It was this frustration with email that led a French twenty-something to start Front – a software company dedicated to building a better inbox.

In this episode, host Ilana Strauss finds out why Front’s founders were so committed to tackling a tool many tech companies wanted to give up on, the path that led them to Silicon Valley, the health setbacks that forced them to re-think their company’s commitment to work-life balance, and how they discovered an untapped market of users.

You’ll hear from Front’s co-founder and CEO Mathilde Collin and head of product Nate Abbott, as well as Chris Schwass from Culture Amp, an employee engagement company that relies heavily on email to communicate with customers.

When It Clicked is an original podcast from ClickUp. For a transcript of this episode and other extras, check out When It Clicked - Front.  

So when two engineers decided to find a fix for complicated CRMs, the program they created – Scratchpad – also ended up becoming a lifehack for the neurodiverse users, everywhere. 

In this episode, host Ilana Strauss finds out why Scratchpad’s founders decided to take on the challenge of simplifying Salesforce, how they connected with the neurodiverse community for help, and when they realized that designing products around the different ways people think made the outcomes exponentially better.     

You’ll hear from Scratchpad’s co-founder and CEO Pouyan Salehi, and Cyrus Karbassiyoon, the company’s co-founder and Chief Technical officer, as well as Tarun Malik, an account executive for TouchBistro, a point-of-sale system for restaurants. Malik has ADHD, and is one of many neurodiverse sales people regularly using and providing feedback to Scratchpad. 

When It Clicked is an original podcast from ClickUp. For a transcript of this episode and other extras, check out When It Clicked - Scratchpad.

Today, Shopify powers more than 1.7 million merchants with enough combined sales to make it the second largest online retailer in the U.S. Yet getting here meant making some unconventional choices, and betting on a future its customers—and even some of its employees—couldn't see. 

In this episode, host Ilana Strauss uncovers the story behind Shopify’s decision to do more than build “websites with shopping carts,” and how it pioneered a new class of direct-to-consumer entrepreneurs by creating the tools merchants needed, before they knew they needed them.     

You’ll hear from Craig Miller, who joined Shopify in 2011 as its first Chief Marketing Officer and later became Chief Product Officer, Brandon Weimer, the co-founder of Brandini Toffee and one of the first two hundred merchants to use Shopify, and Catherine Erdly, a retail analyst specializing in ecommerce. 

When It Clicked is an original podcast from ClickUp. For a transcript of this episode and other extras, check out When It Clicked - Shopify.

Parker Conrad struggled with these challenges himself when he founded his first company, SigFig, in 2007.  After spending hours repeatedly faxing employee records at Kinko’s for every new hire, he knew the HR industry was ripe for a revamp. 

In this episode, host Ilana Strauss finds out how this realization led him to start–and leave–Zenefits, why he spent nearly two years in his basement building a new product, and how it all led to the launch of Rippling in 2018, a company now valued at more than $6.5 billion.

You’ll hear from founder Parker Conrad about the struggle to launch his third start up, from Chief Marketing Officer Matt Epstein about the market gap for better HR software, and from HR consultant Joey Price, who explains why his industry has been slow to adopt technology. 

When It Clicked is an original podcast from ClickUp. For a transcript of this episode and other extras, check out When It Clicked - Rippling.

Today, Google Docs is ubiquitous, used by millions to draft and collaborate on documents in real-time. But back in 2005, co-authoring a document with others usually meant emailing versions back and forth. And not having a save button? That made users freak out. Yet this simple feature came to define what made Google Docs unique.

In this episode, host Ilana Strauss delves into why the founders of Writely initially turned down Google, the need to create a fake save button, and the “when it clicked” moment they discovered real-time collaboration was the feature that would define the software’s success.  

You’ll hear from Claudia Carpenter , the creator of Writely and former tech lead for Google docs, Jennifer Mazzon, product lead at Evidation Health and former senior product manager at Google, and one of those early Writely users who helped define the product, Joe Burgess.

When It Clicked is an original podcast from ClickUp. For a transcript of this episode and other extras, check out When It Clicked - Writely