arpitrai asked: as a design guy, what is the skill-set you have (at least in relation to mint.com)?
I taught myself a lot outside of school with books, and practice. I started when I was 8, I was lucky and had parents who bought an IBM PC for home. I taught myself programming, and gained an early computer science foundation. I started building websites after that, and became slowly better at graphic design simply out of necessity. My partner in my design firm Novaurora, Miche Capone, was a classically trained artist, and really pushed my aesthetic sense forward once I made the web my full-time profession.
The skills I brought to Mint were the ability to turn problems into solutions, visually, and interactively. I expressed that through sketches, wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and ultimately HTML/CSS markup. I also carried with me a lot of the marketing and brand studying I did while I was running a creative agency, and doing this type of work for clients. It helped me create a great brand for the company. Writing is also a critical skill in design and crafting brand voice.
