Successful Company Acquisitions

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The key to successful acquisitions lies in setting up the right structure that aligns with the purpose of the acquisition. In the case of MailChimp, the focus was on building an operating system for small businesses to address their growth needs. By integrating MailChimp into the small business organization alongside QuickBooks while keeping it independent, the company ensured that the acquisition remained true to its purpose and allowed MailChimp to thrive without the burden of a full integration.

Today, I’m talking to Intuit Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar, who took over as CEO in 2022 after a pretty rough patch in the company’s history. In 2021, Intuit acquired the company, and the very next year, co-founder Ben Chestnut stepped down after telling employees that he thought introducing themselves with pronouns in meetings did more harm than good. After that, Rania took over.

This is a pretty huge culture change, especially as Mailchimp became more integrated with Intuit. It was also a big challenge for a new leader who came in from the outside. You’ll hear us talk about that transition a lot. Rania and I also got into the weeds of making decisions, which is very Decoder. And, of course, we had to talk about generative AI, which is a big part of the Mailchimp road map. This was a really fun conversation with some honestly scary ideas in it — and it’s all about email.

Links:

Mailchimp employees have complained about inequality for years — The Verge
Mailchimp Employees Are Fuming Over $12 Billion Deal — Business Insider
Did this email cost Mailchimp's billionaire CEO his job? — Platformer
Mailchimp is shutting down TinyLetter — The Verge
TinyLetter, in memoriam — The Verge
Did Mailchimp censor J.D. Vance? — Mother Jones
Hackers breached Mailchimp to phish cryptocurrency wallets — The Verge
Boring, mundane businesses have an exhilarating, viral life on TikTok — The Verge