When creating a product, often times the best approach is to start small with core group of users and use cases and grow. Michael Pryor successfully bucked that trend when he co-founded Trello, basing his company on the idea of “bringing structure to any process,” regardless of the aim of the project or industry using it. Since its launch at TechCrunch Disrupt 4 years ago, it has gained 10+ million registered users who are utilizing it for projects that span from wedding planning, to HR onboarding for small companies, to Sales CRM and beyond. Their reach is only growing thanks to the evangelization of the product by many core users.
Trello wasn’t Michael’s first attempt at digital products. Growing up in Lancaster, PA, he had early interest in computer science. Over a few cans of Mama’s Little Yella Pils (generously provided by Alphabet City Beer Co.), he remembered his ‘tech’ origins (which involved meticulously inputting Basic code from coding magazines, into his Texas Instruments computer), his time at Dartmouth building websites for professors, and his subsequent years working for Juno and a development consultancy that weathered the pop of tech bubble by creating their own products (most notably Stack Overflow).
Several decades, products, and teams later, he’s continuing to get to the root of user obstacles, creating the best tools to solve them. Needless to say, he’s on to something good.