October 1995: The Ten-Day Deal.
A converted warehouse, a financing round about to close and a call from Intuit.
The Creator's Journey · Chapter VIII, Capital and the Exit
We were in our converted warehouse near Carnegie Mellon, close to closing a financing round and nearly out of cash, when the phone rang. It was Bill Harris, executive vice president of Intuit. “Rob, I want to buy your company.”
I told him the truth. I would close the financing in ten days, so if he wanted the company, his team had better fly out today. He did. We worked the deal around the clock while my team kept the financing moving in parallel. A Pittsburgh journal later called it the ten-day deal.
A buyer who wants you will move at your speed if you give him a reason to.
NETworth was a better product inside Intuit than outside it. It became the core of the Quicken Financial Network.