The data was automatically processed, thus eliminating much of the tedium of balancing a checkbook. Cook and Proulx started Intuit in Proulx's basement with a single product and seven employees. Cook originally planned to sell the software through bank branches, a strategy that soured when he realized that banks were poorly equipped to sell prepackaged software.
Moreover, because Intuit was just one of several companies trying to market a personal financial software program, Cook was unable to find a retail distributor that would take his unknown product. 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. Indeed, Cook and his associates believed that Intuit's future was in providing a means of electronically linking customers with banks, brokers, and other businesses, and in providing various electronic financial services to the public.
To that end, Intuit struck a deal with Visa that allowed Quicken users to download credit card statements directly onto their computers and into Quicken. Intuit scored again later that year when it bought out the National Payment Clearinghouse Inc.
Cook realized in that Intuit was evolving from an entrepreneurial startup company to an established corporation. The company had even gone public by that time on the OTC market and was rapidly adding employees and facilities in the wake of ongoing acquisitions and surging sales.
Early in Cook selected year-old William V. Campbell to serve in the newly created post of president and chief executive officer. Campbell, a former Apple executive, was skilled in building organizations. Plus, you can track your investments and manage utility payments. The rules — Give every dollar a job, Embrace your true expenses, Roll with the punches and Age your money — not only help you build a better budget but also help you gain control of your spending. Import transactions from your checking account and apply them to each budget category to get an accurate picture of your spending.
Keep a balanced budget by adjusting budget categories if you accidentally overspend or if you underbudgeted for a certain category. Detailed reports show you how your spending is progressing throughout the month and help you spot places that you can improve your spending.
You can try the app for free for the first 34 days. Personal Capital is a personal finance and wealth management app that allows you to manage your assets and investments along with your everyday spending accounts. While you can connect to your bank account to track spending and create a monthly budget, the app really shines in helping you track and optimize your investments.
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The app touts more than 11, billers, including larger banks and even smaller utility companies. Add your bills to the app and Prism automatically tracks your bills and sends due date reminders to help you prevent late payments. You can use the app itself to pay your bills by scheduling payments to be made the same day or several days in advance. Prism eliminates the need to login to multiple accounts paying bills.
Many other personal finance apps are for individual use. Spendee allows you to create shared wallets with friends and family that you can use to manage shared expenses for a household budget. You can manually add cash expenses for a more accurate picture of where your money goes.
Keep from going over budget by creating budgeted amounts for each spending category and tracking your progress toward the budgeted amount.
The bill tracker functionality ensures you remember to pay each of your bills and avoid late payment penalties. The EveryDollar app uses the zero-based budget method recommended by personal finance expert Dave Ramsey. A built-in monthly expense tracker allows you to connect to your bank to import transactions to keep up with your spending.
All new users receive a free trial of the premium version of the app. You can permanently upgrade through the app menu. Mobills organizes your expenses in categories so you can track your spending is progressing toward your budgeted amount. See the amount you have remaining to spend in each budget category so you can rein in your spending as needed.
The budget planning app includes interactive charts that allow you to analyze your financial life; you can use them to make adjustments as you need to reach your larger financial goals. When Mint can't assign a category, such as for a check, it marks the transaction 'Uncategorized. You can also split a transaction. I use this differentiate cash back from groceries or clothes from housewares at a department store. One of my favorite features of Mint is that it learns my categories.
For example, I got a bike tune-up at a shop called Allrounder. Mint didn't know what to with it, so it put the expense in the 'Hair' category. I changed it to one of my custom categories, Bike Stuff. Next time I have a transaction at that business, Mint will remember that it's bike-related and put it in the right category.
I look at Mint more often than I look at my bank account, and it helps me catch and deal with problems quickly.
In addition, Mint will send me an alert if I spend an unusual amount in one of my categories. After Mint mistakenly classified my bike expense under Hair, I got an email about unusual spending in that category.
The alert got me to check my Mint feed, find the problem, and fix it. The app visualizes my spending, so I can see my budget at a glance.
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