There are lots of project management tools out there, but a new company from Seattle thinks it’s created something a little different that will help employees collaborate more effectively and efficiently.
Bootstrapped with less than $2,500 in capital, Trackolade launches later this week to provide a project management app that allows teams to plan, organize and communicate. Its purpose is to help companies that work with multiple clients and team members tame the chaos that can come from working on many projects at once.
“Trackolade was born out of our necessity to collaborate remotely as a team and communicate easily with our clients,” CEO and founder Adam Brazg said.
Trackolade was founded by the 25-year-old Brazg and is made up for former employees of Planidoo, another Seattle company. The team is split between the Emerald City and Ukraine.
We caught up with Brazg to learn more about Trackolade for the latest edition of Startup Spotlight.
Explain what you do so our parents can understand it: Trackolade is an online project management collaboration tool that is incredibly easy-to-use, easy-to-share, and easy to understand.
Inspiration hit us when … Our team had used several existing project management and collaboration solutions when working with clients, none of which satisfied everyone’s needs. The tools that our product managers loved, our developers hated; the ones that our developers admired, our clients could not understand. We spent hours debating the features we really needed versus the features that we really wanted. Finally we said to ourselves, “Why should we have to choose?”
VC, Angel or Bootstrap: Bootstrap. It forces you to be creatively resourceful in ways you would never think are impossible.
Our ‘secret sauce’ is: We designed Trackolade in a way that does not overwhelm first-time users, but is still powerful enough to manage complex projects. The more you use the application, the more powerful it becomes. Ultimately, this increases adoption rates across teams and still satisfies the needs of a hands-on project manager or team lead.
The smartest move we’ve made so far: Using Trackolade on our own projects to drive the product development. When we initially set out to build this application, we had lots of cool ideas (everyone loves a good whiteboard session). This often drives you down a path of craziness, spending hours on something that you have no idea will work. Instead of testing these ideas on real users, we quickly found out what features were important by using data from our own use in real work situations.
The biggest mistake we’ve made so far: When we first started working on Trackolade, we were afraid to admit things we did not know. We would make guesses or borrow ideas, standing by them as if they were right, simply to avoid judgment from our team members and others. This drove us to make irrational decisions and set unrealistic goals.
Would you rather have Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg or Bezos in your corner: Zuckerberg. Like.
Our world domination strategy starts when: Our hope is that Trackolade empowers others’ productivity as much as it’s empowered ours. We’re not trying to take over the world, per se — I mean, it’s just a project management software. But if we can make people’s lives easier and more organized, and they’re able to do better work, then we will think about what is next for Trackolade.
Rivals should fear us because: We would prefer if rivals admired us, but if they must fear us, it should be because we are not afraid to try new things. One time, we went into a Best Buy store and set every browsers start page to our homepage. These are the types of ideas that often come up during our brainstorming session, and we follow through with a lot of them.
We are truly unique because: We are all full of curiosity, which drives us to experiment in new ways, always trying to test the boundaries.
The biggest hurdle we’ve overcome is: The 5,613 mile distance that sits between half our team in Seattle and half our team in Ukraine.
What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to other entrepreneurs just starting out: Have a sense of humility and self-awareness. Embrace what you do not know because having an understanding is far more valuable than being right.
