Interview with Zaid Zawaideh – the co-founder of Sandglaz
Last week I wrote about Sandglaz – a great tool to manage your tasks. And because it fitted my needs so good, I thought why not talk to its authors? I guess it’s always nice to hear that someone there in the world likes what you did. Besides that, I was also curious how and why they created it, what was their goal.
And that’s exactly what I did. I contacted Zaid, who turned out to be a really nice guy, started talking to him and to my surprise – I suddenly had a small interview! And that’s what I’m posting today. If you read about Sandglaz last week and liked it, perhaps you’d be interested what its author says about it.
Many similar tools suggest their usage simply by putting words like “todo”, “list” or “project” in their names. How did Sandglaz come out?
Sandglaz is derived from “sandglass” (hourglass). It is an elegant way of measuring fixed time periods that has been in use for centuries.
How can Sandglaz be helpful?
Sandglaz is a web application designed to help you and your team manage your tasks more effectively by visualizing your immediate priorities within the big picture. It is designed to be simple for personal use while at the same time providing the power to effectively manage your work projects.
To whom is Sandglaz addressed? And who uses it already?
Busy professionals and small teams who want an elegant solution to managing all todos in their life. We have a wide-spectrum of users from all over the world such as teachers, developers, stay-at-home parents, project managers, and start-ups.
There are many TODO list and project management applications – why start another one? Does it really differ this much?
I am glad you asked this question :).
Sandglaz came about from our own experiences looking for solution that is lightweight enough to be used for those simple tasks while having the power to manage our more complex projects simply and effectively. Everything we tried was either too simple or too cumbersome to use.
In developing Sandglaz we are bridging the gap between personal todo lists and project management solutions by providing dead simple task management and redefining prioritization into an elegant visual process. The grids in Sandglaz allow you to pinpoint your priorities, visually, within the overall view of your project without adding any complexity.
We are obsessed with the user experience. Our goal is to bring to our users all the power of those complex project management solutions without sacrificing any simplicity.
How would you advertise your application? I mean what would you tell people, why should they use Sanglaz instead of… well, any other application, which could improve their productivity in any way?
Sandglaz allows you to have one application to manage all tasks in your life. You no longer have to choose one simple application for home and a big complex application for work. Sandglaz helps you focus on what is important without losing track of your goals and vision.
Do you get a lot of response from Sandglaz users? Is there any active community growing?
We’re thrilled by the response we are getting. Many are telling us that they have looked for so long for a todo list that worked for them and always gave up. They are now using Sandglaz. The community is growing daily and we love hearing the feedback.
Do you have any interesting examples of usage? Or perhaps your own suggestions?
Our users have blogged about many different ways they are using Sandglaz and I am always curious to see what creative ways they come up with.
At Sandglaz we use Sandglaz for all our tasks whether it is home, shopping lists, or running the business. We have a post outlining how we manage our development backlog on our blog if you are interested.
Do you have any goals or milestones?
We are working on exciting stuff to help manage longer term projects without making things more complex. We’ll announce more when ready.
