In this 120th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Melika Hope, Head of Product for Small Business and Self-Employed Group at Intuit. Intuit is the world’s largest provider of accounting software. Melika Hope talks about how Intuit has managed to, through customer focus, continuously innovate up it’s product. 

Episode Highlights: 

● 00:48 – Melika Hope explains what Intuit is. 

● 02:36 – How did Intuit start and develop to where they are today? 

● 03:53 – What does Melika Hope do on a day-to-day basis? 

● 05:35 – What are some of the bigger product steps that she has taken with Intuit in recent memory? 

● 11:23 – How do they gather information from end-users? 

● 14:12 – How do their ideas end up getting implemented? 

● 16:00 – Average features get built with speed, typically within weeks or months. 

● 17:30 – What types of businesses do they consider as ideal candidates? 

● 19:45 – Where do the people at the top put their input? 

● 21:33 – What is the cloud adoption rate from the desktop products? 

● 23:07 – Where does she feel the challenges are in her position and what goes into product decisions? 

● 26:09 – What would Melika Hope change in her business or industry? 

● 27:44 – What have been the biggest challenges that Melika has faced? 

● 29:12 – What gets Melika Hope excited about her work every day? 

3 Key Points 

1. After the 10% subsidy for payroll taxes that was announced during 

COVID-19, her payroll team built out the calculations to support all the complex rules that are associated with that and has released it to market. 

2. Cash flow management is such a critical area that small businesses are affected by, especially after COVID-19. 

3. To gather data and be customer-centric they use their Follow Me Home component, multiple user sessions, and rapid prototyping. 

Tweetable Quotes: 

● (Intuit) “We produce TurboTax. That is a product we build in Canada and the United States. We have professional tax products and we also have 

QuickBooks, which is our primary product that serves the small business sector.” – Melika Hope 

● (QuickBooks) “It covers a number of different components, automates complex tasks, allows people to work together, it allows users to work anywhere and anytime from the cloud.” – Melika Hope 

● “My team covers, within Canada, the QuickBooks online platform, the mobile app, the payments platform, the QuickBooks online payroll product, and the self-employed products.” – Melika Hope 

Resources Mentioned: 

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook 

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn 

● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact 

● JasonPereira.ca – Sign up for Jason Pereira’s newsletter 

● Linkedin – Melika Hope’s 

● Intuit – Website for Intuit 

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