There are hundreds of project management software in the market which claim to go beyond spreadsheets.
“Stackby can help anyone organize their data and create their own software,” says Stackby Founder CEO Rachit Khator
The core idea missing from all of them is that their aim shouldn’t be to surpass or go beyond spreadsheets but to help users customize spreadsheets and organize databases according to their need and ease of use.
A completely customizable SaaS platform that maintains the utility of a simple spreadsheet but allows the user to customize it according to his specific requirements without the user necessarily being from a technical background was the ideal solution we were looking for.
When we found the software which was built on exactly this vision in Stackby, we were delighted. One can only imagine the joy we felt when we had a conversation with the man who created Stackby, something which is revolutionizing the way our workspaces function.
Read on for a freewheeling chat on everything from managing your spreadsheets to managing your team;
Q.1 How would you say your background helped you create a top SaaS platform?
I pursued a dual master’s in Applied Physics and Entrepreneurship from top universities and landed a job in the US as part of a corporate’s R&D and strategy division.
During my 4 year stint, we invested in over 15 startups in the technology, and I was also the Product Manager for a couple of internal startups we were building.
I led software development teams and worked closely with corporate executives and tech founders to understand how product-led companies grow.
This background really helped me understand the right problem that spreadsheets are everywhere and being used as makeshift databases and then building the right team to create a SaaS solution – Stackby to help anyone organize their data and create their own software, the way they want.
Q.2 Who all do you think can take advantage of Stackby?
Stackby is already used by over 10,000 companies in over 100 industries from Tech, Agencies, E-Commerce to Real-Estate, etc.
It has 200+ pre-built templates across different categories like Marketing, Sales, HR, Project Management, or anyone who wants to create a custom database for their business and automate their processes.
Stackby also has a user-generated template community called Stackby One, where different users have shared and can share interesting templates that have helped them in their businesses. So, any user can copy these templates and get started with Stackby in a few minutes.
Q.3 What is the biggest factor behind the success of Stackby?
We have spent over three years building the right product and launching it to the global audience. Patience and understanding the right customer needs to be helped us craft the product and focus on the right problems to solve.
Secondly, a few of our global launches helped us garner customers from different industries and geographies. Those customers became vocal brand advocates and gave us continuous feedback along the way. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for our customers.
Q.4 What motivated you to formulate such a creative solution to an everyday problem?
When I was personally working in a corporate environment, I was heavily dependent on spreadsheets, and our team struggled to work on them to manage our data and automate work.
When I was trying to find a better way to organize this information, I came across tools like CRMs, Project Management Software, etc., that were not flexible enough to customize our workflow.
When I spoke to a hundred people across different functions, I realized that most people still heavily use spreadsheets to organize information because of the ease of use.
That’s when I started working on a tool that was as simple as a spreadsheet but allowed normal people to build powerful software solutions for their teams and businesses.
Q.5 What distinguishes Stackby from its competitors like Airtable or Infinity?
Stackby, along with being a modern database application it is collaborative and flexible, is also automation-first.
Stackby has built native no-code API connectors across popular services that allow anyone to bring in data directly to the tables without any coding or technical experience. These connectors span across Marketing, Sales, Product, Lead Management, and more.
Due to which we can support more end-to-end workflows across teams.
For example, suppose you are a marketing team. In that case, you can plan and manage your campaigns and connect columns to services like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, YouTube, and automatically report in a single place.
We have over 50 different services integrated and over 175 pre-built API functions across these services.
Q.6 How often does it happen that you end up using your own app?
Our whole team – Product, Marketing, Sales, Support, all use Stackby for different activities. From managing website leads, planning our content calendar, tracking our campaigns, or even handling our product launches, our team heavily relies on Stackby to manage our day-to-day.
Using our own product in our work helps us better understand the best ways to utilize the tool and the improvements we should make, both of which we pass on to the community.
Q.7 Will you continue to offer a free plan seeing the growing popularity of your platform?
Yes, in the foreseeable future. Stackby is, by essence, a tool that optimizes any working environment it enters.
Offering a free plan helps users see the value it brings by way of efficiency and workflow management. If the utility offered in the free plan does not suffice their needs, they can easily upgrade to any of our affordable plans after trying and testing the product.
Q.8 What are the things you look for in someone you’re looking to hire?
Attitude and willingness to learn. We believe technical skills can be taught, but soft skills and attitude make someone a right fit in our team.
A solid technical background without people skills, which enables someone to work well in a team, is more of a liability to the team than an asset.
One should remember when making hires that 10 individually skilled workers don’t make a good team, but 10 members, even if not as skilled who can work together, make an excellent team.
Q.9 Your company flourished during the pandemic motivating you to offer massive discounts towards the new year. Were you affected in any way by the pandemic?
The pandemic helped us accelerate our growth since many businesses were going remote and were looking for collaboration platforms like Stackby to manage their data and teams.
In this tough time, organizations have seen the value of managing their data on a custom solution like Stackby. The industry has benefited from this as the pressure of managing your workflow in a changing online environment made the pitch for SaaS solutions for them.
Q.10 What are the struggles awaiting someone who wants to create an organization like Stackby?
Of course, there are struggles in establishing a company from scratch with an unconventional product, but that is not what I want your readers to take away from this interview. The struggles of entrepreneurship are well known and often discussed.
I would like to say it is nothing more than a battle of persistence. The challenges are thrown at you constantly.
It is you who has to persist against them. Factors such as having the right team by your side, having faith in your product, ensuring that you plan ahead and that plans often don’t work out can help you build persistence.
Q.11 Does running a leading SaaS platform come in the way of your personal life?
Well, as an entrepreneur, you have to manage to grow your startup and your relationships. It can be tricky, but if you are calm, you can manage it effectively.
The trick is to ensure that you always do what you’re supposed to. Meaning, don’t bring your personal life to work and don’t work when you’re supposed to be spending time with your loved ones.
Schedules are crazy and always changing in the modern world, and it may not always be possible to follow this trick. Still, the longer you try to live by this rule, the easier it will be for the rule to make your personal and professional life more fulfilling.
Q.12 How much value do you think integrating workflows using Stackby creates in a workplace?
On average automating workflow on Stackby can save one hour each day for each of your team members. So, over one year, you can only imagine the productivity and efficiency gains in your team.
This also doesn’t consider that the more users spend time using Stackby, the more adept they become at using it, leading to even more gains in productivity.
Q.13 How hard is it for someone to learn to use Stackby effectively?
Stackby is a self-serve platform. So anyone signing up for free can pretty much get started on the platform by importing their spreadsheets or using one of the pre-defined templates.
Our help center, tutorial videos, and community help you get started with your custom workflow. We also have customized onboarding according to your function and industry, and one metric we track is time to value for that particular customer.
Q.14 Can you shed some light on how you deal with customer issues?
We have a set process via our support chat and email, in-built forms for reporting bug issues and feature requests, and most importantly, our team’s proactiveness helps us maintain a high NPS and customer delight.
Customer service is a priority for us as we learn just as much from our customers as they do from us in our interactions with them.
One of Stackby’s primary focuses is creating customized software, so attending to customer calls helps us understand the use cases our customers need more and how we can better serve them.
Q.15 You have amassed satisfied users from over 150 countries. What was your strategy to market a product as innovative as yours?
We follow 3 C’s: Content, Community, and Channel Partnerships as a growth strategy, and we continue to build upon that. Creating lasting customer relationships is the only way to get into the business and stay in it.
Listening to early adopters’ concerns and demands helped us perfect our product over the three years we spent developing it. Post the launch, the word of mouth we generated from our strategy helped us get the ground product.
Q.16 We here at BloggingEclipse love your product. We were wondering what you think of your internet marketing blog?
We like your reviews across different tools, which helps us select the right tools for our business. Ensuring the right collection of tools in a workplace is half the battle won already in the modern corporate world.
BloggingEclipse is a premier marketing blog, and I am glad I got the opportunity to share the story of Stackby on it.
We are also glad that we got the opportunity to converse with a thoughtful CEO who truly understands his target set of users.
As we said in the interview, Stackby is an innovative solution to an everyday problem, so before you get back to trying to make sense of that spreadsheet which you haven’t been able to figure out for an hour, consider heading on over to Stackby and getting a completely free look at how optimized your work life can be with software which gives you the core value of a spreadsheet, but with infinite possibilities packed alongside it.
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