Fibery.io 2021 year in review
Independence. Emigration & remote work. $3.1M Seed round. Booming market. 58 posts in our blog. $290K ARR. 100 new features. 32 new releases. Fibery for Product Teams release. Some product/market fit. 4 new people.
Dissatisfaction leads to progress. Doesn’t it?
Dissatisfaction leads to progress—in business, personal development, and software development in particular. Learn how to embrace frustration to get the best things done.
Working backwards to find an activation metric
How we tried to pick an objectively good activation event for our non-linear product and invented something else instead.
How to Build Your Company's Brain with Fibery
That's the best Fibery explainer so far. Now even we (Fibery employees) are beginning to understand how Fibery works.
Fibery vs. Monday. Complex vs. simple processes.
Deep review of Fibery and Monday. Monday works best for simple processes. Fibery works best for complex processes and knowledge management.
Survival guide for an introverted CEO
Does a CEO have to love small talk and networking? Behold eight tips on how to avoid it and still be a successful introverted CEO.
How to run a company without HR department?
Imho, HR is overrated. Learn to run a company without HR department and with a high level of employee engagement and streamlined company culture.
How to accept criticism
How to accept criticism? I can be straightforward about it. Only through practicing a lot with it.
#38. Experimenting in October 2021
Activation stats. Experiment with Fibery structure. Experiment with a 90-days trial. Experiment with live onboarding. Experiment with an outreach agency. Partners program. New features.
Determinate optimism
How to achieve the state of determinate optimism and why does it matter in Product Management.
5 questions to ask in an interview
I won’t tell you about any widely-known tricks or common questions like if a person is stressed, talk about some everyday stuff first. Let's dig deeper.
How to motivate team by removing stuff
How to motivate team without actually doing anything? Check out this article for 3 tips for employee motivation in software development.
#37. Keep fighting in September 2021
TLDR: Meditations on complexity. Fibery Partners program. New templates. Automations rules webinar. Huge WIP.
You need to complete Features
What happens to a product with multiple unfinished features? It simply cannot become people’s favorite.
Steps in new product development: get it right
Learn the insider’s rules and steps in new product development to launch your software product successfully in one year (maybe).
Slice that pie: how to split equity in a startup
Read this post to find out the only reasonable way of how to split equity in a startup fairly, efficiently, and without losing trust in your co-founders.
#36. 20k MRR in August 2021
Special Startup Diary edition. 20k MRR & 15 new customers! +Chris. +Sales agency. 4 case studies. Airtable integration & notify people action.
Advantages and disadvantages of meetings for development teams
How many meetings should I squeeze in my day? Which team meeting to attend, which to ditch? What’s the hourly cap for meetings in one’s life? Let’s discuss!
(Non) transparent work culture
Achieve transparent work culture and mutual trust at your company in three hard, challenging, yet very efficient steps. Works for a remote team as well.
How to start your own product: to-dos and not-to-dos
Read this if you had intrusive thoughts like: “dammit, this app is the same as I thought of a year ago!” or even “I’m fed up with my managers, time to do something of my own.”
(Un)Popular opinion: abolish working week
Why do we work from Monday to Friday and who said it’s optimal for software development or the creative industry?
#35. Raised $3.1M in July 2021
TLDR: We closed $3.1M seed round. Building a second brain for teams. Fibery mission. Building in Public. Automation rules. Documents and Rich Text history.
Fibery raises $3.1M Seed Round to build a second brain for teams
We, at Fibery, are helping teams solve complex problems, and happy to announce that today we closed a $3.1M seed round led by Altair Capital.
#34. Thinking about the Next Big Thing in Fibery in June 2021
Thinking about the next big thing. Fibery for startups webinar. Fibery vs. ClickUp. Minsk office is closed. Share Documents and Entities. Group permissions
The role of luck in success: get philosophical
I believe that luck (random positive events) plays a paramount role both on peronal and company levels. Read this blog post to see how even one random chance can have a great impact.
10 worst interview questions
Forget these interview questions 🙅 and never ask them your potential employees in software development (or elsewhere).
Group permissions that blend into collaboration software
In most products, you'll find permissions on the outskirts, disconnected from the rest of the data — but not in Fibery.
5 Biggest Problems in Software Development
Whine with me about the biggest problems in software development. From user satisfaction to more profound issues, let's discuss it.
🔎 Educator (remote)
Looking for an educator to create explanations for our beloved (and confused) creators.
Fibery vs. ClickUp. Complex or Complicated?
Deep review of Fibery and ClickUp. ClickUp is an extensive complicated tool that focuses on Tasks. Fibery is a complex tool that focuses on connected processes.
Goals and KPIs, and effective managers
Goals and KPIs can destroy the workflow. How can meaningful objectives be disruptive? Learn to avoid the mess in setting goals and KPIs in just one simple step.
#33. On Fire in May 2021
Emigration from Belarus. 90-days trial. Lemonade! -Anna, +Ilya. Web site changes. Full-text search. Cumulative reports. SAML SSO.
Why are deadlines important even though I hate them?
Why are deadlines important for software development—even if we all hate them sincerely? I’ve spent 10 years figuring it out. Enjoy the results of my research!
Entrepreneur self-doubt and confidence (take both!)
Find out how a startup founder should profit from both entrepreneur self-doubt and confidence—especially when the product needs to be tested yet.
How to increase team productivity using Integromat automation
While it’s true that automation is a popular buzzword right now, there’s still a lot of evidence to back that buzz up.
Product Discovery isn't just for the Product Team
If your discovery process involves the same handful of people, opportunities may be overlooked because the insights that would lead you to them are never acknowledged.
#32. Productive April 2021
4 new releases. 11 new customers. Automated actions. Undelete things. Crazy Thursday aka 'Der CollabdocDenburg'. Fibery for User Research.
Overcoming fear of public speaking in 8 easy & honest tips
It’s never too late: read these 8 easy, frank tips on overcoming fear of public speaking and learn to speak confidently on stage.
Practical tips on how to understand when to close a startup
Use this easy rule of thumb to know when to close a startup instead of staying a “promising company” that won’t deliver anything in the next ten years.
How to organize and process feedback for B2B SaaS product
Feedback organization helps to prioritize features, build better solutions and engage customers. Let's explore how to do it right in a B2B SaaS product.
Non-comprehensive Guide on How to Become a Great Product Manager
The best way to try out a product management role is to launch your own product. All other skills and qualities will gradually come. Or not.
2x: Simple rule for software development time estimation
Discover the golden rule of software development time estimation that fits any team and is proven by years of expertise.
Hypertext tools from the 80s
The pre-internet era was full of wonderful and very powerful systems that are well forgotten now, but we definitely can learn from them, try to understand why we had an enormous degradation in the 1990s and 2000s, and why we are enjoying hypertext systems renaissance now.
Why is transparency in the workplace a must for any company?
Check out what transparency in the workplace can bring your company — and how no transparency screws everything up.
#31. Slow Acceleration in March 2021
Better traction and $10K MRR. 13 new customers. Fibery 2.0 foundation. Regular posts in our blog. First webinar. Super Polina. More explanatory videos.
How to focus on work (especially when you can’t)
Learn from my experience of how to focus on work when Slack and Facebook lure you into talks.
Bundling vs. Unbundling
In the age of specialization it looks like unbundling is the only viable strategy. Well, it is not.
Product idea validation: how to do it?
There's only one way out: start creating the minimum viable product. This is the most effective strategy for product validation. Why? It brings you external feedback.
Augmenting Organizational Intelligence
In a knowledge economy, we compete with knowledge, not force. Our productivity tools should become knowledge management tools as well — thus, making companies more intelligent.
How to measure productivity of software development teams
Measuring developer productivity by hours is an attempt to reduce uncertainty by squeezing it into a simple model. Yet in our industry, we must accept uncertainty, learn to thrive with it.
#30. Baby Steps in February 2021
Many demos for product teams. Product Teams A/B Test. Complexity. Other niches experiments paused. New roadmap. Hierarchical Lists View released.
Does your company really need investment?
There is an important decision to make: build a lifestyle business or a startup? And the sooner you decide, the sooner you will stop worrying and start living.
Start with a niche
The most popular products don’t become mass popular overnight. It’s a process. Usually they popularity is uneven, they are unknown in some niches, but very popular in another niches.
Fibery vs. Aha! What a beauty!
Aha! is a weird-looking product with tons of features. It's easy to compete with it aesthetically, but hard functionally.
Startups and near-death experience
Quite many top startups had a transformative near-death experience that changed everything and help them to find a path to success.
How to write beautiful Feature Specs in Fibery
Feature spec should be inside Feature, not some other external tool. This article explains specs creation tips and tricks for product managers.
#29. Freedom in January 2021
Independence and freedom. Fibery for Product Teams release. Some marketing activities started. Kate joined our marketing team. Fantastic reviews from our customers.
Fibery vs. Productboard. The hard choice.
Productboard is a solid product. However, it doesn't cover some important product development areas.
Automate and integrate with Integromat
Use Integromat and connect Fibery to hundreds of other tools and automate routine tasks with no code.
How Fibery uses Fibery for product development
Using Fibery as a tool for product Roadmapping, OKRs, Ideation, CRM, Feedback management, Competitors tracking and Software development
New pricing starting Jan 2021
Free for individuals and early-stage startups, $100/month for teams, $500/month for companies. Not sure it's a good idea, but here it is.
#28. Hibernating November 2020
Fibery 2.0 release moved to January 2021. Not so many new features, but expect a new burst soon. Anna joined our company as the Head of Marketing. Winter (or Summer) came.
#27. Reaching Level X in October 2020
TLDR: First integrations are released. Product teams validation is in progress. Hope to have Fibery 2.0 launch in December. We are still looking for Head of Marketing
Fibery approach to integration
An unorthodox way to integrate Fibery with external systems, like GitHub, Intercom, GitLab, HubSpot, Jira, Braintree and others.
Time Tracking in Fibery
How to log hours manually or with a timer, generate timesheet for each person, and create flashy project reports
🔎 Head of Marketing (remote)
Looking for the Head of Marketing (CMO) to explain why Fibery is not that awful to the wider audience.
#26. Probing Product Workspace in September 2020
Got $700K tranche. Cooperation with the new design agency. Start of a direct sales experiment. Product workspace is coming. Integrations are coming. We are looking for Head of Marketing.
#25. Lost August 2020
Fibery startup progress in August 2020: Elections in Belarus. WTF??? Violence. Shock. Revolution. Depression. Hope.
#24. Breaking through July 2020
Fibery startup progress in July 2020. More customers. Terms Sheet with VC is finally signed. Better North Star metric!
The Knowledge Organization
Looking for the most natural way to organize collective knowledge: folders vs. networks vs. databases.
#23. Fighting Stability and Performance in June 2020
Vizydrop team will join Fibery in August. Terms Sheet with the VC fund is negotiated and confirmed. Stability problems resolved. Performance improved. New blog delivered. Fibery sticks better.
Bi-Directional Hypertext Links in Fibery
One-way links are not always good. When you mention an entity in Fibery, a back-reference appears on its page. This makes knowledge discoverable.
#22. Accumulating $1M+ seed round in May 2020
$1M confirmed from angels for the seed round. Deeper negotiation with a VC fund. Tons of content. Largest customer. Roadmap for the next 3 months is nailed. Chaos.
Fibery vs. Coda. The Power of Workarounds.
Deep review of Coda and Fibery on a real case. Coda is a set of powerful docs / Fibery is a set of connected apps.
Fibery vs. Airtable. We connect your bases!
Deep review of Airtable and Fibery on a real case. Airtable is a set of connected tables / Fibery is a set of connected spaces.
Fibery vs. Notion.
Notion is an awesome product. However, it’s not perfect. Notion works best for individuals and small teams, while Fibery works better for larger teams and complex processes.
#21. Public Launch in April 2020
Public launch April 1st. Product of the Day on PH. Some offers from VC. Super-productive month. Better activity, but stagnating MRR. Cool Whiteboard View. Remote.
Use Networks to Prioritize Product Features
Features prioritization is the hardest problem in product management. Learn how to get better in it using... networks.
Automations Concepts Overview
In this article I tried to briefly review all possible ways to add automation layer into a system.
New Wiki Approach: Store Your Documents Close to Work
Wiki concept is not new. But in Fibery it has a new twist.
#20. Staying Alive in March 2020
Panic mode. +Pavel +Alexey. Productivity soars. No VC. Remote. New pricing scheme. New getting started.
Fibery — connected workspace for teams 🦑
Introducing Fibery 1.0 — a modular workspace that replaces costly isolated tools and brings teams together.
#19. First Customers in February 2020
First true customers. 100 active accounts. +Polina. Up to speed. −Telemetry. Still no public launch. Independence!
#18. Enduring January 2020
Public announcements moved to February. -Nikita. -VC. -Snow. -Speed. Cortisol pit. Crossing Valley of death. Optimism.
#17. Fragmented December 2019
Public announcements moved to January. +Lena. Tons of feedback. First money! Hype is over. We consider rising a ~$4M round.
#16. Crazy November 2019
Fibery 1.0 is silently launched. Silence is hard to keep. HackerNews front page. Twitter madness. 3000 registered accounts.
Whiteboard View v.0.0.1
Today we’ve released the very first version of Whiteboard View: draw diagrams, schemes, mind maps and flows.
#15. Multi-tasking October 2019
Nikita is back! New web site. Pricing simplified. Left menu redesigned. Getting started experienced. Polishing is eternal.
#14. Anxious September 2019
Domain evolution is done. Notifications are done. Actions Buttons are done. Fall is free. Creators! Polishing is terrified.
No-code Revolution. Why Now?
Historical and conceptual review of the trends in no-code work management wave. Why it's time to empower creators?
#13. Hot August 2019
Notifications are somewhat done. Rename is graceful. Action Buttons are born. Canvas View is growing. Javascript. HN banned us.
Organizing your Work in Fibery
Work organization is hard. This article shows how to configure Fibery to manage many work processes balancing flexibility and order.
#12. Controlled Panic in July 2019
Table View is done, Notifications are in progress, Automation Rules are postponed. Everybody is a unicorn. Serious shit! Summertime.
Fibery Table View v.0.1
We’ve completed basic functionality for Table View in Fibery and are ready to share it with the world.
#11. Stealth June 2019
Fibery startup progress in June 2019: Public API and Formulas are completed. Release is closer. Team got crazier.
Fibery.io Philosophy
We create Fibery.io based on several main principles. They are short, deep and concrete.
Formulas in Fibery
Fibery supports formulas. So far Formula field supports Number only (Decimal or Integer). More data types will be added later (Date, Text…
#10. Burn in May 2019
Several people burned out, new features are delivered, public release will be sooner (we hope) (despite ill fortune).
#9. Choosing the Right Road in April 2019
We’ve fixed 60 bugs, completed some features, added one teammate and frustratedly discussed many potential options for Fibery future.
#8. Fixing Private Beta in March 2019
Fibery startup progress in March 2019: We’ve provided access to Fibery to 100 accounts and collected some feedback.
Fibery Slack Bot
Our Slack Bot has no AI yet. However, it can be useful. Fibery Slack bot can create entities from messages, create entities via a command.
Fibery and Zapier Integration
Today we’ve released Zapier Integration in Fibery. You can connect many services together using Zapier and automate some actions.
#7. Pushing Private Beta in February 2019
We’ve released private beta in February. Now we are fixing bugs, setting up accounts, collecting feedback and think about future.
Fibery.io Private Beta Release is here
Fibery (work management platform) is two years in development already, and we are finally going to release something.
#6. Planning Private Beta in January 2019
Fibery startup progress in January 2019: Private beta goals, selecting a market positioning (hard), apps re-design.
#5. Engine Warm Up in December 2018
Company: decreased burn rate. Product changes: formulas, filters, timeline improvements, create entities in batches.
You don't need generic product roadmap templates
It’s tempting to download the first roadmap template you find. But you should avoid them, if you’re serious about building a sustainable self-sufficient business.
#4. Winter is Coming in November 2018
Fibery startup results in November 2018. Good development speed, new app creation flow, wiki, customizable entity view.
The Next Wave of Work Management Software
Work management tools paradigm shift is there. There are few promising vendors that trying to disrupt work management market.
#3. Smelling a Private Beta in October 2018
Fibery startup progress in October 2018: Alpha version feedback, new web site, custom app creation, apps import and export.
#2. Slow September 2018
Fibery startup progress in September 2018. Slow month with not so many news. First positive feedback. Company name selection.
Fibery.io User Guide for Creators
This guide will help you to penetrate entrance barrier and internalize Fibery mental model. Thus you will freely navigate Fibery and tailor it to your own needs and cases.
#1. Crawling in August 2018
Startup backstage is an interesting thing to observe. I’ll write regular posts about Fibery progress and results.
Fibery.io Vision v.1: Getting Started
Overview of the Fibery vision. Building blocks and main concepts. Custom Domain. Custom Rules. UI Components. Apps.