Our vision for the next generation of management tools

Our goal was never to make a good product that we could sell; We want to create a great product that sells itself. A product that people can try for free and then decide for themselves whether they want to buy or not.

We found a fundamental truth: people felt they were working really hard for their tools, rather than the other way around. They were slaves to a master they didn't like, and in return, the master gave them some reports and organization. But people had to work hard to get this information, and it wasn't all they wanted—far from it.

People are usually used to keeping a strict separation between their personal tools and their work tools. They expect their personal phones, apps and devices to be intuitive and beautiful, but are resigned to working with cumbersome, complex and clumsy tools in the office. It's no wonder that many people don't like going to work.

I think in general, it's a false divide to separate your work-life from your life-life. If you're going to achieve anything at your job, you have to love your work tools as much as you love your iPhone or Samsung Galaxy (or whatever.).

So we decided to design a tool that's beautiful, friendly and focused on what people need to succeed. For that, we will focus on three main things:

1. A good product is intuitive

Think back to the first time you touched an iPhone. You knew what to do without reading the user manual. And if you've ever used an iPhone or a table around a child, you'll notice that even young children get it right away. It is intuitive and human friendly.

Your work tool should be the same — so intuitive and fun that you can use it without any training.

But intuitiveness does not mean simplicity. A good tool is simple for your basic needs and then scales with you as things get more complex.

For example, many of our customers want to track their weekly tasks and see clearly where things stand. It's a very simple requirement, and it's a piece of cake to do with jsonsheet.com.

But let's say your processes eventually become more complex, and you want to see who on your team is working on what over a period of months to gauge whether you'll meet your critical deadlines. On the same particular board onjsonsheet.com, you can easily add more columns and filters to adapt it to your growing needs.

This is a fundamental strength we've built into jsonsheet.com that I've seen lacking in almost every other management tool. Either the tools are simple, but they limit you to doing only simple things forever, or they are complex, and you are burdened to manage the complexity. A tool must be flexible and scalable while maintaining the core of simplicity.

2. A good product is non-imposing

A non-imposing product doesn't force you to adapt the way you think and work to the technology. It works for you; Not the other way around. To achieve a non-imposing product, we have a simple rule: we will never ask you to add metadata that jsonsheet.com needs for its internal operations. A Gantt chart is a great example of software imposition - you need to add dependencies, time and due dates to create the resulting report. Then you become a slave to updating and managing those dependencies, just to keep up with that report.

If there's something you want to say to someone on your team, mentioning it onjsonsheet.com is the best way to do it. If you want to delegate some task, jsonsheet.com is the fastest and most natural way to do it. If you want to plan ahead, jsonsheet.com is the easiest and most rewarding place for that.

jsonsheet.com only requires information you already have in mind: your priorities, goals, and deadlines. You don't need to put any energy or effort into understanding what jsonsheet.com wants from you to get immediate value.

3. A good product is fast

When production is slow, nothing else matters. Speed has its own value and affects the overall design and experience of your product.

What happens when production is slow? Navigating to different places in the system takes a lot of time, so people start asking you to duplicate functionality. For example, they can request the same button on several different screens so they don't have to leave the page they're on. This makes the tool complex and bloated.

When manufacturing is fast, each function can exist in only one place. Yes, people need to click more to get where they want, but they don't mind, because it's faster. With fewer buttons and functions, your product remains streamlined and simple.

Also, when a product is fast, people start using it for many other things than it was originally intended for. (Great example: Have you ever used Google to spell-check a word you're not sure about? You do it because it's so fast.)

It takes a lot of dedication to make a product so great, people will try it and pay for it without convincing salespeople to buy it. Tools and teams that tackle this challenge will dominate the market in the coming years.