Hugh Molotsi

Here's the presentation I gave at this year's Lean Startup Conference:

Zambians Promoting Leadership in America (ZLA) hosted a black tie event in Atlanta to celebrate Zambia's 50th independence anniversary.  I was honored to be asked to speak about giving back to support the next generation of Zambians.  Congratulations to Freda Mwamba Brazle and the ZLA committee for organizing a wonderful jubilee. Here are a few photos from the event. Receiving plaques of appreciation: (L-R) Thomas Konditi, Senator Donzella James, Innocent Mulenga, yours truly, and Freda Brazle. With Mrs. Naomi King, wife of civil rights activist A.D. King and sister-in-law of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. With my better half Michelle. With Dr. Felicia Mabuza-Suttle

Intuit held it's first ever QuickBooks Connect conference at the San Jose Convention Center this week.  The conference was the biggest gathering of small businesses, the accountants who serve them, and developers who provide solutions for them.  The conference featured an all-star lineup of speakers including Magic Johnson, Arianna Huffington, and Martha Stewart. Here are some photos from the event. Yours truly with Magic Johnson With Dan Wernikoff, GM of Intuit's Small Business Group. With Shelly Scott and Christine Byrne from the QuickBooks Business Development team. With Tristan Walker, of Walker and Company who make the Bevel System. With the phenomenal Matt Rhodes, Intuit's VP of Investor Relations and Corporate FP&A

I had the pleasure of meeting members of a trade mission delegation from Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa) who were visiting the San Francisco Bay Area.  The group aspire to develop an innovation hub in the Zululand region.  Above is the picture of members of the group at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco with Consular-General Cyril Ndaba to whom I owe thanks for making the connection.

I had the pleasure of attending this year's Hult Prize dinner at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.  This year's challenge to students around the world was Healthcare: Non-communicable Disease in the Urban Slum. Students from over 150 schools competed and this year's winner was Nanohealth from the Indian School of Business who received $1,000,000 to fund their social enterprise. Below are some photos from the event. President Clinton announces the winning team. Some of the winning Nanotech team. The panel of judges (L-R): Hitendra Patel (moderator), Sanjay Gupta, Fadi Ghandour, Ashish Thakker, Muhammad Yunus and Kathleen Rogers (not pictured). Yours truly with Saul Minkoff (last year's finalist from the Pulse team) and Hult professor Michael Grandinetti. A pleasant surprise to run into René Carayol .

The article " Innovation: Failure is an Option " was first published on Intuit Labs . The road to innovation is paved with failure. And that’s just fine. Just ask Hugh Molotsi, who received Intuit’s first Founders Innovation Award in 2011, in part for creating and launching a business that allowed storeowners and others to accept credit card payments and link it to their QuickBooks program. But he’s also racked up his share of failure along the way. “Failure comes with the territory” says Molotsi, a serial innovator who is also vice president of the Intuit Labs Incubator. “You’re going to have to fall down and scrape your knees a few times. You learn more from your failures than your successes. And if you call it an experiment, you can’t fail.” For small business owners who may be struggling to pay the rent and meet payroll, innovation may seem too intimidating to attempt. And many are reluctant because they confuse innovation with invention. While invention ...

The Fresh Lifelines for Youth  (FLY) board held it's annual board dinner at the Lion and Compass in Sunnyvale.  After six years on board, I termed out so it was a bittersweet celebration for me.  I'm proud of how FLY has flourished during this time.  A few of FLY's many accomplishments in the last six years: FLY has doubled the number of youth it serves in its high touch programs; doubled the number of staff (from 25 to 50); and won the support of its first national funder, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation.  It has been an honor and privilege to support a great organization with amazing people who are poised to achieve even bigger things.  I will miss you all! L-R: Lyman Thai (guest), Dick Watts, Taher Savliwala, Amy Parigi, Donna Petkanics (new board president), yours truly, Aparna Bawa, Bill Ihrie, Carol Dressler, Christa Gannon (FLY executive director), Azar Khansari, Toiya Black, Judge James Emerson, Lisa Clark (FLY development director), G...

I had the privilege of attending MLT's 10th Anniversary Celebration in New York City.   MLT (Management Leadership Tomorrow) was created by John Rice as a program to help minorities prepare and get accepted into top rated business schools.  Today MLT provides programs to address different career levels from college, through MBA prep, to Executive mentorship.  The celebration itself was a blast.  I got to meet so many accomplished people from various walks of life, listened to inspiring speakers including Susan Rice, and led a session on how to make innovation a competitive advantage for your career.  Here are a few photos from the event. With John Rice, MLT founder. With Pat Wadors (Head of Talent for LinkedIn), Mark Taguchi (MLT West Coast Managing Director), and Sherrie Gong Taguchi (Stanford Director of Programs). Yours truly.

See photos from this year's "A Taste of FLY", a fundraiser for Fresh Lifelines for Youth that was held at the beautiful Thomas Fogarty Winery in Woodside.  Our celebrity chef was Tal Ronnen of LYFE kitchen.

I had the pleasure of participating in the White House Business Council Startup Global Design Workshop today in the Indian Treaty Room at the White House.  As part of the president’s National Export Initiative (NEI), the administration is encouraging US businesses to export their products and services to global markets.  Startups are seen as particularly a big opportunity because even though they create jobs and spur innovation, only about 1% export their offerings and of that 1%, over half only export to one country. The Startup Global Design Workshop was an innovative approach to finding solutions to how we could help more startups export their offerings.  Working with the Department of Commerce, the workshop brought together startup founders, innovators from the private sector, and public policy leaders from the government to develop 20-30 testable ideas.  Intuit was asked to facilitate the workshop given our special relationship with startups and our ...

Read my interview with PandoDaily about how Intuit is rewarding employees for thinking and acting like entrepreneurs.

Many people will be surprised to learn that the most dangerous animal in the African savannah is not the lion, or the crocodile, or the leopard. The animal that causes more human fatalities than any other is the hippo. While the hippo might look to some like a jolly roly-poly carefree character, that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Hippos are ill-tempered, aggressive, territorial, and most important, not afraid of humans. Many poor saps minding their own business canoeing down the river met their end when an angry hippo decided to capsize their vessel and gnash the occupants between their giant teeth.  Check out  this article  on hippos and read about their endearing “dung showering” practice.  If you ever go on safari, avoid the hippos! At Intuit, we use the acronym HIPPO to mean the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. Making HIPPO decisions is also something to be avoided. When it comes to innovation, data is what we valu...

What is horizon planning? At Intuit, we aspire to deliver best-we-can-be results in the current period for employees, customers and shareholders, while building the foundation for a stronger future – a concept we call “True North.” Horizon planning is a key set of principles we employ to balance our short- and long-term investments. Our horizon planning principles are based on Geoffrey Moore’s Harvard Business Review article, “ To Succeed in the Long Term, Focus on the Middle Term .” We use these principles to divide our offering portfolio into three stages: Horizon 1  – Our established offerings that deliver most of our current revenue, such as like  QuickBooks  and  TurboTax . Horizon 2  – Our fast-growing emerging offerings, such as like  Intuit Online Payroll  and  GoPayment . Horizon 3  – Our experiments that form our pipeline of potential new businesses. Visit  Intuit Labs  to check out some of our latest e...