Mintspeak: We've hired a bunch of great product folks and engineers, and all of them are Mint users, so we're typically "scratching our own itch".
What we really mean: Don't need no stinkin' market research.
Mintspeak: We're in an existing market where the pain is pretty acute and the problem domain well defined. Additionally, the incumbent competitors had basically neglected the market as unattractive.
What we really mean: We kicked ass.
Mintspeak: ...unlike most start-ups, we're dealing with people's financial information.
What we really mean: We run a serious business and you don't.
Mintspeak: ...we have a number of quality control and security processes that rival most financial institutions, and which would would be difficult to incorporate into an agile dev cycle.
What we really mean: Our secret sauce has nothing to do with the trend du jour.
Mintspeak: ...a big part of Mint's success was being in the personal finance space when the economy melted down.
What we really mean: We're good, but we're lucky too.