How we take total control of our operations at WDDW

I think about four things almost every day:

• Efficiency

• Cost

• Risk

• Scalability

Internal tools touch all four.

The more a company grows, the more tool subscriptions a company has. And since most of the subscriptions charge per seat, it can become a big chunk of the company’s fixed costs when you’re a scale-up like ours. 

Every department needs another module or additional tool. In general we see the typical flow: Start with Free. Free subscriptions need to go Pro because the team hit the limit. Some heavy hitters need a business tier, and that Saas tool requires ALL seats to upgrade to business too (If you know, you know). You might think: Our ROI  is still good, so what is this guy complaining about? Well.. there’s another risk. 

Eventually, your business becomes dependent on software you don't control. And dependent on costs you can’t control (because you are vendor locked, ouch!). But that’s not all. 

Okay. You can migrate to another tool. Let’s say you’re in Atlassian, but ClickUp impressed you with their latest Brain2 (Honestly, it’s pretty impressive indeed!). But… switching is easier said than done, because migrating (brrrr….) your stuff becomes a project in itself. So, what happens? 99% of us (correct me if i’m wrong) decide to postpone the decision - for later - when there’s “more time”. Which never happens and of course this thing is likely to be postponed towards the “good intention graveyard”. And then….oops, another yearly renewal just got billed. Another year stuck with a tool you actually wanted to get rid off. Thus, let’s fit some more processes in that tool, because we’re paying for it. Recognizable? Vendor lock, Anaconda, got you more in its grip.

At WDDW, we have a team of talented developers and a Vincent who can’t get enough of building new things. On top of that, AI boosted the productivity, which massively reduced the delivery timeliness of these internal tools. It’s incredible what we can achieve in a short amount of time, especially for internal tools, where it doesn't have to be perfect right away! This aligns with our vision and way of working. Why? Read it here: https://www.wedodevwork.com/en/blogs/momentum-not-perfection-seems-to-be-one-of-the-key-ingredients-for-us

So yes, I want to flex 3 of our internal tools we built and share what we are currently using day-to-day. And! You can get free access too, if you want to try! We will vendor lock you less aggressively than others, promise! 

Contact me at kitar@wedodevwork.com if you want to try one of our tools below:

1. Standup vs ClickUp

I genuinely like ClickUp.

At my previous company, I was a proud Power User. Flexing my ClickUp badge everywhere I could. 

We used a huge part of the business plan.

• Automations.

• Dashboards.

• Custom workflows.

• Resource management and allocations

• Gantt-charts 

It's a fantastic product with many (many, many) options.

But WDDW is a different company in a different stage with different ambitions than my previous company.

We simply don't need everything ClickUp offers. 

When you only use 10% of a platform's capabilities. It creates more noise than efficiency, and you’re obviously overpaying for the features you’re not using.  

On top of that, pricing changes and features move to more expensive plans more often than you would like. 

So we built Standup.

It started as a simple daily stand-up recording your presence and your top 3 achievements of the day.

Today it's where we manage tasks, leave requests, approvals, reimbursements, and team planning. Improving 1% a day is exactly what we need. And yes, there’s a leaderboard too! 

Nothing we don't use. 

The benefit isn't only that it's cheaper, but we are in full control of the tool instead of the tool controlling us. And yes. It makes a world of difference.

*note: pseudonymized data in screenshot to protect our clients

2. Town vs Gather

Gather was introduced by Wave at WDDW. Remote working became the new standard during COVID times, but as a remote worker myself for the past 6 years, I do sometimes miss the convenience of walking up to someone’s desk. Of course you can ping your team via slack (or mattermost in our case), or schedule a quick call over Zoom or Google Meet, but that’s not replacing the ‘walk to someone’s desk’ experience. Gather is solving that in a playful way, a.k.a. The Gen-Z way. 

Gather is basically a gamified virtual office. With Gather you can walk around with your digital version of yourself and create rooms with a desk and chairs like Sims, but also literally walk up to someone’s desk. When you are within a certain reach, an instant voice and/or chat starts. If there are more people in that reach, a group call starts. Or you can join an ongoing group call. Really convenient. Great tool. But quite expensive.

Now, that inspired us to build Town. Town may graphically not be on the level of Gather yet, but it’s packed with the same convenient features for our team. But why stop here? Most of us understand the importance of having an SSOT (single source of truth), where all the updated information is stored and can be relied on. Most misalignment and inefficiency starts here. But most companies don’t have it, and unfortunately all information is still scattered.

So we combined Standup with Town where project documentation, tasks and communication happen in a dedicated project room in Town. Information drawn from standup. We have our SSOT! With the convenience as if you’re working together in an office space. 

Efficiency. Control. Flexibility. Cost effectiveness.

*note: pseudonymized data in screenshot to protect our data

3. Cashflow whisperer vs spreadsheets  

Cash flow is one of the biggest challenges in start-ups and scale-ups. Especially for agencies getting paid by the milestone or agreeing to subcontracting payment constructions. Having a healthy margin, revenue, and profit margin is great, but you have to survive until the clients pay and the money is in your bank account. And in some cases it can take up to 60-90 days after the delivery of a project. So naturally, we asked ourselves: Will we survive until the next payments? 

As an Excel geek, my starting point was to create a spreadsheet. But, with this, I wanted to be able to create different scenarios. What if customer A is not paying on time? And we don’t close prospect B. What is the impact of that? What if we want to scale our team with an extra developer and another tech lead? We want to be able to go on a team trip at the end of the year; given the data we have right now and our pipeline, is that realistic? Spreadsheets were too limited for that. The Cash Flow Whisperer tool was needed! 

With Cashflow Whisperer all your income, expenses, your pipeline, and future expenses (new office, new resources?) can be added. It will plot a graph for you and indicate when you’re at risk and what date you will run out of cash. This way you can optimize your cash flow easily and focus on the right things to avoid an empty bank account. It has been a game changer for us.

*note: pseudonymized data in screenshot to protect our data

Conclusion 

At the end of the day, this isn't really about replacing ClickUp, Gather, or Excel. They're all great products, and we still use plenty of third-party software ourselves. This is about being intentional about what you outsource and what you own. For us, the tools we use every single day are part of our competitive advantage. Every hour we save, every process we simplify, every subscription we eliminate, and every feature we can adapt within a day instead of being dependent on another company’s roadmap makes a huge difference in our operational efficiency. 

Once you have the right people, you can shape your business around your way of working, instead of shaping your way of working around someone else's software. And who knows? Maybe one of them will eventually become a product on its own. Until then, they'll keep making us a little faster, a little leaner, and a little more independent every single day. That's exactly where we want to be.

Don’t have the right people? Let us help you create your own internal tool and be independent and cost efficient!