When a number of people gather to start a company then there’s many hurdles to take. One of the more complex ones and a potential bottleneck for succesful startups as well is the way work is being organized and managed. In the early days of a company – and often also at a later stage – there are redundancies of work packages. Workflows are vague and undefined. Setting up a proper and coherent work and management environment is crucial for so many reasons.
Now there’s a number of tools out there that try to solve this problem through a web application. This has, as everything, its pros and cons. In general a collaborative web application can only be as good as its users. Continuous and regulated usage of such apps determine whether they’ll benefit your business or the opposite.
As many other startups we’ve also tried out a bunch of different project-management tools, such as the highly popular Basecamp from 37signals or more reduced development-driven approaches like redmine or trac. We do not want to get into a list of advantages and disadvantages of the afore mentioned, yet we want to point out a little company working and crafting a beautiful app out of Copenhagen that goes by the name of Podio.
Podio’s goal is an ambitious one: A work environment, no matter what business you are in. Be it a software application or a you are a practicing physician. And the cool thing is, that they are on the best track of getting there. Now you might ask how are they trying to accomplish that and the answer is simple: Customizability
Through a variety of tools and an included app store teams can fully customize and shape the way they work. From a very simple of apps to a complete app package that handles all your HR efforts – the limitations are endless and the ramifications for your workflow are exciting. By having so-called “spaces” with individual admins and an overall activity stream Podio can also be seen as something on the intersection of Yammer and Basecamp. The best of both worlds.
We’ve now been using Podio for quite some months and the constant product iteration those bright minds behind the startup are doing really help to speed up or work processes, and more importantly, structure it in a beautiful manner so we keep using it. With our personalized version of Podio we’ve created a work environment that perfectly suits our needs. It’s like building up your very own project management tool from scratch, but with a nifty set of tools and applications already available.
If you are a physician, or if you are a fellow startup then we highly suggest giving Podio a try.