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Ramblings of a Short Man

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Ramblings of a Short Man

Category Archives: Intuit

Lean Startup in a Large Corporation

05 Wednesday May 2010

Posted by Thai Bui in Intuit, Software Development, Startups, Technology, Web 2.0 Expo

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

leanstartup, startup, w2e

I’ve seen Eric Ries speak before; Scott Cook brought him into Intuit to go over his Lean Startup message (http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/05/lean-startup-intensive-is-tomorrow-at.html) that he’s been pushing around. It’s really good stuff and as someone who’s made all of the mistakes he talks about I highly recommend it.

In the keynote he gave at Web 2.0 Expo yesterday, he added something I don’t remember seeing the first time. He said the goal is to minimize the total time for one “pivot” cycle.

The important thing is the definition of a “pivot”. Paraphrasing and interpreting, a pivot here is a change in direction caused by something you’ve learned about your business, be it your market, product, customer, whatever. And there are three steps in the cycle: build (the product), measure (the result), and learn (the reasons behind the result).

This helps illustrate the problem I’ve experienced in a large company. Minimizing time through this loop requires cross functional thinking and objectives that is ubiquitous in startups but is disappointingly rare in larger corporations where employees tend to be over-specialized.

For instance, at Intuit, there is a lot of focus in the engineering community around faster build and launch cycles. It’s all about continuous deployment, unit testing, server virtualization, etc. All good stuff, but it’s all focused on pure product cycles and not business cycles. Tracking is an afterthought.

For many designers and engineers, there’s a mental milestone (and thus, relief) when the product/version/build launches. The real milestone for the business (and so it should be as well for all employees) is when we’ve learned what we need to learn and made the right business decision on the next step.

We’re getting better. Tracking and data are beginning to play a larger role, and business interests are creeping their way into product conversations (“No!!!”). The key for any org, large or small, in minimizing the time through the loop is focusing all employees on the higher level business objective and Eric’s framework is a great way to have that conversation.

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Is it 2010 already?

20 Wednesday Jan 2010

Posted by Thai Bui in Intuit

≈ 1 Comment

Wow… has it really been that long?  I haven’t posted since… April 2008?

I’ll blame it on the recession. “In this economy, we’re all cutting back on the luxuries in life, like blogging. Which is free.”  OK, I feel better now.

Things for me here at Intuit have changed a lot, way too much to get into right now.  So I won’t even try.

This is really just a “I’m back” post.  I’ll be getting back to rambling really soon…

QuickBase opens up to developers

16 Wednesday Apr 2008

Posted by Thai Bui in Intuit, Software Development, Technology, Web 2.0

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

QuickBase

So I’ve been an Intuit employee now for a little over 3 months.  And I’ve met a ton of really passionate, intelligent people. It’s been quite a wild roller coaster ride and is the primary reason why I’ve been so negligent in my blogging.

TechCrunch picked up on QuickBase’s foray into being a developer platform and it’s great hit.  And here’s why:

If there was any hesitation about Homestead joining, it was because Intuit isn’t what you’d typically call an “Internet” company.  Our bread and butter is desktop software; when was the last time you saw TechCrunch or GigaOm write about QuickBooks?

But the QuickBase guys (I’ve met with several of them) are passionate about being on the leading edge of the Internet space.  They’ve never been on the desktop.  They’re pushing RIA and rapid development and open interfaces and all that the Internet is about these days.  You know, “Web 2.0”.  And at the core of it, they’re about providing value to users.

And the fact that TechCrunch picked it up is a great sign that Intuit’s moving in the right direction.

So congrats to the QuickBase team for a great hit!  And here’s to Intuit making more splashes in the blogosphere!

Intuit and Homestead get married…

26 Monday Nov 2007

Posted by Thai Bui in Homestead, Intuit

≈ 5 Comments

I have some very exciting news to share with you all today. (Don’t worry, I’m not delusional enough to think that there are actually a lot of you in “you all”.)

Intuit and Homestead have decided to join forces to take our best shot at making small businesses around the country and around the world successful. You can see Justin’s thoughts on his blog.

It’s been picked up by a lot of the bloggers out there, and the general reaction has been fairly positive, but I never really expected it to get a lot of buzz in the blogosphere. But everyone here at Homestead is excited, and that’s what matters.

I do want a address one thing that some of the bloggers are saying: I know that it’s called an “exit” or an “exit strategy”, and as a co-founder of Homestead, I get questions all the time about “exiting”.

In reality, I’m not just blowing smoke (or brown-nosing with the new powers that be) when I say that I don’t see this as an exit, but really an opportunity to play with the big boys and try to blow out Homestead to a greater audience. It’s going to be a rough and tough ride, I’m sure, but I’m excited to jump in and take that ride. I definitely would not be this excited, and I’m sure the deal would not have gone through, if this was a “dump and run”.

One of our ex-employees Matt Franklin posted this on Justin’s blog:

I’d imagine this will definitely help get Homestead products out to more people. You guys have some really, really talented employees, so I’m super happy to see their work get more exposure.

I couldn’t agree more…

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