A Mumbai-based startup is taking on the world’s top project management web apps – things like Basecamp and Trello – with its minimalist and good-looking BrightPod. Made by the team at Synage Software, BrightPod is now close to the end of its months-long private beta and will launch to the public on April 16th. (UPDATE from the startup team: TechinAsia readers can sign up for Brightpod with the code “founders” (without the quotes)).
Up against a hundred or more task management app rivals, BrightPod aims to be the best collaborative working platform for marketing teams – and that of course includes social marketing. So the idea is that the web app is the best place for marketers to run campaigns, check off tasks and milestones, and keep track of organizational messages without resorting to a mess of email threads.
Among lots of useful BrightPod features are workflows that can be cloned and automated across different projects or campaigns, a daily digest email of the previous day’s work, an intuitive card-based layout, and an area for things that need particular attention from a team member. It looks like the kind of thing that this blog could use as well, rather than our lumpen Google Docs-based editorial spreadsheet.
Keeping track of the project team in BrightPod.
Yamini, the startup’s marketing manager, tells us that Brightpod now has over 150 companies using the app with a total of 272 users making use of it prior to the public launch. The seven-man Brightpod team previously started up DeskAway, a more general project collaboration service that’s in use at some major corporations. Because DeskAway already got funding and is now profitable, that helped the Mumbai entrepreneurs to get BrightPod rolling. Yamini adds: “However, in the next few months we may look at raising money as we expand the [Brightpod] team and broaden our reach globally.”
As for the focus on marketing teams, Yamini explains:
Over the years, we were seeing DeskAway being used as a general purpose project management tool by companies across a lot of verticals. However, we also witnessed a surge in signups from marketing teams with feature requests aimed at marketing/campaign related projects – stuff that they require. They felt it was chaotic to plan and track progress of various marketing projects/campaigns (SEO, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) when working with multiple people and clients.
We know the collaboration space pretty well and hence decided to create a new product that would serve this niche market with features specifically for marketing teams.
New features will be added to the web app soon, including an editorial calendar and marketing analytics. Also, it will better integrate with social networks, which is something obviously critical to those doing social marketing.
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