Got a question for the CEO of Quicken, overseer of the market leading personal finance software? Just ask him. Eric Dunn's email address is easy to guess — and he actually responds. Fast.
Some tech CEOs might bristle hearing from customers about any issues they're having. Not Dunn. He says Quicken's die-hard users' fanaticism about "their Quicken" — and willingness to push for improvements — is why the software is still thriving more than 40 years after its launch. And he's personally one of the most committed Quicken users around.
Quicken is one of those rare pieces of software, like Microsoft's Word and Adobe's Photoshop, that's so invaluable it outlived its rivals. In fact, under Dunn's leadership, Quicken survived competition from even Microsoft and its former parent Intuit with competing products. But both surrendered the personal finance software market to the Quicken juggernaut. Intuit just pulled the plug on its online rival to Quicken called Mint this year.
"Customers don't pull their punches with us. They're loyal, but they're opinionated," Dunn said. "We have a lot of direct customer communication and there's nothing like a spirited message from an agitated user to get your adrenaline flowing on a Monday morning."
Get Your Hands Dirty Like Eric Dunn
Dunn, though, doesn't just forward customers' comments to a committee. He's much more passionate about his product than that. And he has the chops to do something about it.
Unlike many CEOs, Dunn can, and will, actually fix problems and add features himself. Dunn routinely rolls up his sleeves and writes code. Dunn, originally the fifth employee hired at Intuit to build Quicken, isn't simply a delegator. He's a doer. Since taking over at Quicken he has blocked off every Wednesday as his "coding day."
On Wednesdays, Dunn searches for and destroys bugs in Quicken's source code. And if there's a new feature customers are asking for, especially from investors who use reports in the software, he'll add it. He just makes sure he's working in concert with the development team.
"I have conviction that's hopefully modulated by an understanding of how that team already works and an ability to support them rather than getting their way," Dunn said.
Upgrade Your Strengths
Dunn didn't set out to be a CEO. And he didn't plan on landing in the tech industry, either. But a clear path followed his curiosity.
He studied physics at Harvard College, graduating summa cum laude. Looking for opportunity, though, Dunn landed his first job at IBM. To beef up his management skills, Dunn then went to Harvard Business School. Ultimately he moved to California, accompanying his wife who was enrolling at Stanford Law School.
Looking for a new challenge on the West Coast, Dunn joined consulting firm Bain & Co. in Menlo Park, Calif. For three years, Dunn steeped himself in the Sand Hill Road high-tech culture. There he learned how startups succeed and fail.
And those lessons would pay off soon. His next huge opportunity to put what he knew to the test would soon appear.
Launching A Legendary Company
Dunn's contacts put him in touch with another Bain & Co. alum: the legendary founder of Intuit, Scott Cook. Intuit at the time was only four people in a basement with a goal to make the killer app for personal finance.
Equipped with Fortran programming learned in college, APL at IBM and also self-taught C programming, Dunn wrote most of the early versions of Quicken for MS-DOS, a pioneering personal computer operating system. The software's polish and focus on customers' needs made it a standout in a crowded field in the 1980s.
At the same time, Dunn served as Intuit's chief financial officer, a position he held for seven years and that became more demanding as Intuit grew. But an existential threat would pull him back into the trenches again.
Beating Microsoft Like Dunn
Rumor had it in 1991 Microsoft eyed the personal finance software industry. It planned to release Microsoft Money, a Windows-based program to take advantage of its own popular operating system. Quicken, only available for MS-DOS, was flat-footed.
Dunn got to work. "Even though I was our CFO, I said, 'You know, we have to have a competitive Windows product and (our) team is flailing.'"
Dunn recruited Tim Villanueva, Quicken's current CTO, and "we put our heads down for seven months," Dunn said. The two created Quicken 1.0 for Windows "in a foot race with Microsoft." And the two "held our breath" until software reviews comparing Microsoft's Money and Quicken came out. It was unanimous Quicken remained the favorite.
"When I joined to work on the first version of Quicken for Windows, he had already authored roughly 60% of the then shipping code," Villanueva said. "While being CFO, and everything else."
"We lived to fight another day," Dunn said.
Invest In Your Product
But the game would change again for Dunn.
Intuit in 2016 decided to focus on cloud-based small business account and tax software. It sold off Quicken to a private-equity firm H.I.G. Capital. It was in the cards as Intuit wasn't investing much in Quicken. Dunn suddenly found himself CEO of a "brand new" old company.
"We were launched as a new company with about 75 employees and our immediate mission was to try to repair the sagging Quicken fortunes," he said. But he urged employees to enjoy the freedom: "We're going to do things right for the first time in decades," he told them.
The first move was to upgrade the version of Quicken for the Apple Macintosh. That version long languished due to Intuit moving the development team to work on other projects.
Next, heeding a passionate internal champion, Dunn realized he needed an all new version of Quicken for consumers who don't use desktop software. And that meant a high-stakes investment in a brand-new personal finance app called Quicken Simplifi. Simplifi would technically compete with Quicken. But if Quicken didn't do it, someone else would.
"We started from scratch, informed by what we've done on the desktop (Quicken software) but not in any way bound by it," he said. Quicken Simplifi launched four years ago and is thriving as Mint vanished. "It's been a four-year overnight success," he said.
Talk about smart planning for the future. "If you look at people who've never used a Quicken product before, the majority of them are now picking the cloud solution," Dunn said.
Dunn: Choose Your Partners Wisely
Seeing how Quicken could thrive if given resources, the company now has 215 people up from 75.
After a successful run with H.I.G., Quicken looked to Aquiline Capital for financial backing in 2021. Dunn's time in venture capital showed him the importance of patient capital. He insists on that from partners.
"We can get things right in the long run," he said. "The business is healthy and the products are healthy."
But Dunn also found out how much easier it is to spin up a company now than it was in the 1980s. But it meant learning new ways of doing things. Rather than setting up complex internal phone systems, operations and accounting, Dunn and his team used third-party tools to do all that.
Tap Friends And Family
When Quicken was spun off in 2016, talented employees were hard to hire, too. How could a circa-1980s software company compete for talent with Alphabet and Meta Platforms without loads of stock options to dole out?
So Dunn's team got creative. They launched a summer internship program and asked their peers to ask their kids if they were interested in getting hands-on work experience.
"All the interns we got were the sons and daughters of our business friends. They were willing to trust that we had a decent operation," Dunn said.
And youth paid off. The interns and Gen Z successors largely built Simplifi, as they were more familiar with users' needs. "Our cloud-based product and the team (was made up of employees) my kids age, not my age, informed by how a 28-year old thinks about her finances," he said.
Dunn picked up some hiring ideas from Jim Collins' business classic, "Good To Great." From that book, Dunn learned that some employees simply won't be happy at your company. You shouldn't optimize for them, but the employees who are pleased to be there.
Take Lessons From The Legacy
Intuit may have jettisoned Quicken, but Dunn still retained relations and lessons with the former parent. Despite selling off the Quicken business, Intuit built a solid culture with a number of traits worth taking to the stand-alone company, he says.
Just like when working with Cook at Intuit, employees outside of the customer care department field calls. Quicken has a modified version of that practice. "We continue to do 'customer empathy,' where we ask employees every other month to participate in a care call," he said. "Some people like me are kind of brash and willing to actually take a customer call."
But above all, what builds a lasting company? "Knowing your customer and serving them the best as possible," Dunn said.
"It seems like the biggest failure mode is companies just going off track and not actually doing the core thing that they do."
And if he misses something, just email him. Dunn will fix it. "I have never seen a CEO who is so close to our customers, who knows the product as well ... and who cares so much about it that he will code the changes needed to meet user needs," Villanueva said.
Eric Dunn's Keys:
- CEO of Quicken and one of the first employees to build the popular personal finance software.
- Overcame: Lack of investment in Quicken while still part of Intuit.
- Lesson: "I have conviction that's hopefully modulated by an understanding of how that team already works and an ability to support them rather than getting their way."
