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September 24, 2007

PlanHQ Still Tiny, But Getting A-List Attention

Michael Arrington

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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.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Rod Drury > On a world stage

    September 28th, 2007 at 12:22 am

  2. Make it Happen » Blog Archive » Strong DEMO for PlanHQ

    November 25th, 2007 at 3:18 pm

  3. Make it Happen » Blog Archive » Building Communities

    May 22nd, 2008 at 7:40 am

Comments

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  1. Sebastian W.

    September 24th, 2007 at 11:58 pm

    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.

  2. Evan

    September 25th, 2007 at 12:09 am

    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!

  3. Patrick

    September 25th, 2007 at 12:17 am

    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.

  4. Tim Copeland

    September 25th, 2007 at 12:24 am

    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.

  5. Darren Stuart

    September 25th, 2007 at 12:50 am

    its a great little service. Are there enough coffers in the techcrunch bank to buy this one :P

  6. Bryce Sutherland

    September 25th, 2007 at 1:25 am

    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…

  7. Aaronontheweb

    September 25th, 2007 at 1:48 am

    IMHO, rename this article “The Little Startup that Could”

  8. Nick Bolton

    September 25th, 2007 at 1:52 am

    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.

  9. Ross Parker

    September 25th, 2007 at 2:15 am

    You’ve stopped linking to CrunchBase - thank heavens! I can read this blog safely again.

  10. Hashim Warren

    September 25th, 2007 at 4:40 am

    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.

  11. Jon Wheatley

    September 25th, 2007 at 5:13 am

    Seems like an interesting project. I’m sure its only a matter of time until someone launches a decent free option.

  12. JP

    September 25th, 2007 at 7:08 am

    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.

  13. Drew M.

    September 25th, 2007 at 10:43 am

    “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.

  14. phenom

    September 25th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    good site though…but I can’t pay
    http://vidsonly.blogspot.com

  15. Paul

    September 25th, 2007 at 12:34 pm

    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.

  16. Tim de Jardine

    September 25th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

    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.

  17. Skyler

    September 25th, 2007 at 1:39 pm

    “’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.

  18. Tim Norton

    September 25th, 2007 at 3:02 pm

    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

  19. Mick Liubinskas

    September 25th, 2007 at 5:33 pm

    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.

  20. Philippe K. Chrun

    September 26th, 2007 at 7:37 pm

    Looks cool.. but it’s a rip-off from http://www.basecamphq.com.

  21. Zoe

    September 26th, 2007 at 10:22 pm

    thanks guys I knew it looked familiar but couldn’t place it, basecamp copy definitely!

  22. Phillip

    September 28th, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    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

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