Mailchimp was co-founded by Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius.
The Atlanta-based company began in 2001 as a side project of the Rocket Science Group, the web-design business Chestnut and Kurzius were running. Its early purpose was to help small businesses create and send email newsletters without needing expensive enterprise software. Mark Armstrong was also involved in the company’s early founding, but Chestnut and Kurzius are the pair most commonly identified as Mailchimp’s co-founders.
Mailchimp initially operated as a paid service and added a freemium option in 2009, helping its user base grow rapidly. It later expanded beyond newsletters into marketing automation, customer relationship tools, landing pages, websites, advertising, and analytics. A common mix-up is confusing Mailchimp with SendGrid, AWeber, or Constant Contact; those are competing email-marketing services, not alternative names for the same company. Intuit completed its acquisition of Mailchimp in November 2021.