Has Intuit Lost Their Minds?
What is it about some big companies that once they get successful, they immediately forget how they got there (innovating, meeting customer needs, moving quickly), and start engaging in all sorts of brand-suicidal tactics that usually involve lawyers.
This TechCrunch post shows correspondence from Intuit to Mint (and back) with Intuit lawyers basically calling Mint liars about their user growth rates. Intuit seems heavy handed, out-of-touch, overly litigious, and just plain silly. Mint’s response seems fresh, positive, earnest, and funny.
Hey Intuit, how about spending your time creating products people want to use and a brand people love instead of paying your lawyers to embarrass your company and sully your brand?
I was wondering why there isn’t anyone at Intuit who realized this is a horrible idea and understood how it would come off. I’m sure there are some folks, but they’re being ignored. And furthermore, I bet that the folks at Intuit who thought this note to Mint was a good idea now think that this public correspondence is a victory for them as they got Mint to admit that their definition of ‘user’ is pretty light. I have news, it’s not a victory. Mint comes off as honest and genuine. And intuit comes off as surprisingly unintuitive.
Join the discussion 7 Comments
Chelsea
February 20, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Chelsea from Quicken here…
We’d like to apologize to Mint.com if our letter came across as anything but a simple request to understand how they count their users. Businesses do this all the time and we appreciate their reply.
We are so pleased with the rapid growth of Quicken Online, we were just curious about how we’re doing. And now that we have a common yardstick by which to measure, we know we’re doing great based on an apples-to-apples comparison. Quicken Online now has more than 650,000 users and has been adding on average approximately 45,000 new users a week since Jan. 2009.
So now you know…customers are choosing Quicken Online more than ever before.
Thanks,
Chelsea, Quicken
Hillel
February 20, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Well Chelsea… I think it’s cool that you’re out here responding and apologizing. So that’s a good sign. And I’m glad for you that Quicken Online is growing. I’m always happy when software companies are doing well. :)
That said, I think that most reasonable people reading your letter to Mint would conclude it was not a “simple request to understand how they count their users”. If you’re intention was genuinely to ask them how they count their users, next time I would suggest just picking up the phone or sending a simple friendly e-mail and leaving the lawyers out of it.
Hillel
February 20, 2009 at 1:26 pm
One more thing, not to belabor this, but if you’d really like to show everyone that you get it, apologizing in the blogosphere with a form letter somehow comes across as less than genuine.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/quicken-online-cant-believe-mint-is-doing-so-well-sends-threatening-letter/comment-page-2/#comment-2631791
Chelsea
February 20, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Hi there Hillel,
I understand where you’re coming from. We responded as quickly as possible, and yes, came up with a succinct response that you saw repeated above. Behind our responses are people though.
Many across Intuit respond genuinely every day to customers and writers like you, on blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook Pages, and more. I urge you to keep up with Quicken-related conversations if you’d like. I’m @QuickenPRChels on Twitter. We can talk anytime.
– Chelsea, Quicken
– Chelsea, Quicken
Brian Jones
February 22, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Having tried both Quicken and Mint, Mint wins hands-down. The user interface is fresh and easy to use and the analysis is great.
It’s about time somebody tackled Intuit, the 800LB gorilla in the personal finances space. Maybe the folks at Quicken will innovate rather than just increasing fees on their stogy old cash cows of Quicken and Quickbooks.
BJ
Craig Erickson
March 2, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I use both. Mint feels and acts like the future – an incredibly well done experience. Mints polish suggests that the people behind it care about the user and about providing clean, clear, and uncluttered visuals that communicate at a glance. I’m a fan.
I need to use QuickBooks for its depth of small business features, but wish its design was much tighter and streamlined.
-C
allan branch
March 2, 2009 at 8:10 pm
This article is along the same lines as my blog post a few weeks back. They just don’t get “it”.
http://b.lesseverything.com/2009/2/9/Great-marketing-is-about-patience-and-creativity