It was only three years ago that Aaron Patzer started Mint.com, a free web-based financial planning site. In his mid 20s, he encountered much skepticism. But, this was no problem for Aaron. He realized he could make a difference.

And he certainly did. This week, he sold Mint.com for a cool $170 million to Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU).

Actually, over the past few years, I've been able to have calls as well as meet with Aaron. He gave strong demos and was always passionate about his company (he would even demo his personal account, showing that he would "eat his own dog food"). Mint.com seemed like a mission for him.

I recently had a chance to talk to the CEO and founder of Mint.com, Aaron Patzer. As always, he was upbeat. Then again, his website -- which provides free financial planning services -- has continued to grow at a rapid clip (gaining 100,000 new registered users per month). Also, Mint.com raised $14 million in venture capital.

Well, Patzer has another reason to be excited: he's selling Mint.com for a cool $170 million to rival Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU).

Since launching in September 2007, Mint.com has become a dominant player in the online personal finance space. In fact, the company has raised $14 million in venture capital from DAG Ventures, The Founder's Fund, Benchmark Capital, Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, and Sherpalo. It was preemptive round; that is, Mint.com didn't seek out the money. Nice, huh?

So, to get the latest, I had a chance to talk to Mint.com's founder and CEO, Aaron Patzer. He said that the site is attracting 100,000 new registered users per month. In all, the user base is over 1.4 million (even President Obama's CTO, Aneesh Chopra, is an avid member). What's more, Mint.com is currently tracking over $175 billion in transactions and $47 billion in assets.

The personal finance software space is certainly large and lucrative -- especially as seen with Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU)'s Quicken. Yet, the software is not necessarily easy and has tons of features that are likely to be overwhelming.

Well, Mint.com sees this as an opportunity and operates a fairly simple web-based personal finance site that uses some cool Web 2.0 features. In fact, the company has announced that it has raised $12 million in venture capital and the lead investor is Benchmark Capital, which is a tier-1 firm.

On several occasions, I've talked to Mint.com's CEO and founder, Aaron Patzer. He has provided me with a demo of the system -- and it's super easy to use (funny enough, he even gave me a demo of his personal account).

Something else: Mint.com has found ways to analyze your finances to provide cost-savings, such as with credit cards and so on. Actually, in light of the slowing economy, this is definitely attractive. After all, since the site's launch in September 2007, there are now more than 160,000 users. What's more, Mint.com has identified more than $100 million in potential savings.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.