Five Things I Love About Intuit + Mailchimp

You know that feeling you get when two of your really good friends from different walks of life become good friends with each other? I got to know a guy named Brian when I started working at Sibson two decades ago, and we became so close that he stood at my wedding. Dan, a buddy from business school, was the friend who was always up for a game, a pint, or a good talk. At some point, Brian and Dan independently moved to Portland, and became friends. They’ve helped each other find jobs, they’ve navigated health crises, and they’ve kept each other honest about getting enough miles in on their bikes. And I’m so happy to see it.

In an admittedly nerdy way, that’s the feeling I have when I see Intuit and Mailchimp coming together. They are each incredible businesses and brands – disruptive yet elegant, fanatical about making people’s lives easier, and committed to an outstanding product experience. Just recently, Alex Hood (now Head of Product at Asana) told me on the Breakthrough Builders Podcast about how he learned the craft of Human-Centered Design over his 8 years as a product builder at Intuit, which was only the latest contribution to the lore chronicling the company and the philosophies of its iconic founder Scott Cook. For its part, Mailchimp has been quietly focused on profitable growth and building a healthy business – over the 20 years since its founding, the company has not taken a dime of outside funding, bootstrapping its way to nearly $1B in revenues and over 13 million users. There’s a lot of goodness in the products, people, and possibilities these companies boasted on their own, and even more promise now that they’re joining forces. Here are five things I love about the tie-up between Intuit and Mailchimp.

1. It’s a win for small businesses. First and foremost, these are two companies whose missions are oriented around helping small businesses and entrepreneurs succeed. Intuit’s mission is “Powering Prosperity Around the World,” and Mailchimp exists to “Empower the Underdog.” This is not a deal being done in the name of category consolidation. It’s one that fundamentally reshapes the breadth of the operating systems on which small businesses run. The small-business and self-employed customers that make up over half of Intuit’s $8B in revenue can now easily combine financial and marketing data to understand customers, plan campaigns, and drive demand. And both companies have publicly committed to remaining open platforms, which means that integrations between one platform and a competitor of another won’t disappear.

2. It demonstrates the power of Experience Data. For years, users of Intuit’s platforms across QuickBooks, TurboTax, and Mint have had at their disposal a tremendous system of record for financial and operational data. Entrepreneurs and business owners trust Intuit for the “what” of their business: What did we spend acquiring customers last year? What are our levels of working capital? What products sold well or less well? Now, with Mailchimp and its audience analytics, they’ll be able to harness the power of Experience Data on the Intuit platform to answer the all-important “why” questions: Why do prospective customers find our content relevant? Why do they perceive our brand the way they do? Why do they consider us for one product but not another? Experience Data from the Mailchimp platform will help business owners make more informed, more timely, and more empathetic product and marketing decisions that can improve the velocity, agility, and growth of their businesses.   

3. It celebrates the bravery of bootstrapping. One of the reasons I was attracted to Qualtrics was its history of focusing on sustained, profitable growth in its early years. The strategy of putting every dollar of revenue back into the business to fund growth – rather than taking outside investment to win market share and hyperdrive revenue at all costs – is one that creates sustainability, trust, and commitment. (Shopify and Atlassian followed the same kind of model.) But it’s hard, because it means you’re betting on a long-term vision that many people will not have the patience or the ability to see in the early years. Mailchimp co-founder and CEO Ben Chestnut felt that prospective venture investors were typically stuck in the past when they approached him in funding conversations. Even though an exit is not an objective, Mailchimp’s sale to Intuit 20 years after its founding signals the importance of making the right move at the right time – and of having the intestinal fortitude to stay relentlessly focused on your vision regardless of what those around you may believe.

4. Simple + Simple = Great Experience. The last thing business builders need is more complexity in the platforms they use to run their business. Too often, when companies merge, integration comes at the cost of friction. But I’m confident that will not be the case with Intuit + Mailchimp. The two companies have built platforms with intuitive user experiences, easy integregions, delightful interfaces, and any-device portability. The whimsical, approachable, fun design of the Mailchimp platform will only augment the intuitive, well-structured, robust platform that Intuit has built across its product portfolio. I would go so far as to say that, with the Mailchimp acquisition, Intuit now has the ability to set a completely new standard for a “best-in-class” business software-platform user experience that’s as simple as Google Workspace and as powerful as Salesforce.    

5. Intuit is doing right by Mailchimp employees. Obviously, an M&A event creates tumult in people’s lives, and the opportunities are not evenly distributed. And questions have been raised in this particular case, including by investor Ellen Pao, about whether the capital structure of Mailchimp was equitable enough to its base of 1,200 employees, most of whom will not get to participate meaningfully in the upside of the sale. But Intuit wants to invest in the Mailchimp team and keep it as intact as possible. As part of the deal, Intuit is carving out about $300 million in equity for Mailchimp’s talent, and after the deal closes, it will issue an additional $200 million in stock to Mailchimp employees. Perhaps more important for the long term, it brings Mailchimp into a family of companies whose purpose completely aligns with theirs – giving the choice to employees whether this next stage of the growth journey is the right move for them or not.  

* * * * * 

No deal is ever perfect, but I haven’t seen a deal that hits me with the “I wish I’d thought of that!” feeling in a long time. I’m a big fan of these two companies, cultures, and platforms coming together, and can’t wait to see what’s in store for the experience of small businesses and their customers as a result. Best of luck to both teams over the coming weeks and months.