Finding an effective work/life balance is a challenge that every successful founder will face. To celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day, we heard from five female founders about how they manage their businesses, personal lives, and often their families, via their favorite […]
It’s been eleven years since Till and I founded MeisterLabs and since launching, we’ve come up against our fair share of hurdles. Fortunately, we’ve weathered each storm and at every plateau discovered new ways to breathe life into the business and our approach […]
Read article "4 Challenges Every Growing SaaS Business Will Face"
When you spot an exciting job opportunity, it’s only natural to feel a little anxious about what the recruitment process might involve. However, at MeisterLabs we believe that hiring processes should never be scary. They should be a reciprocal exercise into judging […]
Read article "How We Hire: 3 Interview Approaches for Sourcing a Great Team"
2017 has been a rollercoaster for many of us. However, hearing from teams around the world who are using MindMeister and MeisterTask to achieve inspiring things has been a high point for us here at MeisterLabs. So, whether you’re counting down the […]
Read article "MeisterLabs Community Round-Up: 5 Inspiring Team Workflows"
Sometimes less is simply less – at least when it comes to work environments. While the ‘lean enterprise’ approach has optimized manufacturing processes in companies for decades, some firms have taken it a step too far by adopting the ‘lean’ philosophy in […]
Slack is a great productivity tool but when you’re part of a decent-sized team, it can feel like you’re constantly trying to catch up. It’s a bit like a never-ending mission to reach inbox zero but instead of emails, it’s a notification […]
At MeisterLabs, we did our first usability test last year on our mind mapping product, MindMeister. As a team that focuses on designing attractive and easy-to-use software, the test was an eye-opening experience. It forced us to think long and hard about […]
Read article "Slave to the Ribbon: 4 Tough Questions in Software Design"
Your team can say goodbye to manual updates and hello to supercharged team productivity, with MeisterTask and new Zapier for Teams. Following the latest release from app automation platform Zapier, it’s now easier than ever to set up powerful workflow automations with […]
Read article "Boost Team Productivity with MeisterTask & Zapier for Teams"
Developing a product that’s valued by your customer is pretty much the bread and butter of Agile project management. To achieve this, you need to be sharing project progression and prototypes with your stakeholders (and end-users, if separate) at every iteration of your project.
Read article "An Agile Guide to Integrating Customer Feedback"
In terms of People Management, we have quite a big challenge ahead of us at MeisterLabs. For starters, we have the ambitious aim of growing our workforce from 30 to 50 employees within the next four months. Plus, we’re not just looking […]
Read article "Let’s Grow: 4 Steps for Successful Employee Development"
When launching a new software project, the chances are it’s been proposed for one of two reasons: either your stakeholder has a groundbreaking idea that they feel will bring unique value to users, or they have a pain-point that they need help […]
Read article "Staying Agile: 5 Best Practices in Software Project Management"
“The narrative goes that when you’re first starting off, your business will feel like you’re pushing a boulder uphill,” one SaaS founder shared with me. “But once you’ve found product market fit, you’re holding onto a rocket ship.” In reality, scaling your […]
Read article "How 7 SaaS Founders Discovered Product Market Fit"
Following the 10-year anniversary of our online mind mapping tool MindMeister earlier this year, we’ve now reached a second milestone which, even more than the last, puts us in a state of awe: As of July 2017, one billion ideas have been […]
Read article "The World’s Largest Online Collection of Creative Ideas?"
There have been some big, exciting changes at MeisterLabs over the last couple of months, as we’ve welcomed four new team members to our Vienna office. Our new colleagues span a whole range of expertise, from front-end development to people management. With […]
Read article "Welcoming Our New Team Members: Oana, Lena, Flo and Jakob"
In your company’s growth journey, it’s important to take the time to assess its progress, mission, and direction. This should happen quarterly, as short-term goals can often become the focus of decision making and take away energy from your main objectives. On […]
Read article "Why Your SaaS Company Needs a Quarterly All Hands Meeting"
Keeping your clients in the loop is an essential part of any successful consultancy project. However, check-up meetings, metric reports, and email exchanges can take up a lot of time. With task automations, you can say goodbye to unnecessary admin and hello to […]
Read article "6 Task Automations to Make Your Agency More Productive"
We like to think that we operate our businesses as meritocracies. Good ideas get heard, and people with good ideas get rewarded. But what if that wasn’t exactly true? The fact is, in a typical eight-person team meeting, on average only three people do 70 percent of the talking. Luckily there are a few ways to make your meetings a bit more equal and inclusive.
Read article "Build a Better Brainstorm: A Guide to Inclusive Team Meetings"
They say in growth, it’s easier to stop your already invested customers from leaving than to acquire new ones. When it comes to HR, things are no different. So, why is it that companies put more effort into searching for new hires, than focusing on developing the talent already in-house? MeisterLabs’ Technical Lead, Laura Bârlădeanu, shares what companies can do to retain top talent.
We tend to think of creativity as an artistic trait, but really, it’s about having a flexible mind that can make associations beyond everyday logic and thought patterns. Whether you’re a problem solver, a brainstormer, a maker, an analyst, or some combination of the lot, embracing and nurturing your creative mind will be beneficial in the long run.
You probably saw the video with Robert Kelly, the South Korea expert whose kids crashed his BBC interview, live on air. Anyone who’s worked remotely likely felt for him and his family, whether it’s a cat walking in front of your screen or noisy traffic outside, mishaps can happen. Fortunately, not all online meetings need to be this way.
Read article "9 Steps to Leading a Successful Online Meeting"
You wouldn’t usually find SaaS companies like MeisterLabs at a trade show. We make most of our sales over the internet – through our website, via PPC campaigns, product review sites and other referrals. However, this year we decided to attend Atlassian Summit Barcelona. Michael Hollauf, shares whether it was worth the investment.
Read article "Our First Trade Show as a SaaS Company: The Good, the Bad & the ROI"
It’s a fresh battle every day to find the motivation to get through your to do list. But motivating your team is an entirely different challenge. Understanding how people respond to different types of motivation can help us be better leaders and increase the productivity of our teams. It can just take a little experimentation to figure out which strategies work best.
Remaining productive throughout the day is a challenge most of us face whether we’re at work, at home, or at the gym. It’s natural for our attention to wane, especially when we’re feeling tired from our day’s events. Thankfully, there are ways […]
At MeisterLabs, we like to keep a close eye on what people are saying about us on social media. In it, Daniel Whitt, Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Madison City Schools, shared one of the most inspirational videos we’ve seen in a very long time.
Read article "MindMeister Empowers Learners in a 5th Grade Gifted Classroom"
Richard Branson wrote, “If you don’t write your ideas down, they could leave your head before you even leave the room.” Having great notes can reduce stress levels, keep you on task and make you more productive. To get great notes, you just need to find the right note-taking strategy.
Read article "5 Simple Strategies for Taking Better Notes at Work"
You could be forgiven for thinking perks alone are the way to build a positive company culture. After all, who doesn’t want to come to work when there are freebies available around the clock? However, research shows you’re better off betting on a sense of meaning for your employees.
Sometimes, it feels like there are an innumerable number of things that divide us. Even at work, there seem to be a hundred big and small issues that cause friction —miscommunications, misunderstandings and mismatches. Bad prerequisites, wrong assumptions and ill-conceived goals. It […]
It’s unfortunate but true: The further you progress in your career, the more meetings you go to. While some are productive, many are disorganized, inefficient, and distracting. It’s also hard to check off your other work tasks when you’re constantly going from […]
Someone once told me good communication happens when the message sent and the message received match up as closely as possible. Speaking clearly is a skill we focus on a lot. We work on giving great presentations, explaining concepts clearly and telling […]
Innovation. Whether you’re watching a recent TED talk or looking up Forbes’ 30 under 30, innovation is a word that will come up over and over again. But as it turns out, it’s not just a buzzword. The likes of Snapchat, who […]
Read article "3 Creative Leadership Methods to Spark the Next Big Idea"
