Let’s say you have an idea for a startup. How do you begin the process of finding cofounders and employees, creating a corporation, handing investors, growing the company, etc.? There are lots of details about building a startyp that are usually a mystery to the newly initiated founder. Usually you have to learn this stuff on the job, making mistakes along the way.

But not anymore. Last night I saw a 45 minute presentation by Mint CEO Aaron Patzer at a startup competition event called Juice Pitcher on the Microsoft campus. The event, which is put on by TheFunded and Vator.tv, put a handful of new startups on stage to show their stuff and compete for a top prize. Between pitches, Patzer took the stage and told the story of Mint, in detail. His company just sold for $170 million to Intuit.

Patzer takes the audience (and now you) from the beginning of Mint, and gives some incredibly useful device. He talks about the early days of Mint, where he lived on $30,000/yr and hired engineers at just a little more salary by offering them significant equity. He also says that, as a rule of thumb, every engineer in a pre-revenue startup adds $500,000 in valuation. Every business guy lowers the valuation by $250,000, he half jokingly quipped. In its earliest days, Mint was burning $150,000/year, he says, for 2 founders and 1 engineer/contractor.

Patzer also spoke about financial modeling, keeping costs low throughout the life cycle of the company, and Mint’s revenue model. He also gives suggested goals and milestones for each successive funding round. One interesting fact – today Mint, which is free, generates $30/year/user from various offers and value added services.

There are lots of additional details, including, for example, various hidden costs in financings (mostly legal).

If you are a startup founder, you’ll want to bookmark this and refer back to it. It’s absolute gold.

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A buddy pinged me tonight with the video below. It’s of an iPhone called Puff! that basically allows you to blow into the iPhone microphone or push your finger up the screen in order to get a Japanese girl’s skirt to blow up into the air, revealing her underwear. I’m watching this video, and thinking of my headline for this story. Here’s what I had: Well, Here’s An App You’ll Never See In The App Store.

The only problem? This app is in the App Store. As in it it right now, live. In the U.S. too! What the hell, Apple?

Let me just get this straight: A hilarious satirical app made by the Someecards guys cannot get approved because it contains cards that, for example, mock Hitler. But an upskirt app is just fine? That is so ridiculous.

Now, to be clear, this Puff! app contains no nudity, but I think we all know what this type of app is implying, and who this type of app specifically appeals to (hint: some may be found in this app). This app is rated 17+ for “frequent/intense sexual content or nudity” but Someecards app was also submitted with the same rating, but just for satire (so basically, language), and it was rejected.

Apple is either extremely hypocritical, asleep at the wheel again (remember Baby Shaker?), or both.

Look, I’m all for all kinds of apps getting into the App Store, including porn apps as long as they’re correctly rated. What I’m not for is Apple’s totally uneven rules for what apps get in and what don’t. And today has brought two perfect examples of that.

I still think it’s time to tear down the App Store wall. I just wonder how long it will take Apple to realize that they have to because the approval situation is untenable and ridiculous? Maybe when they hit a million apps in the App Store? 2 million? Until then we’ll just have to deal with this BS, I guess.

[thanks Sean]

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