If you have every worked with a large, or remote team, you know what a hassle it can be. Things as simple as communication can become massive pain points. We just came across a Chicago startup that looks to ease this pain. Helpmonks has built an awesome new team-based email and workflow management platform. We had a chance to speak with the Helpmonks team about their new platform:
Helpmonks
What does Helpmonks do?
Simplify Team Workflow For Emails. Handle customer communication with our integrated email management solution. Create shared inboxes for Sales, Marketing, Support and more.
Why did you build Helpmonks?
When you come to think of it, you will undoubtedly see that a lot of companies have created products to support email communication, and have provided various solutions for how to best handle and organize the incoming and outgoing flow of emails. However, many of those approaches are for use in the personal email space. I believe that the real need for reform of email organization lies with the company/team space and requires a collaborative approach when working with emails.
What this means is that with Helpmonks we are trying to help organizations streamline email communications with their customers. Many people still rely heavily on email to get and stay in contact with companies. In fact, most customers expect an email address to which they can address their concerns and questions. Therefore, it is important that this experience be as straight forward as possible for the customer. Unfortunately, keeping a team on the same page is a challenging issue. Many questions come up, such as: Should we create a shared inbox? What do we do with answered emails? How can we track emails? Has someone replied to this inquiry?
believe that with Helpmonks we have come up with a strong solution to the above questions. Helpmonks is a hosted application that sits between you and your client and is completely invisible (Helpmonks is also available for on-premise installation). Your clients won’t notice a difference and will continue to send their emails to whichever email address of yours they do now as you will simply forward all emails arriving at your support@domain.com, for example, or sales@domain.com, address to Helpmonks. Helpmonks will then email your team members when a new message or reply has arrived, as well as take care of background organization tasks (create a user record, archive the message, etc.).
Additionally, Helpmonks will come with a workflow engine that will let you automate tasks such as assigning emails to team members, filtering messages and more. Last but not least, the application will let you set a reminder for any message, manually or through a workflow, to ensure that you never miss replying in a timely manner to your most important emails. Have an SLA with a company? Helpmonks can recognize incoming emails from customers of a company with an current SLA and automatically set reminders and assignees based on your configurations.
How is Helpmonks different from what is currently available?
Helpmonks is the only solution that will be made available as a multi deployment solution. We offer a Saas product (Cloud), a virtual server (we host and manage) and a downloadable product (you host).
Tell us your founding story. Was there an “ah ha” moment?
Communication is an integral element in society. There are different kinds of communication, but the one line of communication that requires the most attention, for an organization, is the one with its customers.
When you come to think of it, you will undoubtedly see that a lot of companies have created products to support email communication, and have provided various solutions for how to best handle and organize the incoming and outgoing flow of emails. However, many of those approaches are for use in the personal email space. I believe that the real need for reform of email organization lies with the company/team space and requires a collaborative approach when working with emails.
Inspired by this thought, I’ve started my sixth startup called – Helpmonks. The motto of Helpmonks is; “Keeping communication streamlined“.
What this means is that with Helpmonks we are trying to help organizations streamline email communications with their customers. Many people still rely heavily on email to get and stay in contact with companies. In fact, most customers expect an email address to which they can address their concerns and questions. Therefore, it is important that this experience be as straight forward as possible for the customer.
I believe that with Helpmonks we have come up with a strong solution to the above questions. Helpmonks is a hosted application that sits between you and your client and is completely invisible (Helpmonks is also available for on-premise installation). Your clients won’t notice a difference and will continue to send their emails to whichever email address of yours they do now as you will simply forward all emails arriving at your support@domain.com, for example, or sales@domain.com, address to Helpmonks. Helpmonks will then email your team members when a new message or reply has arrived, as well as take care of background organization tasks (create a user record, archive the message, etc.).
Tell us about your founding team and their backgrounds.
One of the founder is Nitai Aventaggiato. He is serial entrepreneur and a Do-Hower (someone who gets stuff done) and is currently working on Razuna and HelpMonks. Both of which are startups that he has founded and invested in.
Razuna is the company that builds and releases the most popular open source Digital Asset Management System.
HelpMonks is an application that simplifies your team’s workflow for emails through the creation of shared inboxes.
As a serial entrepreneur he has founded several companies. One of them being the first Apple Online-Store in Switzerland, called MacTrade (which was later sold). Following MacTrade, he built ComputerOil, a company specializing in Content Management Systems (CMS), in both supporting company’s and building our own Content Management System. ComputerOil was sold to another company, that went on to build, with his lead, a worldwide network for Digital Signage. His software from ComputerOil was a big part of that company’s success.
What’s the next step? What are your short-term goals?
Coming out of private beta. Releasing our price plans. Attending Techmanity in San Jose in October 2014. Getting customer traction.
