Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Interview with Zeb Evans, ClickUp
For today's interview, we sat down and chatted with >Zeb Evans, the founder and CEO of San Diego-based ClickUp (www.clickup.com), the developer of a workplace productivity software platform which is based by such companies as Google, Airbnb, and Nike. ClickUp has raised $135M in venture capital so far.
What is ClickUp?
Zeb Evans: ClickUp is a workplace productivity platform, for putting all of your work in one place, including tasks, docs, goals, and chat. It's a place for companies and small teams to work together to get more done.
It's been quite a year and a half with this pandemic. What's your read of what's going on in the workplace today?
Zeb Evans: Holistically, there's a huge demand for more flexibility or remote work. That translates to every business where you can work remotely. The demand is there, we've certainly seen that. Workplace Productivity recently reports that, a little over 50 percent of Americans will not work for a company that doesn't offer some kind of remote work flexibility now. We were flexible pre-pandemic, and definitely more flexible post-pandemic.
How has the switch to remote work during the pandemic impacted your business?
Zeb Evans: We're super lucky to support all the businesses that have gone remote during the pandemic, but even pre-pandemic, our software has enabled people to work either remotely or in-person, for getting more work done and saving time.
How are you funded and backed?
Zeb Evans: We've now raised a total of $135M combined between our Series A and B rounds. The Series A round was led by Craft Ventures, with our Series B led by Georgian Venture Partners.
There's a lot of workplace management and productivity software out there, help us understand where you fit into that environment?
Zeb Evans: Great question. We compete in several different categories within the market. In project management software, we have many competitors, in document management we have many competitors, and in goals management we have many competitors. But, we don't have a competitor that does all of those in one place. That's what ClickUp does. The market is full of a fragmented set of tools. On average, employees use at least 4 or more tools to get work done. ClickUp's biggest value-add, is to provide all of these in one app, rather than several.
Who are your typical customers?
Zeb Evans: From a product perspective, we have everything for everyone. We work for a small, mom-and-pop shop, and also for large enterprises sending rockets to outer space. It's totally customizable for your work case.
So, where do you think the work environment is like today?
Zeb Evans: It's all about adding flexibility for your employees to work remote if they like to work remote, but also so they can work in the office when they want. That's what we hear when we speak to our customers, and that's also for ourselves, internally. We have an office for people to go into when they want to, at the same time, we're flexible for remote work. Everybody is different, and some enjoy working in a collaborative environment—particularly creative teams and other departments where it's favorable to be in the same room—while there are also others on the other end of the spectrum, where people prefer working remotely, such as engineering. We see a lot of people in engineering demanding the flexibility to work remotely.
Where's your company now?
Zeb Evans: The size of our company is now around 350 employees. Half are in San Diego, and half are remote. We have over 3 million users and 300,000 teams using ClickUp today.
Finally, what's next for you?
Zeb Evans: We're just continuing our mission of making people more productive and saving time. We'll be adding some features like virtual white boarding and some other items . We have a vision and are continuing to focus on that relentlessly.