In this Inspiring Entrepreneurs Interview I spoke with Pablo Villalba, the founder of Teambox. Moving into CEO position, Pablo now handles Product Design, Marketing, Programming and Sales in his 15-person-strong company.
Diesel Laws: Hi Pablo, I really appreciate being able to talk with you today. For those who aren’t familiar with Teambox, can you please shed some light on what it is.
Pablo Villalba: Thanks Diesel, great to chat. Teambox.com is a Project Management Software that allows users to collaborate online. You can create your own projects and share tasks and files with your group in a centralized way.
D: Teambox is a fantastic tool (we use it for Barkles). Where did the idea come from to start building Project Management Software?
P: Well, I felt the need for it myself when working with some friends. We worked remotely, and one night a VIP client asked for an urgent delivery, so he emailed all of us. That night we all worked long hours, and only in the morning we realized we’d all been doing the same piece of work!
D: Oh wow, ouch!
P: So I thought, we all have the internet so there has to be a way to coordinate ourselves better. I looked around for tools, but they were either too complex (for the enterprise) or too limited, targeting only parts of the job. So, being a developer, I decided to write my own. A few months later I launched it publicly and started working on it professionally.
D: Did you run into any heavy learning curves, or were you already pretty efficient with the code base?
P: Definitely, quite a lot, it was a pain to get started. I hired a couple of freelancers to help me with it since I wasn’t good with Ruby or web apps back then. Over time I realised I needed to master my own tools and spent 2 full months learning Ruby on Rails and JavaScript. For the first few months I developed most of the product myself.
D: Smart move, I can see those 2 months learning paid off!
P: Haha yes, it definitely helps setting the right direction with our coders! Today we are a 15 person team, and although I don’t code as much as I’d like to, I can still estimate very well how hard something is or find better solutions to our problems.
D: Some entrepreneurs recommend to bring in a great team instead of trying to build the whole product yourself. Did you consider getting others to build it?
P: It’s a valid approach too. I think that you should focus on what you’re great at and find people who are smarter than you to do the parts that you don’t do so well. In my case, my strength was product design and understanding the user. I did the programming in the early days but today our developers are more advanced than I am. You’d be a fool to think you can’t find somebody who’s better than you at something. And if that person is out there, why shouldn’t you hire him/her to help you out?
D: Great viewpoint. It really speaks volume about the strength of your team. How did you secure the name Teambox?
P: Having the right name is something very important. It helps you search for yourself, track your mentions, and it helps people remember you. You don’t want to build a site with a name impossible to write down or remember – I know some people have to spell their product names over the phone every single time! So I looked around to find good names. Teambox.com was free and we all loved it, so I bought the domain name for it from its original owner and launched it.
D: It was a great choice – descriptive and simple to remember. I can sense you mentor your team well with your understanding of the user. Do you work closely with mentors who have built businesses before?
P: Yes, I do. I like to hear both the success stories and the failure stories – there’s always things you can learn. Other founders and developers have inspired me greatly with their work and stories.
D: It is very inspiring to connect with others doing a similar thing to yourself – especially all over the world.
P: Thanks! I also enjoy to follow projects like yours and watching them grow.
D: So from this point on, where do you plan on taking Teambox?
P: Today we’re 15 people strong and have a nice number of customers. We’d like to grow our user base up to 5 million users during the following years and keep the product ahead in features and usability. We really want Teambox to be the place where you go to get things done, and help people like you work better every day.
D: Do you have any exclusive features planned you can tell us about?
P: Next month we’ll start shipping our iPhone and iPad versions. The iPad one is really amazing, I’d recommend you to keep an eye on that! And one more thing… our next release is loaded with JavaScript goodness and it’s very fast. It’s coming out in September, can’t wait for it to be ready!
D: From someone who uses Teambox almost daily I’m really looking forward to it! I’ve also had a sneak peek at your redesign, can you share your thoughts on your visual direction for the next release?
P: We’re shifting the focus from a project view to a user view. Most tools today are focused on “what’s going on in this project”, but what you really want to know is “what do I have to know about this project”. By showing you just what you need, you can be a lot more productive. And that’s something you’ll find all over the new design.
D: Any chance you can show the readers a sneak peek?
P: Sure, you’ve twisted my arm!
D: Thank you so much for sharing the screenshots. Your choice to take Teambox to a user-centric system sounds like a much more streamlined and focused platform. Now I’m sure you have many, but what’s your one tip for Entrepreneurs?
D: Pablo, thank you so much for this great interview for Inspiring Entrepreneurs. It’s incredible to be able to get the inside scoop on Teambox and also be inspired by you.
P: You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to your next steps with Barkles!
Connect with Pablo Villalba via Twitter @micho and make sure you check out Teambox.com. You can also follow @diesellaws.
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