One of the most amazing things about being a company that develops software for small businesses all around the world, is being able to see how so many different companies use that software.
It’s also inspiring to learn about all these vastly different industries and businesses that exist around the globe.
Our CEO, AJ, recently went on a trip to Europe where he visited a few customers and Marketcircle Experts. AJ learned about the different ways customers are using our apps, and how they’ve been instrumental in growing their businesses – and helping them gain control over their sanity along the way.
One of these customers that AJ visited was Jam Visual Thinking, a very creative company in Amsterdam. Their service is taking very complex concepts and proposals, and turning them into visualizations that are easy to understand and feel.
Jam Visual Thinking has been using Daylite for years. Mike Overdijk, owner of Jam Visual Thinking, talked to AJ about their design and creative process. They explained how they use Daylite for tracking new business opportunities from initial concept, through the design process, until the project is complete.
They discussed some challenges they’ve faced in deciding when to use Opportunities vs Projects, and how they’ve been changing and refining their workflow in Daylite to find the perfect process. Another part of improving processes is making sure that they’re being cost effective. To help with this, they’ve been working with iOSXpert to implement the Time&Budget plugin so they have more control over the cost of their projects.
Another customer that AJ visited while in Amsterdam was Inner Why. Inner Why was started by Eric Bartels and is a consulting business that studies what makes businesses successful. They then help businesses implement these growth strategies. Inner Why has been using Daylite for a few years and started out as a Self-Serve customer. After we released Daylite Cloud, they were happy to move to cloud so they no longer needed to waste time or effort managing a server or dealing with networking to make sure everybody’s devices synced with the server.
While in Amsterdam, AJ also visited Finch Buildings. Finch Buildings is a startup that builds reusable homes, essentially the size of a shipping container. These homes are prebuilt and can be assembled onsite within a matter of days. They basically come in cubes so they can be stacked, attached, have the plumbing and electrical work done onsite, and away you go. AJ was blown away by the innovation of this idea.
Jurrian Knijtijzer and Ivo Berg discussed with AJ how to implement Daylite into their sales process. AJ helped them learn how to use Daylite Pipelines to map out their sales cycle. It was inspiring for AJ to see how features that were developed years ago still apply to businesses today, including startups.
AJ also visited MacJunky in Amsterdam. MacJunky provides IT services to businesses and many of their clients use Daylite. Kia Kamgar, owner of MacJunky, and AJ discussed the history about Billings Pro and Daylite, as well as some exciting things our development team has been working on. 😉
Kia wrote about AJ’s visit at the MacJunky office on his blog.
The last two stops AJ made on his trip was to DayliteXpert in the Netherlands and then onto Germany to see Alf and the team at iOSXpert. Mike, our VP of Engineering, also met up with AJ in Germany to celebrate iOSXpert’s big opening party at their new office. They’ve expanded to now 16 people strong.
Overall, the trip was affirming for AJ to know that our efforts put into building Daylite Cloud was the right decision to make. Being able to eliminate the need for setting up or managing a server is what customers have asked for, and it’s proving to be key to startups that don’t have the infrastructure to setup a server.
It was great to hear from customers and partners that Daylite Cloud has helped to reduce the friction and struggle of starting to use Daylite, and to learn about the different ways businesses have used Daylite to help them grow.
