The first time I fell in love with a SaaS tool was back in my early working days.
While I was already involved in new business at the time, most of my work involved campaign and project management for existing clients. Despite it being my first job, I had handled projects for my college organizations so I went back to the task management systems I used back then.
In college, I was very proud of my multi-tabbed Google Docs spreadsheets (it wasn’t called Drive yet) which I spent hours crafting, complete with color codes, legends and simple formulas. It included dashboards for the various departments of a project—marketing, creatives, operations, and finance all had their own separate tabs. I updated it religiously and I constantly pushed my project partners to do the same. So when I found myself in another project management role at work I simply applied the same strategy as I led projects together with web and app developers, designers, and media specialists. It held up for a while but then something happened.
One day, our CEO introduced Basecamp. I think most of us weren’t sure what to think at first about this new tool. It promised us better organization, better collaboration, etc. etc. But would it be helpful? Would it just be more work? Wasn’t it too much to track every single task?
Eventually I tried it out, got to know Basecamp a little better and fell in love! I became Basecamp’s biggest fan at the office and it was because they’d found a better way to do exactly what I was trying to do with my spreadsheet masterpieces. I used it everyday, I raved about it, and got more people to keep using it.
And that is the love story of a SaaS user and a SaaS tool.
I like to remember this story from my own experience especially now that my work at Bridge revolves around SaaS tools.
It’s not just about the company, it’s about the people and how their experience becomes better because of technology.
I find myself playing matchmaker, looking for and meeting hardworking people who stand to gain the most out of what we can do.
Here’s what I believe: The whole point of a tech tool is to make people’s lives better by making it easier for them to do work better. Everyday I keep this in mind as I help write love stories like mine—this time for people from different companies. It’s always amazing to relive the experience of finding a match.