When Scott Cook cofounded Intuit, in 1983, many other companies were already offering software to help people track their finances. In fact, at least 46 similar products launched before Quicken, the product Cook created, which is why we sometimes joke about how instead of having the first-mover advantage, Intuit had the “47th mover advantage.” The original version of Quicken offered only one-third the features that many competing products had, but with an important difference: It was well designed. Instead of looking like a spreadsheet, it displayed the familiar images of a check register and an individual check. Because the design made using the product so intuitive, Quicken immediately became the market leader in personal finance software. It has held that position for three decades.

A version of this article appeared in the January–February 2015 issue of Harvard Business Review.