PlanHQ, a Wellington, New Zealand startup that launched in April 2007, has just 180 paying customers and $6,000/month in revenue. But their product, which allows companies to create and track business plan and other goals and objectives, is getting rave reviews from some well known venture capitalists. That’s good news for the tiny startup.
The product is an easy to use business plan builder and project manager – set up goals and projections (financial, product or customer related) and then track those goals with the software. It’s not free – PlanHQ costs between $9 and $45 per month. Half their customers are choosing the high end plan.
It’s proving to be a useful tool for keeping the executive teams of startups focused on their primary goals (the ones the stockholders and board of directors care about) by providing constant feedback on the status of those goals.
The funny thing is, CEOs may not be the best people to market the product to. Sometimes more transparency into how they and their teams are doing is the last thing they want. But PlanHQ is hoping that venture capitalists will push it on companies. First Round Capital, a very well known early stage venture fund, is testing PlanHQ (they are not an investor). Other VCs are testing it as well, says company founder Tim Norton.
For VCs, it provides a single interface for monitoring all of their investments and holding companies to their projections. PlanHQ is evolving to serve VCs more fully by launching a board member reporting feature on Wednesday. The company is also working on having the product integrate seamlessly with well known accounting software to import financial data.
The company has raised just $250,000 in capital from angel investors and has six employees. To the extent they can get VCs to make this mandatory for their portfolio companies, Norton may find himself running a profitable, if niche, business.
We recently started using google docs for a few of our non-profit projects we run. An online “project manager” function would be a great addition. I´ll check it out, see if we can use it.
This is a pretty cool tool, we have been using it recently and have been stoked. Only problem I can see is that web apps like this can be copied so easily and provided for free (e.g. basecamp -> activecollab). Then again, for the security, speed, and potential pay-off offered by PlanHQ, it is an awesome product. Silicon Welly rules!
ffwd is not a First Round Capital company, but I’ve been using PlanHQ since MAy and love it. I recommend it to other diligent CEOs regardless of whether your investors demand it. It is useful as a general repository of information like a business plan folder on steroids, a way to track “big picture” milestones that would get lost in my Entourage task list, and map out the industry landscape. I’ve even had occasion to use the “convert to Word Doc” function when a potential strategic investor asked for a old-school paper business plan.
We’ve been users of Plan HQ for since the start of the year and love it. It does make you change the way you think of a business plan. Prior to using Plan HQ, business planning was an annual activity, now it’s a weekly activity, which really helps us focus.
Using specialised software for this sort of thing is akin to using having a todo list in a paper note book, or using task management software to help keep you managed. Personally I’ve found software solutions to be the more effective.
its a great little service. Are there enough coffers in the techcrunch bank to buy this one
As Evan alluded to above, I can’t help but see HUGE similarities between the interface of Plan HQ and that of Basecamp.
Eerily similar…
IMHO, rename this article “The Little Startup that Could”
I’ve tried this and while it takes a bit of investment of your time to input all your data, it’s a really nice implementation and well worth trying out.
You’ve stopped linking to CrunchBase – thank heavens! I can read this blog safely again.
I wanted to try PlanHQ with the last business plan I was writing with friends, but the service was just too expensive and too restricting considering the flexibility and price of Basecamp.
I emailed their team and asked them to consider a free option or lower prices.
Seems like an interesting project. I’m sure its only a matter of time until someone launches a decent free option.
Congrats to Tim, Nat and the team in NZ. Always good to see great things happening to even better people. I applaud Tim on his transparency and information sharing that is rarely found in stateside start ups of this ilk. Definitely a “non-37sigs” attribute that should be embraced and followed by others.
“37signals-esque” and “eerily similar” are understatements – it’s looks like PlanHQ ripped Basecamp’s stylesheet. Even using HQ in the name is a little dicey, given the url for Basecamp – basecampHQ.com.
good site though…but I can’t pay
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
I’m going to give this a shot today and sign-up for their basic plan with 3 users. I’m hoping this can help alleviate some of the issues with having a virtual staff.
I have been using PlanHQ since it was in beta a year ago. Its also applicable for entrepreneurs who are narrowing down their big idea to a workable solution. One thing that distinguishes this from all their competitors is the fact that it ties action into the framework of a business plan with a getting things done (gtd) approach that can get you day to day progress. Give it a try, I had several accounts on trial till I found my big idea then signed up.
“’37signals-esque’ and ‘eerily similar’ are understatements – it’s looks like PlanHQ ripped Basecamp’s stylesheet. Even using HQ in the name is a little dicey, given the url for Basecamp – basecampHQ.com.”
That was the first thing I thought of. Completely copied.
Thanks for some of the feedback here, businesses that are getting a bit lost in operational project management and personal GTD tools, are getting where PlanHQ can help them start working on their business and not just in it.
We’ve chatted to 37signals, they are quite comfortable that we sit in our own space, a slightly closer looks shows what we’re doing, we’re all pretty experienced web people and have our own inspiration and direction, love their work ofcourse.
Enjoy and let us know anything thoughts, live in feedback and moving forward.
cheers,
Tim
Great tool and a great bunch of guys. Interested to see if they expand their offering or just stick to doing a simple thing well.
I hear that Josh Kopelman from First Round is a big fan.
Looks cool.. but it’s a rip-off from http://www.basecamphq.com.
thanks guys I knew it looked familiar but couldn’t place it, basecamp copy definitely!
maybe their exit strategy is to get bought out by the guys at 37 signals, seems like it wouldn’t be a big leap since it already looks the same