GE 290: How This Married Couple Built Notejoy and Continues to Excel As Business Partners! (podcast)

Hey everyone! In today’s episode, I share the mic with Ada and Sachin Rekhi of Notejoy, a collaborative notes app for teams.

Tune in to hear how this married couple has managed to work together without driving each other crazy, the inspiration for Notejoy, and how they achieved broader adoption among agencies, freelancers and SMBs.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

• [00:39] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast!
• [02:00] Ada and Sachin started Notejoy, because of their own personal experiences.
• [02:28] The tools aren’t keeping up with the challenges you face in modern day collaboration.
• [03:00] There are great messaging apps and shared document services, but they aren’t being updated.
• [03:26] They wanted something that was fast, effective, and served as a searchable archive.
• [03:50] They purchased the domain 2 years before founding the company.
• [04:28] When Sachin worked for a different company, he was able to grow the team and improve their efficiency.
• [05:18] He found the tools they had were not doing the trick.
• [06:07] People see Notejoy as an alternative to Google Docs.
• [06:47] However, when talking to customers, they found Notejoy served their customers above and beyond Google Docs.
• [08:26] Everyone was taking notes individually in various ways, but there wasn’t a clear way to share them.
• [08:50] Zapier uses Notejoy.
• [09:10] Zapier recruiters use Notejoy for interview notes and more.
• [10:41] Notejoy takes a full freemium approach, which works for individuals and small teams.
• [11:00] The paid plans allow you to add more than 5 users, see past versions, and have a lot more depth and functionality.
• [12:18] Initially, they found it difficult to go after large enterprise operations, so they went for smaller SMBs.
• [12:40] They were surprised that they achieved broader adoption amongst agencies, freelancers, and small teams.
• [13:06] These types of orgs were using Notejoy to collaborate not just with their teams, but also their clients.
• [14:59] Notejoy supports the ability to document as you go and easily find things later.
• [16:05] They often get asked what it’s like to run a business with a spouse.
• [18:05] Within Trello, Notejoy offers the ability to embed documents instead of attaching.
• [18:45] This is a great way to increase the functionality of Trello.
• [21:33] Ada and Sachin enjoy working together.
• [21:54] A clear division of roles and responsibilities at work makes their relationship work.
• [24:30] Ada thinks it is important to give and get feedback.
• [24:50] Giving your partner feedback shouldn’t cause strife.
• [26:00] Always give feedback with the intention of making the product (or other aspect of the business) better.
• [30:10] OKR is a framework they fell in love with at LinkedIn, so every quarter, they each have a set of OKRs.
• [30:47] Ada and Sachin score each other on the OKRs each quarter.
• [31:05] They love The Daily Standup.
• [31:27] Taking the dog on a evening walk was great for their relationship and a good way to stay in sync.
• [33:45] Ada and Sachin resolved to lose weight, run marathons, etc. in the coming year.
• [34:30] Ada’s 2018 fitness goals were facilitated by HabitShare.
• [36:00] Break your resolutions down into quarterly goals.
• [36:44] 75% is a good OKR. Anything higher means you set easy goals.
• [37:45] Sachin recommends the book Creative Selection.
• [39:11] Ada recommends the book Mindset.
• [41:46] Ada has been using the Captio tool, a quick way to send email reminders.
• [42:25] Sachin uses the tool, RunKeeper and has found it helpful in tracking marathon training processes.

Resources from the interview:

• Notejoy
• Zapier
• Trello
• Must-read books: 
  • Creative Selection
  • Mindset
• Sachin’s Website
• Ada’s Website

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