<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1RMuJd_0uM9jNLp00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1RMuJd_0uM9jNLp00" width="960" height="1440" ><figcaption>Hoop Co-Founder and CEO Stella Garber. Hoop</figcaption></figure>Former Trello founding team members Stella Garber, Brian Schmidt, and Justin Gallagher stayed at Atlassian several years after Atlassian had acquired their project management software company for $425 million in January 2017. But it was time for something new.They wanted to recreate the magic of what they helped create at Trello with something new again in the productivity tool category that would have the same brand love, vibrant culture and fun work environment that comes with building a new company.“In this Age of AI, if you were going to build a project management tool, what would you do differently? What could you do now that you couldn't do before? And our ‘aha’ moment was that you would not have to write anything down, you wouldn't have to create tickets or tasks or cards or whatever you want to call them.The product would just know what your tasks for the day were and could help guide you in that direction. And so that's a little bit about the genesis of hoop, which is exactly what <a href="https://www.hoop.app/">Hoop</a> does,” said Hoop co-founder and CEO Stella Garber in an interview.In 2022 the trio came together to found the New York City-based Hoop, an AI-driven productivity tool that automatically captures tasks from video calls, email, and Slack to create a master to-do list that updates itself.“We know the space pretty intimately. And so I think we're just really excited about the potential to ease the burden of all of these repetitive, rote tasks that people have to do these days by using AI to do it for you,” says GarberHoop is part of the growing global market for Productivity Software which is projected to reach $79.07 billion in 2024, reaching $88.05 billion by 2028, according to Statista.On how the name came about and its meaning, Garber says, “We wanted the name to be fun. We have this idea of having this virtuous cycle of being calm and having things together at work, so that you can take that energy into your personal life. So we really like the imagery of the circle and completing tasks, making sure that things come full circle.”According to Garber, Hoop currently is using OpenAI as the base LLM and then building on top of that the application layer. She sees the team as uniquely experienced at building software that is easy and fun to use that people benefit from.It is still early days for the new productivity tool which is still in beta. But they already have paying customers and are signing up hundreds of new customers a days, according to Garber.“We're pretty focused on onboarding individuals into the product and building a product that's really valuable for that individual that's overwhelmed and drowning in requests. And then we'll be building out a team version pretty soon after that. So the strategy is to focus on the individual first, and then from there, we can really build out this team version, potentially enterprise version after that,” says Garber.Based on its current forward motion, the company recently announced its June 2024 $5 million Seed funding led by Index Ventures with participation from Origin Ventures, Divergent Capital, Chingona Venture, plus Angel investors including every member of Trello’s early leadership team, plus a host of investors like Trello Co-Founder Michael Pryor; Andy Dunn, Co-Founder of Bonobas and many others."Hoop has become an indispensable tool. Work is about getting things done and that's difficult if you don't remember what those things are. Hoop uses AI to centralize tasks from calls, messages, emails, and more in one place and then enables you to move work forward. It's a delightful product, which is no surprise because it's being built by the same team that crafted Trello,” says Damir Becirovic of Index Ventures in an interview.“I just think that the thing that gets people excited is that idea of the to-do-list that writes itself,” says Garber.Garber was born in Uzbekistan. When she was 3 her parents immigrated from what was then part of the Soviet Union in 1989 as refugees escaping anti semitism and seeking economic opportunity in the US.“We came to the US with basically nothing but two suitcases and a lot of dreams. And my parents were able to really live the American dream, having started with nothing. My dad was a doctor in the former Soviet Union. When we moved here, none of his training and barely his education counted,” says Garber of the family’s move to a small, midwestern town, Galesburg Illinois where her father worked to earn his residency again and to build his own practice.“And so I feel like from an early age, this idea of we brought you to America to give you opportunity, we sacrificed so much, we left everything behind, that's always been really instilled in me. And also, just the idea that, even if you fail, what's the worst that can happen compared to the persecution my family experienced. I think that's a big part of the entrepreneurial DNA that I've had,” says GarberShe graduated from Northwestern with a degree in psychology in 2009 and later earned her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Her first job out of college was on the founding team of a fin tech startup in Chicago which was acquired by Groupon in 2012. “When you're a super early employee, you have to do everything. And so what I found was I was pretty good at talking to customers and telling stories, and then I learned that's actually called Marketing. So I guess I became a marketer,” says Garber.She then co-founded Entrepreneurs Unplugged, a pioneer in the entrepreneurship education and events space before becoming the co-founder and CEO of Matchist in 2012 which connected businesses with top web and mobile developers across the country. She would then join the Trello executive team to build out their marketing team and strategy, and stayed on at Atlassian after the acquisition till leaving in 2021 to found Hoop.As for the future? “We really feel that there's just so much wasted time updating things and managing things. And so we see playing a big role in that in terms of being this project management system that is removing so much of that rote, repetitive work from people and making it very easy to manage work in a way that feels very effortless,” concludes Garber</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

NewsBreak

Ex-Trello Execs Found Hoop For AI Driven Productivity Tool

Former Trello founding team members Stella Garber, Brian Schmidt, and Justin Gallagher stayed at Atlassian several years after Atlassian had acquired their project management software company for $425 million in January 2017. But it was time for something new. They wanted to recreate the magic of what they helped create...