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Intuit

How does Intuit explore the business in America with unique acquisition strategies

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The financial calculations are complex and need to perform appropriately. We can do such calculations or statistics manually, but being a human, chances of mistakes are there. While in business, the financial part is as important as production or service. Thus, if some flaws occur in the economics of that business, it will affect the business anonymously. Therefore, businesses rely on financial software and lessen the errors in it. In the world, there are many companies that develop such software. U.S.A based firm Intuit Inc. is one of the Software Companies that especially develop and sell financial software to accountants, small businesses, and individuals too. It is set up by two entrepreneurs Scott Cook and T. Proulx in 1983. With affordable service and acquisition strategy founders grew the business in the region of America. As per the recent data, Intuit has collected over 95% revenue from just America. Obviously, it is not easy to dominant any sector, but Intuit proved that if strategies are right anything is possible.    

How does Intuit Make it possible?

It’s a very common fact, the success of any business depends on the base of foundation and strategies to explore the business. After setting Intuit in 1983, founders build Quicken, the first product of the company. That time, Microsoft also launched Microsoft Money to compete Quicken. But Intuit changed the game with its next move. Intuit offered a rebate coupon of 15 US dollars; one can redeem this code on Intuit’s software purchase. In fact, no software company had offered such coupons in history. Thus, Intuit attracted many retailers and it won the trust of retailers and marked its beginning as financial software providers.

However, Microsoft was in competition mode with Intuit since the firm launched Quicken. So in return, Intuit started QuickBooks, a web-based product and solution. As well, focus on its other product TurboTax. Thereafter, the company went public in 1993 as well, changed the strategies to become dominant in this sector.

Further exploration of Intuit with an Acquisition strategy

The company acquired San Diego based Software Company called Chipsoft that primarily was a developer of tax-preparation software. After that, the market capitalization of Intuit raised noticeably. It crossed the line of 2 Billion Us dollars. Around this time, Intuit invested in many other financial software firms including Excite, Lacerete, etc. Intuit jumped into an online bill payment service after becoming a partner with CheckFree. Moreover, Intuit continued this strategy to build a stronger network in America. Recently, in 2020, the firm showed interest to acquire Credit Karma.

Backstory of foundation

The story starts with the idea of two entrepreneurs Scott and Tom. Scott cook realized that personal computers are very powerful. Also, he knew the fact that paper-pen based accounting can be replaced using a computer-based algorithm. With this idea, he started searching for a programmer to convert this idea into reality and that’s how he met Tom Proulx. After that, in 1983 they set up Intuit as a small company in Palo Alto in California.

The person behind Intuit’s foundation- Scott David Cook

He is the founder of Intuit Inc as well, Scott is serving as director of the company since 1983. Also, he served as chairman of the firm for five years (1993-1998) and also served as a CEO (1983-1994). Apart from that, he is Protect & Gamble and eBay’s director.

Scott attended the University of Southern California to graduating in economics and mathematics. Furthermore, he pursued an MBA from Harvard Business School.

What services are offered by Intuit?

Basically, the company develops and sells financial software to businesses, accountants, and persons. This software includes tax-preparation software, accounting, and other financial software. TurboTax and QuickBooks are the two most popular products in the company. The first one deals with tax preparation and the second is suitable for accounting programs of small businesses.

Current products

Other than TurboTax and QuickBooks online, the company has enabled a web-based financial service called Mint.com. As well, ProConnect, EasyAcct, etc products are active to provide tax solutions. The firm also started Credit Karma to access credit scores and monitoring.

Awards and recognition

The subsidiaries of intuit known as Intuit Canada was listed as one of Alberta’s Top Employers in 2008. Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald announced this award. Recently, Intuit ranked at 11 numbers in the Fortune List of the Top 100 Companies to Work For in 2020.

Scott Cook : One of the Most Groundbreaking Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

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What can a bad boss lead its employees to? In the case of Scott Cook, his bad boss led him to think of starting his own business and establish a multi-billion empire for himself. Cook, an American billionaire businessman, is one of those people, who got their lives changed with a simple idea. The concept that people had never imagined of and thought as a non-profitable one, too. Not much people are aware of this nerd, who believed in his plan and gave a tough competition to multiple tech giants with his unusual product. But, who knows, are also aware of his management and leadership skills

Early Life

Cook was born and brought up in a suburb of L.A. He was a bright student at the school, and had programmed the school district’s one computer. After graduating from school, he got enrolled at the University of Southern California, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics and later, joined the Harvard Business School, from where he received an MBA degree.

Career

After completing his education, Cook, took a job at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he earned much experience in product development and consumer marketing. He also met his future wife Signe Ostby while working at P&G. After leaving the job and marrying Ostby, he with Ostby moved to Menlo Park, California, where he started working at Bain & Company as a consultant in the strategic consulting department.

Founding Intuit

On a fine day, in the early 80s, Cook was sitting in the kitchen of their silicon valley house, with his wife. His wife had complaints about the management and payment of the bills. Cook was prompted by the matter and thought that there might be some more people who find managing the various household bills a bit difficult. He came with an idea to develop software that would help the people to manage and pay their bills. The idea was first of its kind as there were not many users of computers at that time, especially women who stayed at home. Hence, it became difficult for him to raise funding for this idea.

Cook’s interaction with the programming languages had happened last when he was in high school, so he contacted his friend from the Stanford University, Tom Proulx, to help him out with the development process of the software.

In 1983, the two founded Intuit Inc. and launched the first software of their company, the first version of Quicken, written in Microsoft’s BASIC programming language. The software was designed to work on the IBM PC and UCSD Pascal for the Apple II. The product was a success and soon found a competitor. Microsoft also produced a similar software named Microsoft Money, but Cook had its move and provided its customers a US$15 rebate coupon, redeemable on software purchased in their stores. At the same time, the company got engaged with John Doerr, to expand its product lineup.

In 1993, the company was made public for ICO, and it made a major acquisition, i.e., of Chipsoft (a tax-preparation software company based in San Diego). In 1994, the market capitalization of the company reached US$2 billion, and Microsoft made a buyout offer for the company. But, due to some legal issues, the buyout failed, and Microsoft continued its competition with Intuit. During this time, the company started producing web-based products and invested in some really good projects.

The annual revenue of the company estimated by May 2018, was US$5 billion and its market capitalization was about US$50 billion.

Cook remained the chairman of Intuit from February 1993 to July 1998 and served as the president and the CEO of the company, from April 1983 to April 1994.

Personal Life

Cook and his wife Ostby are the parents of three children and live in Woodside, California. In 2002, the couple established the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Business. In 2005, he was placed at number 320, in the Forbes 400, and his estimated worth was of $1.1 billion. Cook is one of the directors of eBay and Procter & Gamble and serves on the dean’s advisory board of the Harvard Business School. He is also one of the investors in eBay, Amazon, and Snapchat and has been a mentor to entrepreneurs like Larry Page.