When was intuit founded

Quicken triumphed over Microsoft Money but the fight had put Intuit on Microsoft's radar and it would not be the last time the company would hear from Microsoft. The second challenge was in , when Intuit went public and used the IPO proceeds to acquire ChipSoft, a tax-preparation software company.

The third challenge was when Scott concluded it was time to find a new CEO and John helped develop a list of candidates. John believed Bill was a natural candidate for the job and after a lengthy interview process so did Scott. Some had issues inside where the bureaucracy got in the way.

Things I believed in, things our people believed in. Then they got a few they can slough off to some company to buy and then a bunch of zeroes. In , Intuit changed its approach by changing the role of its managers. Instead of deciding what products to build by fiat, managers facilitate teams so that they can operate many inexpensive experiments with real customers to figure out which product lines to build upon and which to leave behind at the early stage.

Real customers making real decisions that they think are for real to do real stuff. This naturally puts a check on managerial hubris. If everyone at the organization knows that the business shapes itself based on customer behavior and not on the edicts of people with pointy hairstyles, a more empirical culture flows from that.

The outcome of the experiment makes the decision, not the manager. The Consumer Tax segment includes TurboTax income tax preparation products and services for consumers and small businesses.

The Financial Services segment consists primarily of outsourced online financial management solutions for banks and credit unions provided by its Intuit Financial Services business.

The Other Businesses segment includes Quicken personal finance products and services, Mint. Intuit was founded by Scott D. Proulx in and is headquartered in Mountain View, CA.

On his quest to find a programmer he ended up running into Tom Proulx at Stanford. The two started Intuit, which initially operated out of a modest room on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Intuit struggled financially until they found their formula for success, which revolved around direct marketing campaigns, favorable reviews in industry and consumer magazines and word of mouth from satisfied customers.

Although by Quicken became a best-seller in its market, the company was not a major success until the advent of Windows 3. By the company was struggling to stay afloat. Three employees left when Cook and Proulx became unable to pay salaries.

The other four, still believing in their product, kept working for six months without any pay. Cook remained surprisingly upbeat and helped to buoy the Intuit team during their initial struggles.

Whenever Proulx's wife would come down into the basement to see how things were going, Cook would tell her that they could not be better. By Cook and Proulx were beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Importantly, the Apple version of Quicken was getting positive attention in the trade press, and sales were slowly picking up.

Recognizing the power of such trade articles to generate sales, they made a pivotal decision that turned the company around. Instead of selling the programs through banks, they would sell them directly to customers through advertisements. He emphasized the benefits of the program as opposed to its features, unlike most software ads of the time. The advertising campaign was a success, and from that point forward Intuit's fortunes improved.

Still, the company lacked a broad retail distribution channel and faced growing competition in the financial software market. In an effort to expand his advertising efforts and boost Quicken's exposure, Cook approached more than 30 venture capital firms during the mids. All of them turned him down, including one represented by his former Harvard roommate.

Nevertheless, Cook and Proulx persisted. Cook determined that word-of-mouth critiques of his program and customer loyalty would become the most valuable advertising tools at his disposal.

For that reason, he decided that customer service and input would take top priority throughout the entire company. Stories of Cook's obsession with customer service abound. Once, while visiting the office of a software association, Cook walked by a clerk entering data on one of his programs. He immediately stopped to interview her about the application and later incorporated one of her suggestions into a version of the program. When Cook preached customer service to his employees at a meeting in , he told them that he wanted Intuit's service to improve to the point where customers would become 'apostles' for Quicken by purchasing other Intuit products and telling their friends about Intuit's offerings.

By the late s Intuit was clearly on the fast track to success. In just a few years sales of Quicken exploded, and the program became one of the best-selling personal financial applications. Intuit suddenly had little problem securing more financing. Several well-known venture capital companies, including Sierra, Technology Venture Investors, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, were willing to back Intuit's efforts to expand its retail distribution.

Thus, during the late s and early s Quicken became one of the top-selling software applications in the world, surpassed only by industry staples like WordPerfect and Lotus Intuit broadened its scope in when it introduced QuickPay, a software program designed to help small businesses process their payroll.

Intuit followed that introduction in with QuickBooks, a full-featured small-business bookkeeping program that provided an easier and less-expensive alternative to traditional accounting software. Much of that success was attributable to the company's emphasis on customer satisfaction: one survey showed that 85 percent of all Quicken users had recommended the program to at least one other person.

Having established its dominance in the market for stand-alone personal and small-business financial software, Quicken started looking at the much bigger picture.