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For me it'll forever be the year my startup [0] launched, we got our first users, our first _paying_ users, and got into the accelerator we wanted. In what was

by kevsim 6y ago

For me it'll forever be the year my startup [0] launched, we got our first users, our first _paying_ users, and got into the accelerator we wanted. In what was otherwise a totally crappy blur, I'll always have some fondness for 2020. But it can end now. That'd be fine. 0: https://kitemaker.co https://kitemaker.co, the super fast, hotkey-driven product management tool/issue tracker that has deep integrations to GitHub, Figma, Slack, etc.

pedalpete 6y ago
We were just looking for product management tools last week, and decided to use notion (I guess it's the hotness atm), but definitely is not suiting our needs. I just signed up to Kitemaker (we're SoundMind.co) Keen to understand, in a market so laden with options, how do you plan to stand out? Monday and Assana seem to be spending a fortune on ads. A demo video or something that would show the functionality would be helpful. ATM, it feels similar to github project.
- kevsim 6y ago
  Thanks for signing up! We're definitely going to be making a video for the landing page. We have a slightly different take on things we think (even though there's a certain amount of table stakes features you need to build to get people to use it at all, we've found). First off, unlike most of our competitors, we don't push people to break down initiatives into little bit sized tasks, giving each one an assignee. Instead we take a more collaborative attitude. We think work items should be the "right size" [0] which is much bigger than a single task - instead it's some value delivered end to end to your users. As a result, our work items are rich documents and they'll only get richer and more collaborative. We see that our users write a lot, hash out things together, upload designs, etc. And they're only getting more rich and more collaborative. Secondly, we have a lot of exciting things coming with our integrations. Our focus is really on cutting down the noise coming from a lot of the tools teams use and to link assets/activities in those tools directly to work items in Kitemaker, so you can get the info you need when you need it. Our users like to complain about tools like Figma being awful for discussions and tools like GitHub producing too many noisy emails. We want to fix that. The Slack, Discord, GitHub and Slack integrations are already pretty powerful. Thirdly, it's fast. Super super fast with hot keys for everything. We're really inspired by Superhuman and our goal is to match their 100ms response times. Lastly is who we're making it for. We want to enable product teams to succeed. Not in the generic sense of the term, but more in the Marty Cagan [1] sense. Teams that are autonomous, self-organizing, cross functional and totally focused on delivering value for their users. Teams that run top down, with managers doling out tasks to engineers and product managers deciding exactly what will be built in isolation probably won't find a home in Kitemaker. We'd love to chat with any teams struggling to find the tool that works best for them. My email is in my profile. 0: https://medium.com/kitemaker-blog/right-sizing-elements-of-work-23a1c3f239bd https://medium.com/kitemaker-blog/right-sizing-elements-of-w... 1: https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/ https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/
  - pedalpete 6y ago
    Cool, let me give it a go with my co-founder and we'll discuss. Love the integrations stuff, but so far we've not been putting tasks into github because we figured we'd just be moving them, but this is great for onboarding. As far as point #1, I get what you're saying, and love that you have that vision. I think it fits the way I like to work (potentially), but is opposed to how my co-founder likes to work. But let's give him a go and see. I'll be in touch. Best of luck.
    - kevsim 6y ago
      We'll be making the todos within work items more rich as well, which usually satisfy those who like to break things way down. Best of both worlds.

by kevsim 6y ago

pedalpete 6y ago

We were just looking for product management tools last week, and decided to use notion (I guess it's the hotness atm), but definitely is not suiting our needs. I just signed up to Kitemaker (we're SoundMind.co) Keen to understand, in a market so laden with options, how do you plan to stand out? Monday and Assana seem to be spending a fortune on ads. A demo video or something that would show the functionality would be helpful. ATM, it feels similar to github project.

kevsim 6y ago
Thanks for signing up! We're definitely going to be making a video for the landing page. We have a slightly different take on things we think (even though there's a certain amount of table stakes features you need to build to get people to use it at all, we've found). First off, unlike most of our competitors, we don't push people to break down initiatives into little bit sized tasks, giving each one an assignee. Instead we take a more collaborative attitude. We think work items should be the "right size" [0] which is much bigger than a single task - instead it's some value delivered end to end to your users. As a result, our work items are rich documents and they'll only get richer and more collaborative. We see that our users write a lot, hash out things together, upload designs, etc. And they're only getting more rich and more collaborative. Secondly, we have a lot of exciting things coming with our integrations. Our focus is really on cutting down the noise coming from a lot of the tools teams use and to link assets/activities in those tools directly to work items in Kitemaker, so you can get the info you need when you need it. Our users like to complain about tools like Figma being awful for discussions and tools like GitHub producing too many noisy emails. We want to fix that. The Slack, Discord, GitHub and Slack integrations are already pretty powerful. Thirdly, it's fast. Super super fast with hot keys for everything. We're really inspired by Superhuman and our goal is to match their 100ms response times. Lastly is who we're making it for. We want to enable product teams to succeed. Not in the generic sense of the term, but more in the Marty Cagan [1] sense. Teams that are autonomous, self-organizing, cross functional and totally focused on delivering value for their users. Teams that run top down, with managers doling out tasks to engineers and product managers deciding exactly what will be built in isolation probably won't find a home in Kitemaker. We'd love to chat with any teams struggling to find the tool that works best for them. My email is in my profile. 0: https://medium.com/kitemaker-blog/right-sizing-elements-of-work-23a1c3f239bd https://medium.com/kitemaker-blog/right-sizing-elements-of-w... 1: https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/ https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/
- pedalpete 6y ago
  Cool, let me give it a go with my co-founder and we'll discuss. Love the integrations stuff, but so far we've not been putting tasks into github because we figured we'd just be moving them, but this is great for onboarding. As far as point #1, I get what you're saying, and love that you have that vision. I think it fits the way I like to work (potentially), but is opposed to how my co-founder likes to work. But let's give him a go and see. I'll be in touch. Best of luck.
  - kevsim 6y ago
    We'll be making the todos within work items more rich as well, which usually satisfy those who like to break things way down. Best of both worlds.