Intuit's $12 billion Mailchimp acquisition tried to connect customer acquisition with accounting, payments, payroll, and capital, turning small-business software into a broader operating platform.
Intuit's $7.1 billion Credit Karma acquisition expanded the company from tax and accounting software into a broader consumer-finance marketplace, while regulators forced a tax-product divestiture to preserve competition.
Scott Cook and Tom Proulx bootstrapped Intuit around the ordinary pain of balancing a checkbook, showing that disciplined customer insight could substitute for heavy early venture funding.