Fed up with endless meetings and all the stuff they create? US-based start-up Loopin claims to have your back. It reckons its workplace productivity platform could help millions of people to collaborate with one another more effectively – and ultimately to get more work done.
“The irony of meetings is that they help us plan and organise our work, but they also stop us actually getting on with it,” says Parth Pareek, who co-founded the business last year with two old college friends, Anurag Varma and Mehul Dudi. “So we need to make sure each meeting is as productive as possible.”
The issue currently standing in the way of that goal, argues Pareek is the materials associated with and created by meetings. Each time you connect with another individual or team, he points out, you need to find all of the materials you already have that are linked to the collaboration, plus the meeting itself will create more of those materials, as information is shared or tasks agreed.
“There are a rising number of apps available to collaborate with your teams, but that makes it more difficult than ever to get stuff done,” says Varma. “With an overwhelming number of work apps, our knowledge gets fragmented – we end up spending more time searching for the right information.”
Loopin’s solution is an app that brings all of that crucial context into a single place so that it can be accessed quickly and easily. The app sits on top of the diary in which your organise meetings, but can also pull in data from other workplace tools such as Slack, Zoom, Asana and Trello.
The goal is that when you have a meeting on a given topic or with a particular person, Loopin will operate as a one-stop-shop for all the knowledge you need. It will mine your other tools in order to feed you, for example, what was discussed at the last meeting, relevant information that has been shared with you before and since, and the notes you made after the previous interaction. As your meeting progresses and further information is shared, Loopin will track that too.
It’s an elegant solution that has the potential to drive several benefits all at once. Your meetings should become more productive, since everyone will have all the relevant information required to take part. You should avoid confusion about collaboration – who has agreed to do what and when, and how that work is progressing. And you should improve traceability – you’ll be able to look back easily to examine how a decision was reached.
Loopin’s founders Parth Pareek, Anurag Varma and Mehul Dudi
“Loopin automatically organises meeting knowledge, aggregates tasks, and resurfaces what is relevant to cut down meeting preparation time and efficiently plan your workday,” adds Pareek. “When you walk into a meeting, you have the previous context – decisions, action items and status – at your perusal; after the discussion, all the takeaways get shared to the right tools.”
The founders hope they’ve developed the killer app for workplace productivity – but it’s relatively early days for the company. For the past eight months, it has been beta testing the product with around 450 businesses that are using it for free; their feedback has enabled Loopin to test and finetune its platform. Now the company is close to a full-scale commercial launch – and to begin rolling out its monetisation strategy.
Initially, Loopin will be offered free of charge, but the founders plan to move to a subscription-based freemium model. They’ll offer a basic version of the app at no cost, but charge users who opt for increased functionality. The company’s primary target market is enterprise customers buying the app for staff, but the free version might appeal to individual buyers too.
Indeed, co-founder Mehul Dudi is convinced the company has hit on something with broad appeal. “Loopin offers a single source of truth for meeting outcomes, building a second brain for meetings,” he says. “It boosts team accountability and saves at least the first 10 minutes in every meeting going over what was last discussed, who’s working on what and so on.”
The company’s investors think that could be a winning formula. Loopin has so far raised around $820,000 of capital, primarily from the venture capital firm Venture Highway, but also from a small number of angel investors.