How Backlog helped a tech startup launch an award-winning product

We spoke with James Yeomans - National Sales Engineering at Choice Business Connections - to understand how his team used Backlog to organize their business roadmap and launch an award-winning portal for IoT connectivities.

Backlog is also helping the startup contain costs, communicate without emails, and avoid miscommunication among team members working in different locations.

Let’s start with your company, what can you tell us about it?

Initially, one of our main goals was to create a portal that solution providers across all industries could use to activate and manage their mobile devices, like credit card machines or diabetes monitors with Bluetooth capabilities - all the things people use thanks to the internet of things (IoT) and 5G.

Why did you feel you needed a tool like Backlog?

We were building a new business, and for us, it was essential to have a centralized place for our development work, where we could keep track of our tasks and projects. Like every startup, we needed to have several things done at the same time - one of them was to develop the portal our customers now use to manage their wireless IoT connectivity. We also needed to work on our business development in saleforce.com. After looking at different tools and trying some of them, we decided that Backlog was the best fit for our needs.

Part of our team is spread in different locations and time zones - throughout the United States and overseas - and Backlog makes it a lot easier to organize our workflow. Communicating and sharing information in a centralized place gives us a comprehensive view of our main priorities and of the development lifecycle of our projects. Consequently, it helps us do cost containment.

Why did you choose Backlog over the other products you tried?

Backlog is easy to use and it is cost-effective. When I was looking for an issue tracking tool, I checked several software, and they all looked like a much bigger commitment of time and effort. I think Backlog has a superior interface, it’s easy to navigate, and there is no training required as it’s very intuitive. We ended up being able to launch our award-winning portal earlier than expected. And I’d like to thank Backlog a little bit for that.

How do you use Backlog to communicate and collaborate with your team? And what are the main goals Backlog helped you achieve since you started using it?

We have an overall roadmap, and with Backlog, we break it down into prioritizations and we time it out by creating different projects, issues, and by adding child issues. This has enabled us to successfully develop our projects, create a very complex portal for our solution providers and build our startup - we couldn’t have done it as quickly and as efficiently without Backlog.

Thanks to Backlog, we can communicate and keep the ball rolling 24/7 on our development efforts. From a communication standpoint, we basically stopped sending emails to each other - it was messy and almost impossible to track. Now, whenever we are talking about something, we just say “let’s put it in Backlog”. This way, ideas can be captured and then, of course, prioritized.

The ability to include attachments and notes adds a lot of value to Backlog. There is no more confusion about what is asked of team members. Often, in software development, there are a lot of assumptions. We try to reduce improper assumptions by having everything detailed exactly the way we want it with descriptions, graphs, pictures, etc.

We also use Backlog as a repository for all the information that we receive from third parties. Usually, we get a lot of information from vendors, and now we can store it in a unified spot. So everyone can access that information, update it, and refer to it.

Do you have a favourite Backlog’s feature?

The Gantt chart, because it gives us a snapshot of where we are, what’s behind, what’s ahead. It allows us to effectively manage our resources as we are in the development phase.

Do you ever use the mobile app?

Yes, of course. It’s on my iPhone and iPad. It’s handy: When I wake up, first thing in the morning, I can check it and see what has been accomplished overnight.

Happy customer?

Very happy. Thanks, Backlog!

Backlog proved itself to be an excellent tool for a growing startup. It empowered Choice Business Connections to start its business and launch a new product quickly and efficiently while saving costs.

Team members can easily manage complex projects across different times zones without the risk of miscommunication or hitch in the workflow. All information provided by clients is safely stored in one place, enabling everyone to have access to critical data during the whole project development. The result is a more agile and productive collaboration and communication for all.

Thanks to Backlog, Choice Business Connections can manage its resources, plan, and execute its roadmap effectively with an overall picture of past, present, and future projects.

Happy customer, indeed.