San Jose Mercury News, 1 February, 2004
Book Description
The Exclusive Story behind Intuit's Hard-Won Success
It's a modern-day David and Goliath story for the business world: a company dreamed up at a kitchen table, built on explosive PC growth, and forced to battle a giant in the race to revolutionize an industry. This is the story of Intuit, creator of renowned software products like Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax-the company that beat mighty Microsoft and changed the way 25 million people manage their finances.
Written by Intuit veteran Suzanne Taylor and seasoned business manager Kathy Schroeder-who were granted exclusive interviews with founder Scott Cook and other key figures- Inside Intuit tells this company's original and fascinating tale for the first time. The book vividly recounts each dramatic stage of Intuit's development: from initial conception to "bet the company" investments; from strokes of marketing genius to disastrous product launches; and from battles for survival to successive victories against arch-rival Microsoft-the company no one else could beat.
Evident throughout this account is the power of Intuit's relentless customer focus, which guided the company from tiny start-up to a 6,000-employee, $1.4 billion business. Instructive and inspiring, Inside Intuit chronicles an enduring company's extraordinary success against overwhelming odds.
"This important book doesn't take any shortcuts in analyzing the building blocks of success. Taylor and Schroeder have written a fascinating blow-by-blow account of the thousand and one decisions that have made Intuit what it is. Highly readable, thorough, and extremely well researched Inside Intuit is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand success in Silicon Valley."
-Emanuel Rosen, author, The Anatomy of Buzz
"Inside Intuit is more than the history of a start-up that grew to dominate a major software category. It is a blueprint of success for entrepreneurs and investors who want to build great businesses in difficult environments."
-Roger McNamee, cofounder, Silver Lake Partners and Integral Capital Partners
"Inside Intuit is a very entertaining book. Any entrepreneur at heart will enjoy and learn from the story of how Scott Cook and Tom Proulx faced so much adversity and came back from the brink of disaster to build a very successful, highly admired Silicon Valley company. Readers can learn many lessons from both Intuit's successes and mistakes. In the end, good ideas, hard work, determination, and strong values really do pay off!"
-Dan Rudolph, Senior Associate Dean/Chief Operating Officer, Stanford Graduate School of Business
"I was thrilled to read the inside story of how Intuit was born and raised. I've always admired Intuit's strict attention to customer needs and feedback. Now I have a much better idea of how that culture was created."
-Stewart Alsop, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
"Inside Intuit offers readers the secrets behind that company's extraordinary success. The authors' insights into how Intuit trounced Microsoft alone are worth the price of the book!"
-Andrea Butter, coauthor, Piloting Palm: The Inside Story of Palm, Handspring and the Birth of the Billion Dollar Handheld Industry
