Angel Grablev (@AngelGrablev) is the CEO and Co-Founder of Freedcamp, an online project management and collaboration application. Angel began Freedcamp as a side project, but has since built a global distributed team, and now works full-time to improve project management for thousands of customers.
Our conversation covers Angel’s previous work as a web developer, Freedcamp’s origins and intents, as well as the trouble faced in conventional project management. We also discuss management style and company culture more generally, as it relates to measured results and keeping your co-workers informed.

Sign up for Freedcamp, for free, at Freedcamp.com
Show Notes & Links

Freedcamp is a collaboration system which helps any team work together on any sort of project.
Prescott learned about Freedcamp from Bryan Orr, when he appeared on Episode 31 – Project Management Tools & Collaboration Software
FTP, the best way to share files not that long ago
Jack Johnson
Lenny Kravitz
Angel’s former employer introduced him to Basecamp
UCSB – University of California at Santa Barbara


“No team is alike.”
—Angel Grablev
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Angel got the idea for Freedcamp after attempting to organize a camping trip on email
“Underdo The Competition” — Basecamp’s tagline
iPhone 1, started with basic apps, but the App Store added tons of functionality


“No one is interested in paying money to organize a camping trip.”
—Angel Grablev
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Freedcamp boasted 30,000 users in its first year
Some use cases include hurricane clean-up efforts, parent-teacher associations, university students
ADHD & Dyslexia led Angel to becoming a web developer with design skills
Angel built the first HTML5/CSS3 framework, 52 Framework
Santa Barbara City College 
Freedcamp’s team lives in California, Australia, Ukraine, and Netherlands
Eating your own dog food
GitHub
Agile Development
Scrum
Waterfall
AMC, users of Freedcamp
A gaming studio used Freedcamp’s Wiki application to plan an entire game
The Wall, a social, less formal place to have conversations within Freedcamp
Reddit
Animated GIFs & Emoji — adding flavour to group chatter


“The biggest gift I have is the people I work with.”
—Angel Grablev
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The One Thing by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan On Amazon and On Audible
Angel broke the daily habit of drinking a Monster Energy Drink each morning
bacn, the newsletters and other stuff in your inbox that isn’t quite spam
Ramit Sethi‘s example of Flossing One Tooth




“Take one step, everything else will take care of itself.”
—Angel Grablev
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 Angel Grablev on GitHub
 Angel Grablev on Twitter
 Angel Grablev on Facebook
 Angel Grablev on Instagram
 Freedcamp on Twitter
 Freedcamp on Facebook
 Freedcamp on YouTube

Tools

Freedcamp
Gmail
Google Docs
Basecamp
Jira from Atlassian
Trello or Asana, competitors to Freedcamp
Adobe Photoshop
PNGHat & CSSHat, plugins for Photoshop
XAMPP, to run local servers
JQuery & Angular.js frameworks
Skitch, for screenshots
Sketch, for interface design
Fireworks, InDesign, for vector-based design

Techniques

Reduce email; get everyone on a project mgmt. app as soon as possible
Don’t build a huge feature list; go for simple and easy to use
Think about where your product can grow
Find a technical co-founder; don’t suffer alone with skills you lack.
Go for 80% functionality and create a workaround for the final 20%
Be flexible with how you use any tool
Use [brackets] or #hashtags as a DIY way to have tags/categories
Create a catch-all “bucket” of to-dos for your company. It deters meetings & email.
Discover what works best for your team
Write down decisions made in [daily] meetings
Skim, don’t read, email. Just look for critical things.
Pause and look for the “most important thing”
Break down a project into two-week increments

Habits

Track time to get an accurate picture of your week, and to send invoices
Be social with your co-workers on the Wall
Establish a daily standup meeting to discuss what you’re working on
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