Customer Reviews

Inside Intuit: How the Makers of Quicken Beat Microsoft and Revolutionized an Entire Industry

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

How many companies have survived direct battles with Microsoft? Not very many. How many lived to win over direct battles with Microsoft? Even fewer. Intuit is in that elite company. That experience alone would make the book worth considering.

The authors have done an outstanding job of building on that potentially fascinating subject matter by successfully capturing the key elements of how Intuit has continued to succeed as a business model innovator through four CEOs. I was especially pleased to see that the book captures the values that led to this innovation, the organizational and process methods used to stimulate and pursue the innovation, and the motivations of the key innovators.

In addition, the book moves down into the organization to capture the thoughts and emotions of many of the Intuit employees as it moved from its P&G style focus on customer needs to a broad-based expansion through acquisitions to a GE-style disciplined approach to achieve performance in key areas.

In fact, this book was so fine that I had to ask myself what was missing before I could spot any flaws. The only area where the book is a little light is in describing the details of how Intuit's software development changed over time, and what the lessons were. Now, don't mistake my point. There's plenty on that subject (especially when Intuit was a start-up), but there could have been more . . . if this book were to become a case history source on software engineering.

But no book can be everything to everyone, and currently there are few books that explain continuing business model innovation through generations of senior management. So Inside Intuit becomes a must read for those who want to master this critical leadership and management task.

By the way, Inside Intuit is a very apt title. The authors seem to have had unrestrained access to company insiders. The book comes away much richer as a result than any other Silicon Valley saga that I can remember reading. Most of those books focus on one to three people in the company, and leave it at that.

As I finished the book, I wondered what improvements in its continuing business model innovation Intuit will make next. I can hardly wait to find out!

Interesting corporate biography on Intuit, which arguably is the most successful consumer software company in the world.
The authors focus on Intuit's core values
1. Integrity
2. Do right by the customers
3. It's the people

It provides entertaining examples where the company did right by customers and did right by its employees. In particular, the authors focus on Intuit's strong customer oriented culture and its extensive user testing to make their software easy to use.
The Intuit story is told chronologically covering Intuit's conception to the present . Probably since the authors have a marketing background, there is a lot of coverage on marketing roll-outs, pricing strategies, and branding. I would have liked to read more on their engineering strategies. This really is limited to stories of engineers pulling all-nighters and a focus on usability testing. Not much insight is given on how they actually develop award winning software. There is interesting management insight to current CEO Bennett, and how he brought more discipline and metric focus to the organization. The authors had access to all of the key Intuit players , and Intuit's vision, mission and operating values statement makes for an insightful read in the appendix.

Entrepenuers will enjoy this book, especially the predominant theme: Intuit won its market niche by paying attention to the customer -- not just what the customer *says*, but what the customer *does*. Even though Intuit was the 47th entry into the personal finance market, it won the market by carefully attending to the customer's needs.

Even Intuit's missteps were instructive. Customers repeatedly proclaimed that if there were retirement planning software out there, they would use it, but when Intuit provided it, it found that customers, as they do with the more legal aspects of estate planning like wills and trusts, avoid confronting the inevitable.

While not written as dramatically as technology thrillers like Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine,"or Po Bronson's works, "Inside Intuit" benefits from the authors' "inside" experience, and they take the reader to both sides of sometimes contentious inside issues, like the Microsoft/Intuit merger that almost occurred in the mid-1990s, or the lack of success of a CEO in the late 1990s.

I positively recommend this book, not only as an entertaining read, but more importantly, as an instructive one. Former Dotcommers would do well to read why enthusiasm and hard work were not the only requirements for success -- knowing what your customer *needs," and satisfying those needs, is vital, too.

When Inside Intuit arrived in the mail, along with four other books I'd ordered, it was the first one I picked up to browse. Seven hours later, I finished the book! Reliving the experiences, placing myself in the events (I worked for Intuit for over fourteen years - by way of ChipSoft), was an overwhelming experience for me.

I remember the first time I met Scott Cook. Leo Redmond, at the time managing the Intuit Supplies Group, and I had just finished lunch in Palo Alto. As we drove back to his office, we talked about Quicken and how it was the second product I bought for my first computer in early 1989 (the first was Sim City). Leo said that he'd like me to tell Scott about it. Scott was excited - "You have five years of Quicken data?" He told me to install the latest Quicken beta as soon as I got home - he wanted to know how it handled large data files (mine was over two megabytes at the time). That was nearly ten years ago.

What an experience! Having been hired by Evy Chipman in late 1988 and working closely with every top-echelon executive on the ChipSoft side (Gaylord, Harris, Gleicher, Lane), I never thought I'd be so intimidated - stammering - as I chatted briefly with Scott in his office.

Reading Inside Intuit brings you into Scott's (and many others) office - you are in the presence of greatness when you read this book.

Inside Intuit is an accurate story of the evolution
of Intuit. From the time that Scott Cook came up
with the vision that Quicken would change the way
people did their finances through today, Inside
Intuit captures the essential details of how Intuit
went from a small Silicon Valley start-up and grew
into a multi-billion dollar company. As a former
Intuit employee for nine years, it was exciting to
relive the experience. Taylor and Schroeder did a
wonderful job putting the pieces together to make
Inside Intuit a great read.

"Inside Intuit: How the Makers of Quicken Beat Microsoft and Revolutionized an Entire Industry" is a digestible overview of an innovative company. One that has achieved market-leading success across multiple decades.

Taylor's narrative, while certainly not dry, lacks depth, and is likely to disappoint any reader looking for more than a broad overview of Intuit's rise to market leadership. The narrative also lacks balance. The index of the book makes clear how much of the narrative's research centered around interviews with the firm's senior leaders, both past and present. But missing from this book is a counterpoint to these interviews with Cook, Dunn, Campbell, Harris, Prouxl, and others- interviews with those on the lower ranks. Missing is the view back up, the viewpoint that puts the senior leaders' words into context. Were things always seen the same way as Intuit's leaders thought they were?

As a result of the book's singular, top-down vantage point, management initiatives are often described in rosy, abstract terms, and are coupled with little to no first-hand sources that provide the reader with how such changes were perceived realtime amongst everyone at the company.

Also missing from this book is any analysis of the financial issues and questions Intuit and its managers faced during its rise to prominence. Relationships with VC funders, deciding how much equity to give key, early hires, the decision of how to finance acquisitions as the company got larger, the financial underpinnings behind decisions to divest of lagging lines of business. The authors provide no insight on these matters that could not be had with a quick perusal of public documents and periodicals.

Perhaps this was a conscious decision, made out of fear that too much focus on the financials would bog down the narrative and rob it of its thrust. A business writer, though, needs to be able to discuss the financial side of matters without losing their readers. Most readers of this book are likely not looking for a thriller. Someone who reads the history of a business is looking for insight into what makes great companies tick, and also how they confront all the financial and legal constraints standing in their way, and in the process make their vision a reality. In "Inside Intuit", Taylor gives the reader extensive insight into Intuit's values and corporate culture in a light, entertaining way; but ultimately, this book leaves the reader wishing for more meat with regards to financial and business hurdles Intuit overcame throughout its history

I did enjoy reading this book and didn't know how tumultuous a start the company had. The middle starts to drag and I had to read it in small bites to get through it. It is like a transcribed documentary film instead of a well-told story. But the evolution from pure startup to billion-dollar company is a great case study for anyone.

This is a story about Intuit's history and its fight for survival. Warren Buffett coined a term called a moat to describe a company's competitive advantage over its competitors. This book is a great example of a company with a wide moat. Intuit had such loyal customers that Microsoft could not even destroy it even though Microsoft had more resources. Customers who were using Quicken would not switch to Microsoft Money. This is an example of customers' switching cost. It did not matter how much better or cheaper Microsoft Money was compared to Quicken, customers were not interested in switching. This book is just a fabulous story of a small company fighting against a giant.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

This book has a compelling start and middle but tails off towards the end. I will read it again soon though....I liked it.

Being an Intuit supporter for 15 years as well as an alpha tester of Quickbooks for windows I admit with no hesitation I am biased when it comes to Intuit related things. This book exceeded my already high expectations as a great inside view of the start, sputtering and surge of Intuit. The Microsoft connections were very interesting to read as well. Being a business owner it showed how culture dedicated to providing excellence to the customer can pay off as well even though it looks like it might cost alot to perform. It was an easy read and I strongly recommend it....