Founding Faces

The Latest behind Minti

Industry News A dedicated group of enthusiastic team members make everything at Minti
run as smoothly as possible. Our management team and founders all play
an important role in bringing Minti to our growing community. You’ll find Minti Memo #1
Shortly after Minti launched in March 2006 there information on some of these devoted staff below.
was a flurry of other niche web 2.0 parenting sites
launched. Through our continued focus on perfecting Co-Founder of ineedhits and Minti amongst
the vibEngine technology, expanding it’s features, other companies, entrepreneur and investor
and nurturing the community, Minti has been able to Clay Cook claims he has “never had a real job”.
Starting ineedhits in his parents’ study in 1996
remain the premier parenting advice community and
at just 21, Clay and partner Rachel quickly
has a gained a great brand and image with visitors, established multi-million dolllar revenues and
members and competitors. outstanding profit margins - becoming Business
Review Weekly’s 5th fastest growing company in
Australia in the BRW Fast 100 of 2003.
Clay Cook
As CEO of Minti, Clay has been involved in all
areas of the business from its inception in mid 2005, including

what is minti?
strategy, fund raisings, tech development, the acquisition and subsequent sale
of a significant stake in digital marketing firm Market United, and of course the
day-to-day operations.

When not going hands-on at Minti, Clay is also responsible for Vibe Capital,
tech investment company and owner of the vibEngine technology that is the
backbone of Minti.. Winner of the 2004 WA Business News 40 Under 40 award
and countless other personal achievements, Clay is a driven and balanced
individual with an inexhaustible capacity for new ideas. Ask anyone with children and they will probably tell you that Not only is Minti completely free to join and use, but members also earn
being a parent is the most rewarding role of the many they Minti Moolah (Minti’s virtual currency) for contributing and/or completing
As Director and Co-CEO of internet advertising play in their life. Dig a little deeper and they’ll admit it’s quite surveys. They can then buy and send virtual gifts to their Minti friends or
and search marketing company ineedhits, Rachel often the most challenging. Many parents can feel powerless cash out their Minti Moolah for real dollars via PayPal.
helped build the company from a small startup
to a very successful medium-sized business, and cut-off from their life in times of distress and wish there
taking on key functions such as COO, CTO, Co- was somewhere to turn for support. It is said that the cream rises to the top on Minti. People more often than
CEO and Board Member. not, want to find the best quality advice on any specific topic that they
Welcome to Minti (www.minti.com), the parent to parent advice-opedia. are interested in, as fast as possible. Minti’s unique advice and member
M&A activity in the online parenting space: Resigning from ineedhits’ board in early 2005,
Rachel envisaged and conceived the “Bubama Minti is a thriving community of over 40,000 members that brings ranking algorithm achieves this by weighting members votes based on
Rachel Cook
Project” which was later to become known together real people, with real problems and real solutions. Whether the quality of their own contribution. In essence, the higher the quality of
MothersClick acquired by Lifetime Entertainment as Minti. Identifying the need for a web space where parents could exchange planning a baby, parents of newborns, parents with older children, or even your contribution to Minti, the more weight your vote counts on Minti. Not
Website: www.mothersclick.com ideas, get solid advice and support each other through the joyous highs and
grandparents with troublesome grandchildren, Minti opens up the lines only does this allow Minti to rank its advice by quality, but it also allows
Amount: Rumoured USD$10M occasional lows of parenting, Rachel set about building out the business plan,
When: Aug 2008 and putting in place the right founding team to make it a reality. of communication for support from others with valuable and practical Minti to rank its members and in turn creates a self governing community
Notes: Lifetime Entertainment is a joint Disney/Hearst experience. where any member can report any content (or member), which is instantly
At Minti, Rachel’s focus is on ensuring an unrivalled user experience for removed from the website and placed into a queue to be reviewed by
venture. MothersClick was the jewel in the
all community members, research within both the online and offline
ParentsClick group. parenting space, input at the Minti board level and gaining an ever-growing Using Minti, any member can ask the community a parenting question and highly ranked members.
understanding of social networking and open source applications to improve expect a surprising number of valuably relevant answers within the first
MayasMom acquired by BabyCenter the overall Minti experience. 24 hours. They can also search and read answers to over 10,000 previously The sense of community online at Minti has grown to the point that it
Website: www.mayasmom.com has spilled over into the real world. Many members organize what we call
asked questions, read from any of the 8,000 advice articles already written,
Amount: USD$7M
Matt Macfarlane is an experienced business write advice articles about their own experiences, and even join groups Virtual to Reality group meetings where their children can interact and play
When: Aug 2007
development and mergers & acquisitions manager based on their interest, children’s age, or geographical location. together, learning social skills while the parents get a much needed boost
Notes: BabyCenter is a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson and chartered accountant. Matt’s vast and varied
of social life and support.
& Johnson. Since the acquisition BabyCenter has experience extends from very small to very large
started to integrate the MayasMom community organisations as advisor and principal. Minti’s wealth of parenting information is
technology across it’s global BabyCenter websites. A former member on the board of directors at large not just isolated to its members. Anyone on Accessible and active 24 hours a day, Minti is a vibrant gathering place of
listed telecoms operators and currently sitting on current and soon-to-be parents and grandparents, all with a single goal in
the internet can access the vast majority of
the advisory boards of two Perth businesses, Matt’s
With these major online presences sold to large publicly listed its content, and as a result over 10,000 unique mind – to query, support and interact with people just like themselves who
M&A management transactions have occurred
corporations, Minti stands tall as the leading independent online internationally and on a large scale, including the visitors from around the world, looking for are familiar with the joyous world of raising children.
Matt Macfarlane
community for parents. Minti is proud to be an ongoing and US$8 billion merger of Equant and Global One. parenting advice, visit Minti on a daily basis.
growing community where parents can find the answer, advice and Read more @ minti.com
With Clay and Rachel, Matt co-founded Vibe Capital in
cooperative spirit they’ve been looking for.
mid 2005. As CFO of Vibe Capital, Matt was has been the lead in a number of
key areas including (but not limited to) raising AUD$2.7m start-up funding for
the development of the vibEngine application which now powers Gooruze, in this issue
Refurber and our very own Minti, as well as the lead in the acquisition and
subsequent sale of a significant stake in digital marketing firm Market United.
get in contact with other minti Matt’s personal goals are to work, and play, with people who help him to enjoy What is minti? minti and Mig33 The minti success
members @ www.minti.com life more. Balancing a healthy mix of the intellectual challenges of work and The founding faces behind minti Latest industry news minti member news
relationships with the physical activities of tennis and many other sports, Matt
strives to maintain a comfortably rounded existence.  
Minti “hearts” Mobile and Mig33m The Minti Success
Like Minti to a growing number of parents, the mobile When new mum Rachel Cook first saw a need for a parent-to-parent information source on the web, she looked to the success and
phone has become this century’s most indespensible usability of Wikipedia, VirtualTourist, and MySpace, and forged the business plan for Minti. With Clay Cook appointed as CEO and Matthew
resource. From the humble SMS to the eclectic mix of third Macfarlane as CFO, the three Co-Founders set about raising the initial capital and launched Minti to the world in March 2006. Minti is now
party applications for new generation handsets such as the well and truly running at full speed with steady member growth and an engaged rich community of mothers
iPhone, we all use our phones to do so much. from around the world.
 
That is why Minti has gone mobile in a big way! To ensure a large mobile presence in a changing landscape,
Today, Minti’s website attracts more than 10,000 new visitors each day, who directly benefit from the unique content generated by
Minti has developed a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) site and is now featured on the world’s leading
the community of 40,000 members. This phenomenal traffic is largely driven directly from the world’s largest search engine, with
mobile web community portal Mig33. Funded by venture capitalists and headquartered in Silicon Valley,
85% of hits coming from Google search results. Google has indexed approximately 378,000 pages of the Minti website; checking
California, Mig33 now has more than 18 million members worldwide.
for updates on over 88,000 of Minti’s pages every day on average. The remaining buzz for Minti is generated by 8,000 other
websites linking to Minti everyday.
The easy to load and resource-efficient Minti WAP site provides functionality from the main
www.mig33.com
site without the need for data-intensive downloading. Available via WAP are the essential features of random
In recognition of Minti’s outstanding growth and success, the site placed second only to Yahoo! Answers in the 2007 SEOmoz Web

“
Top 10 parenting advice articles with the ability to read.  
2.0 Awards, and again in 2008. SEOmoz created a shortlist of more than 300 of the hottest startups both new and old which were
then voted on by some of the web’s most respected bloggers, entrepreneurs and business people. Further cementing Minti’s
Minti co-founder Clay Cook says he is “very excited by the future of mobile,
and allowing parents to access high quality, relevant parenting advice away
from their desktop using any WAP enabled phone.” Clay added he was
“happy to have launched on Mig33, another Australian success story
“ reputation in the blogosphere, it recently placed 11th in the Technation list of most successful Australian Startups.

The power of a simple idea is vividly illustrated in Minti’s continued growth and expanding reach. Our international community
members are located throughout most of the English-speaking world and traffic to the site increases daily. All this expansion
and a dominant force in the social mobile space”. became possible because of Rachel Cook’s original vision that parenting was a shared community responsibility, and became
a reality by putting the right team in place to take Minti to the world. The magic of Minti can be found on the web by anyone
is
With a dedicated mobile site, Minti has given busy community members an ideal way to get fast and
d o es th around the world thanks to Google and the thousand’s of sites who link to us across the web.
convenient access to all the advice they need. What would we do without our phones these days, and what Wha ol mean?
t
would our members do without Minti? symb “Mint
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The Minti Member Story

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Mint Having real, everday people for members, Minti’s discussion answers that had been given so quickly. To allay any concerns about security, our
boards are always alive with stories of problems solved, social Minti member explained how the Administration keep a close eye on things, and
At Minti, we believe in the power of a simple gift. The bright to a pedal bike free from trainer wheels. networking vignettes and tales of how Minti has enriched people’s how other members look after each other.
ballon to celebrate a special day, a nifty gadget to say thanks Minti recently ran a popular competition lives. In our Minti Member Story section, we want to highlight just some
and all the wonderous pleasentries of exchanging gifts. That’s where every virtual Tike sent between of the most interesting of these stories. The following Minti story is from The social worker thought for a while and then said, “Yes, that’s all fine and well,
why we created Minti Moolah. Our Moolah reward system members gave those members the chance to win a member who showed a social worker the way of the future for support but it’s not like the members can meet for coffee and let their children interact and
operates throughout Minti and acts as the community’s own a real Tike. networks. play together and learn social skills…” At this, our Minti member opened up the
virtual currency. Virtual to Reality group on the site and showed her photo after photo and story
  To get the competition rolling, Minti sent a free virtual Tike gift Social workers will gladly tell you of the importance of parenting groups. They after story, of members meeting up for coffee and playtimes. She then showed her
With Minti Moolah, members of the community can buy and send virtual gifts to every member and gave them the rules of the competition - which claim the benefits of such groups lie in the support from other parent; the advice articles about staying safe on the site, meeting with other members in real
(or Moolah vouchers) to each other as a token of appreciation. Many community were essentially, the more Tikes you send and/or accept, the more chances valuable and practical experience and advice that can be learned from those life and how to go about such social interaction both on the site and off.
members use these gifts to give thanks for a great article, a sound piece of advice you have to win a real Tike. who’ve been there, as opposed to a text book or supposed expert. Such a social
or a supportive comment. worker was recently visiting a Minit member and espousing these virtues. Having vividly illustrated the magic of Minti already, there was suddenly a phone
  With virtual Tikes costing just a solitary Minti Moolah, the number of Tikes call for our Minti member. It was another member of Minti asking for some advice
To earn Minti Moolah, members refer friends to Minti, complete surveys and just being exchanged quickly exceeded the 20,000 mark - with a Tike being While listening to the social worker speak about what was needed, our member from the site for her situation because she didn’t have internet access at the time.
generally do the things they usually do on the site, like writing articles, voting, sent every 20 seconds. So popular was the contest for Minti, and for Live immediately recognised all the great benefits provided by Minti membership. Our member easily found the information in seconds. When the call was finished,
commenting and so on. When a friend referred by a member writes an article, Play Create themselves, that international community members from the Moving to her computer and going straight to Minti.com, our member gave the social worker asked where the phone call had originated from. The answer?
both the author and their referer get extra Moolah; and getting more in a hurry is United States and The United Kingdom, pleaded that the competition and the social worker a look at the magic of Minti first hand. The social worker was Over 1,000km away. The two members had met up with each other when on
especially easy with the ability to purchase Moolah through any PayPal account. prize from Australia-based Live Play Create be expanded internationally astounded that such a site existed and was completely free to join and use. What holiday in the caller’s city.
Once a member has earned at least 5000 Minti Moolah they can ‘cash out’ and - which it promptly was. Adding to this exposure, discussions sparked up is more, the site had almost 25,000 members from all over the planet who had
convert it to real currency (USD$10 per m$5000). all over the site with more than 350 comments regarding the product and written over 6000 parenting advice articles from their own personal experiences There are thousands of stories just like
the competition, creating content which was promptly indexed by search and research, with dozens more being added by parents every week. this one on the Minti boards. Stories of
The popularity of giving virtual gifts throughout engines, delivering ongoing web traffic for Live Play Create. how people’s parenting experience has
the community has provided sponsors with the The social worker was suddenly a buzz of eager questions; “What about personal been enriched by the safe, convenient
opportunity of international exposure for their goods The simple pleasures of giving and receiving gifts are support for parents?” “What if someone has a specific question they want to and friendly interaction with others in the
and services. A recent example of the power of Minti all part of the sense of belonging and community ask?” “How safe is it?” ““Is it accessible 24 hours a day?” same situation that Minti provides. With so
community endorsement was an unprecedented embraced by Minti members. The Tike competition many connections being made, problems
success for Live Play Create’s “Tike”. Tikes are a fantastic proves the power of community approval. For those Our member showed her a blog written from someone having a bad day and all being solved, advice being given, all for
way to teach children to ride a bicycle. The stylish with goods and services tailored especially for parents, the supportive comments it had so quickly received. Next stop, the Questions a completely free membership, it’s no
Tike cycle design teaches preschool children the art of the opportunity to build grass-roots endorsement and and Answers section with lots of specific questions, with advice articles linked wonder Minti is growing at an astonishing
balance and steering, empowering them with a transition outstanding word-of-mouth,is waiting to be grasped. to them by other members, as well as many valuable and intelligent, heart-felt rate and continues to bring joy and support
to the lives of parents around the world.