An introduction to Trendslide

My name is Jeffrey Vocell, and I’m one of the co-founders of Trendslide, a Manchester, N.H.-based mobile Business Intelligence startup.Trendslide is a mobile app founded from the pain-point that business leaders and employees should have access to all of their key information no matter where they are, whether they’re on the go or sitting at their desk. It’s really that simple. Once they’ve downloaded Trendslide, businesspeople can securely configure their sales and marketing data sources – including Salesforce, Twitter and Google Analytics – and the app gives them an instant pulse on whether their key metrics are trending up, staying flat, or trending down. By showing the metrics in a quick, visual chart, users can get an instant feel for how their business is performing without having to spend time analyzing all the various portals individually.If you’re responsible for a product, program, sales, or any number of other pieces that go into a successful business, you likely have key metrics that define how well you’re performing. The idea behind Trendslide is that it should not only be possible to get these metrics, but it should be easy.Before co-founding Trendslide, I worked for two years as a product manager of a next-generation patient monitoring device at Draeger Medical, a large medical device company in Andover, Mass. While the job gave me tremendous perspective and experience, it also served as a wellspring for ideas around how to be more efficient and drive the product that I was responsible for — and ultimately, of course, to make the business more successful.To explain, a product manager is often referred to as the “CEO of their product.” As a CEO, it’s critically important not only to have a vision laid out, but to have very clear metrics on how your product is performing. The actual metrics vary by industry and type of product that you’re selling, but it still generally holds true that three or four key metrics determine how your product is performing.I quickly realized that it was difficult to get some key metrics on my product’s performance in real time. Occasionally requesting the metrics of other functional areas took a long time, and as a result, slowed the decision-making process down. In some cases it really felt like we were flying blind.Here’s an example: a product manager is generally responsible for prioritization of software tasks, fixes and features. As a result, if you know that your product is underperforming in the field and has a critical defect, it’s likely you will want to address it early in the development cycle and get a new release out to your users.The issue comes when a product manager doesn’t have accesss to this information in real time or in an easy-to-use manner. Aside from gut instinct, how are you supposed to prioritize software fixes without feedback from the field?I left Draeger in early March to puruse Trendslide full-time. Draeger is a great company, but I have always been a metrics geek. I remember when I established my first blog years ago and right after hitting publish, I would constantly hit the refresh button to see how many people were reading the post. It’s that same drive, and the belief that Trendslide can empower businesses to become more profitable that really inspired me to put all of my talent and energy behind this startup.Through speaking with Cory von Wallenstein, chief product officer at Dyn Inc. in Manchester, and his early angel investment into Trendslide, my partner Benjamin Petrin and I began to define and build the product that aims to solve the basic question that many executives, managers, and even individual contributors have – “What is going on within my business?” Hoping to help business people answer that question for themselves, Trendslide launched our Marketing, Sales, and eCommerce App on April 26 at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) Marketing Analytics Summit.As a co-founder, going from a large enterprise to a startup has been a learning experience. I wanted to share these experiences with everyone as I continue to learn and as Trendslide continues to grow.Keep reading in the future and we’ll share about our growth, some of the key mistakes we made along the way, and more about why we are passionate about the growing startup ecosystem in New Hampshire. Jeffrey Vocell is co-founder of Trendslide, a Manchester, N.H.-based mobile Business Intelligence startup. For more information about Trendslide, visit http://www.trendslide.com or email jeffrey@trendslide.com.