One of the taglines for
Refactr's project-tracking software is "more useful, not more features."
At the company's Northeast Minneapolis headquarters this year, it's also meant more employees.
The four-year-old software development agency more than doubled in size in 2010, as its three co-founders hired four new employees to refine and relaunch their project tracking app,
Lean-to. The cloud-based service came out of "beta" last week and it now accepting paying customers. Accounts range from free for individuals to $99 a month for unlimited users and projects.
Lean-to has been on the company's to-do list since Refactr was incorporated in 2006. Initially, it was developed as a tool for the co-founders to collaborate on software projects. Co-founder Ben Edwards says they found too many project management tools are overly complicated and emphasize reporting for managers over convenience for developers using it.
"We're going to use this every day. We wanted it to be easy and out of the way," says Edwards.
Edwards, Jesse O'Neill-Oine, and Scott Vlaminck, however, quickly found themselves tied up with consulting and outside development work, so progress on Lean-to went slowly. This year, they decided to hire three developers and a marketing person to give full-time attention to its own products, including Lean-to and an idea management app called
MileMarker.
"We just said we're going to make the commitment to get these products where they need to be in 2010," says Edwards.
Refactr is looking to grow more soon, too. Edwards says the company is seeking to hire a designer and another one or two more developers as soon as they can find the right candidates.
Source: Ben Edwards, Refactr
Writer:
Dan Haugen