How do you know your startup is striking fear into the competition? It’s simple - You get a hostile letter accusing you of making false statement regarding the number of your new users. This is exactly what has happened to financial software startup Mint.com.

Inuit, the owner of Quicken Online, has sent a letter to the CEO of Mint.com, requesting (rather aggressively) a definition of their use of the term “users” in their advertising claims that they gain “3000 new users daily”.

They say in their letter that

“While we do not wish to suggest that Mint.com is engaging in false advertising, the substantial difference in claimed user numbers over a short period time [from 600,000 to 800,000] is of some concern. As a result, we’re requesting that you provide us with the Substantiation and evidence that you rely upon to support the above reference claims. In particular, we would like an explanation regarding Mint.com’s use of the term ‘users’.”

So again I ask, how do you know you’re doing well? You have the competition scrambling. Mint responds to this letter the way you would expect them to. By being gracious, thanking them for their interest in Mint, and explaining that they view a user as anyone who as anyone who has

“signed up for Mint.com providing an email, zip code, & password, minus any users who have explicitly closed their account”

They have obviously chosen not to include anyone who has signed up but has not yet linked a bank account (I would be included in this group) - but that is understandable and rather common. On soLinkable I includeevery created account as a user, even those who haven’t activated their accounts.

Good for Mint. They clearly came out on top of this little scuffle. Quicken did more harm than good by calling them out. Instead of catching Mint, all they did was draw more attention to their success. While Quicken spokesman Scott Gulbransen attempted damage control afterward, claiming that their letter was a “simple request to understand how they count their users” and that “businesses do this all the time”, the damage was already done. They also tried to throw in their own user numbers, but again, too little, too late.

Here is the official Quicken Online letter sent to the CEO of Mint:

mintpdf1 - Free Legal Forms

And here is the Mint.com reply:

mintpdf2 - Free Legal Forms