In most modern businesses, the importance of collaboration is sometimes ignored and that is a problem. The impact of well-designed team collaboration on business bottom line is often overlooked in order to grow and enter the market at breakneck speed.

Internal communication requires active action in order to fulfill its endeavors, and its impact is woefully underestimated. This is where the idea came from Chanty, a team collaboration tool designed for small and medium-sized businesses.

Chanty was launched in 2017 as a platform to support SMEs in using technology and software-based solutions to close the glaring communication gaps that often exist in such companies.

The birth of an idea to revolutionize the software industry for collaboration and productivity

Before Chanty, its CEO and founder Dmytro Okunyev ran a design agency. In his role, he had a strong need to stay connected with all of his stakeholders – from customers to his teams, to third parties and suppliers. However, he found that the communication that was taking place was very ineffective and he saw large gaps in the whole process.

It was clear to him that the right software was needed to solve this problem, with which he had already gained first-hand experience in his role at the time. But he couldn’t find one that suited the type of business he worked in. Most collaboration tools appeared to be enterprise-focused and did not take into account the specific needs of SMBs.

He saw a market that was clearly there and set out to develop a collaboration tool that takes into account how SMBs work and what they need to be productive.

This is how Chanty was born. When asked what it is, Dmytro says, “Think of us like a collaboration tool that is a combination of Slack, Trello and Zoom, all neatly packed into one easy-to-use platform. Chanty enables companies to easily chat with their teams, implement project management practices via Kanban boards and access built-in video calling / conference functions. “

Chanty enables its users to communicate, collaborate and connect by bringing everything to a single platform. They say it eliminates the need for multiple tools and saves SMBs both time and money. Well who doesn’t want that?

Organic growth was the way to go for Chanty

The growth path for Chanty has so far been steady and organic. In 2021 alone, they added 70,000 new teams to the platform, which is by no means an easy task. A big contributor to their success, according to Dmytro, was their positioning and pricing.

“We are 2x faster, easier and cheaper than our competitors and that is also one of the reasons why our customers love us. We have now set up our marketing machine and are banking on growth through content marketing and social media. Day by day we are strengthening our positioning in the market and with our customers. ”He adds.

When they first started, they relied heavily on their customer research interviews and qualitative research to refine their idea and develop a product that SMBs will really benefit from. They made optimizations and a few iterations later, Chanty is now a growing company with numerous customers.

Dmytro continues, “The sky’s the limit here, but I think in the industry in general it is easier when users have some experience with the type of product on offer. It helps them connect with the solution more easily. Different platforms and apps work in the same room and, at first glance, don’t seem to have many differences between them. But the devil is in the details, and if you manage to capture that invisible feeling for a usable product, then you will absolutely win. “

The future looks interesting and bright in the area of ​​cooperation

Chanty states that their goal is to improve the existing one and become a better product for SMBs that can be used every day. You plan to carefully monitor the current trends in productivity and see where the industry is headed. And there they think that it is heading for seamless asynchronous communication.

“We don’t have any artificial growth in the way we work and it was all very organic from the start. We try to create a very simple and comfortable collaboration experience so that users will love us more. This will help get the business on an upward trend. This translates directly into more sales, a higher position in the market and increased market coverage, ”says Dmytro.

When asked about the future of their product, he continues: “We intend to develop our product so that we see fewer video conferences and calls. We want to enable better visual and presentation-oriented collaboration between teams and companies. We could also see a smarter way of accessing information, such as using AI to get the data that is needed at a given point in time. “

According to Dmytro, we will see some changes in the collaboration and productivity market as well. He thinks we’re going to move from general tools to more specialized tools designed for and with specific businesses in mind. Products and tools that target niche companies and teams will be the winners.

He continues, “Software is getting bigger in terms of the features it offers, while also becoming more user-experience oriented. Personally, I’m a firm believer in visual communication, where people can create and share presentations, and collaboration happens on those visual assets as well. I really think things like interactive whiteboards and mind mapping software are going to be the next big thing. Here you can create your own projects – and create notes, videos, text, audio and more. “

As it stands, we can look forward to something exciting in the area of ​​collaboration and productivity!