Mint
About a year or so ago I moved all of our personal finances to Mint.com and away from Quicken. I did it because I liked how dead simple it was, and because of the fact that it made integrating with all of my financial institutions a breeze. Oh, and I didn’t have to worry about offsite backups. And, I could get to it from anywhere. And they had an iPhone app. But, I digress. There were some things lacking at the time, like the ability to import my current info into their application, but I wanted to take the step and deal with whatever pain there was. It has turned out to be a great decision. Fast forward twelve months….
My wife has used Quicken and Quickbooks for years to do both our finances and the finances of several businesses. Yesterday, she asked me if she could move business finances to Mint as well because Quickbooks is so cumbersome.
If you think about what this means in the big picture, and you are in technology, it should both excite you and terrify you. Quicken and Quickbooks have had a death grip on personal finance and business accounting software for years. There was no company more ubiquitous in the home or small business. And yet, within the space of about 12 months, I saw with my own eyes that their inability to adapt quickly enough saw them start to lose customers that would never have considered the move beforehand. Furthermore, this Quicken is not some backward, entrenched software company. They are a really, really good technology company.
There is no business that is safe, period. If you are a little guy, that should give you the incentive to chase your dreams. If you are the big guy, don’t slow down. Don’t get into the culture of meetings and committees. Stay flat. Stay nimble. Don’t stop thinking about crazy stuff that no one is asking for yet. And make sure you are listening and paying attention to the changes happening around you.
Incidentally, I tried Quicken Online at some point in this process, and it was just not good. I am sure this is why they, in the end, just bought Mint and said to heck with it.
We are going to try Outright for business, and see how that works. If it’s anything like Mint, I guess we know who will end up buying it in twelve months.
