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Can anyone help explain why Intuit would want to acquire Mailchimp. I’m just not seeing the “synergy” between these two companies other than they both focus on

Can anyone help explain why Intuit would want to acquire Mailchimp. I’m just not seeing the “synergy” between these two companies other than they both focus on SMB.

williamsmj 5y ago
Intuit want Mailchimp's data.
- adventured 5y ago
  Maybe they'll lobby Congress to make it illegal to block spam.
bserge 5y ago
They're really into it heheheh
xnx 5y ago
I think SMB is exactly what it's about. I wouldn't be surprised if they go for Squarespace or Wix next.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Exactly. Intuit gets a list of and intro to all of mailchimp's customers. Which alone is probably worth a substantial amount of the purchase price in advertising / sales time equivalency. Intuit is also pivoting themselves to being a data aggregator, who sells products powered by that (see: Mint purchase). And they seem to realize that whoever owns the collection point wins (see: Google). Consequently, mailchimp gets them a durable product and data coverage of a difficult to target and lucrative market (SMB).
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  Here I am stressing out because I am going to have to figure out a MailChimp replacement for my partner's service business and now you have me worrying about the multiple non-profits that I have migrated from WordPress hell to Wix. Fingers crossed that it is Squarespace as I determined that it was a ridiculously bad option due to no backup functionality.
adolph 5y ago
My guess is SaaS to SMB. Intuit Inc. is an American business that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. As of 2019, more than 95% of its revenues and earnings come from its activities within the United States.[3] Intuit's products include the tax preparation application TurboTax, personal finance app Mint and the small business accounting program QuickBooks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit
mmcconnell1618 5y ago
Intuit has a stack to send invoices and receive payments from customers via email. Mailchimp has a stack that allows non-technical users to create complex emails, lists, track opens and responses. Together, this would allow a small business to build and monetize an email list of customers. They are creating an ecommerce channel via email to augment/compete with web stores.
- noisy_boy 5y ago
  I think this is a good point. It also acts as a diversification/only-to-gain scenario; if Intuit's main business suffers due to increased scrutiny in the tax filing space, that have another source of steady revenue.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matthewowen 5y ago
i think that _is_ synergy. we often think of synergy being where you can apply your skill in solving problem Y to problem X even though the markets for those solutions are wildly different. but you can also think about the "thing" as being "selling to a particular category of customer". you can cross sell, bundle, gain some forms of economy of scale. this is basically the internet equivalent of WB Mason selling you toner, coffee, paper, chairs, and water coolers.
pirsquare 5y ago
they are moving into ecommerce. They've acquired tradegecko last yr and rebranded it as quickbooks commerce. Also, if you look at mailchimp recent product changes with addition of MC stores, they are positioning themselves to compete against ecommerce platforms. This could be planned beforehand to be part of the package for the acquisition.
- silvershell 5y ago
  They're sunsetting Quickbooks Commerce, though: https://commerce.intuit.com/register https://commerce.intuit.com/register
majani 5y ago
It's counter intuitive, but the best acquisitions are the ones with little synergy where the acquirer pretty much invests money in the acquiree and leaves them alone to continue as they were, but with a bigger budget.
ricksunny 5y ago
I feel the same - Cue the pundits in the business press writing articles titled "Why the Intuit acquisition of Mailchimp makes sense" as if they would have predicted it years prior.
floatingatoll 5y ago
Whatever their other reasons, it seems certain they’re enriching user data for tracking and resale.

Can anyone help explain why Intuit would want to acquire Mailchimp. I’m just not seeing the “synergy” between these two companies other than they both focus on SMB.

williamsmj 5y ago

Intuit want Mailchimp's data.

adventured 5y ago
Maybe they'll lobby Congress to make it illegal to block spam.

bserge 5y ago

They're really into it heheheh

xnx 5y ago

I think SMB is exactly what it's about. I wouldn't be surprised if they go for Squarespace or Wix next.

ethbr0 5y ago
Exactly. Intuit gets a list of and intro to all of mailchimp's customers. Which alone is probably worth a substantial amount of the purchase price in advertising / sales time equivalency. Intuit is also pivoting themselves to being a data aggregator, who sells products powered by that (see: Mint purchase). And they seem to realize that whoever owns the collection point wins (see: Google). Consequently, mailchimp gets them a durable product and data coverage of a difficult to target and lucrative market (SMB).
wintermutestwin 5y ago
Here I am stressing out because I am going to have to figure out a MailChimp replacement for my partner's service business and now you have me worrying about the multiple non-profits that I have migrated from WordPress hell to Wix. Fingers crossed that it is Squarespace as I determined that it was a ridiculously bad option due to no backup functionality.

adolph 5y ago

My guess is SaaS to SMB. Intuit Inc. is an American business that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. As of 2019, more than 95% of its revenues and earnings come from its activities within the United States.[3] Intuit's products include the tax preparation application TurboTax, personal finance app Mint and the small business accounting program QuickBooks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit

mmcconnell1618 5y ago

Intuit has a stack to send invoices and receive payments from customers via email. Mailchimp has a stack that allows non-technical users to create complex emails, lists, track opens and responses. Together, this would allow a small business to build and monetize an email list of customers. They are creating an ecommerce channel via email to augment/compete with web stores.

noisy_boy 5y ago
I think this is a good point. It also acts as a diversification/only-to-gain scenario; if Intuit's main business suffers due to increased scrutiny in the tax filing space, that have another source of steady revenue.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

matthewowen 5y ago

i think that _is_ synergy. we often think of synergy being where you can apply your skill in solving problem Y to problem X even though the markets for those solutions are wildly different. but you can also think about the "thing" as being "selling to a particular category of customer". you can cross sell, bundle, gain some forms of economy of scale. this is basically the internet equivalent of WB Mason selling you toner, coffee, paper, chairs, and water coolers.

pirsquare 5y ago

they are moving into ecommerce. They've acquired tradegecko last yr and rebranded it as quickbooks commerce. Also, if you look at mailchimp recent product changes with addition of MC stores, they are positioning themselves to compete against ecommerce platforms. This could be planned beforehand to be part of the package for the acquisition.

silvershell 5y ago
They're sunsetting Quickbooks Commerce, though: https://commerce.intuit.com/register https://commerce.intuit.com/register

majani 5y ago

It's counter intuitive, but the best acquisitions are the ones with little synergy where the acquirer pretty much invests money in the acquiree and leaves them alone to continue as they were, but with a bigger budget.

ricksunny 5y ago

I feel the same - Cue the pundits in the business press writing articles titled "Why the Intuit acquisition of Mailchimp makes sense" as if they would have predicted it years prior.

floatingatoll 5y ago

Whatever their other reasons, it seems certain they’re enriching user data for tracking and resale.