top end of these ranges are for proven elite contributors. Most option grants are near the bottom of the ranges. Many factors affect option allocations including the quality of the existing team, the size of the opportunity, and the experience of the new hire."

If you'd like to get more precise information on total compensation (both cash and equity, by specific title), you can get very robust data from the Radford technical job survey. Survey data is free in exchange for participating in the survey, so you can't beat the cost if you're on a tight budget. If I remember correctly from my own founder days, their 'small company' compensation ranges were appropriate for 25+ employees but a little off-market for a seed company. So if you get hold of a Radford survey, you may want to swing some comp from the cash to the equity side if your startup is still seed-stage.

If anyone else has good comparables to share, please do post them in the comments.

Yes, it's true - for the first time, First Round Capital Office Hours will actually be held in our offices. Our San Francisco doors are open and entrepreneurs are welcome to drop on by for a few minutes of conversation. The entire First Round Capital investment team will participate, and Josh, Howard, Chris, Rob, Kent, and I will all be available for micro-meetings.

The details:

Thursday, June 11, 2009
12:00 - 2:00 PM

First Round Capital
217 Second Street, Fifth Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105

Walk-ins are welcome. That said, we'd like to load balance as is possible - so if Office Hours is a definite on your calendar, please do visit our sign-up sheet to let us know you're coming. Questions? E-mail us here.

•    Launching Your Own Startup
•    Women and Open Source
•    Breaking Through the Digital Ceiling
•    Tech Marketing in a Recession
•    Social Networks and Diversity Barriers
•    ROI of Social Networking

Panelists will include Joan Blades of MoveOn and Moms Rising, Allison Fine of Personal Democracy Forum, Shireen Mitchell of Digital Sistas, Amy Muller of Get Satisfaction, Lynne D Johnson of Fast Company, Charlene Li, Holly Ross of NTEN, Rashmi Sinha of SlideShare, and Lisa Stone of BlogHer.

For more information, visit womenwhotech.com, and feel free to drop by a live afterparty that evening if you're in Washington, DC, NYC, San Francisco, or London.