What are your favorite ways to use Trello for your startup business?

[Lydia Monday]

I am looking to get advice and suggestions on what you like about Trello or how you use Trello to create boards for your startup business. Are there certain templates that you have found extremely useful? Are there features different from other software products that influence your decision to use Trello? What part about Trello has been the trickiest to learn?

[Dreamsuite Mike]

Hi Lydia,

As am now working a freelance Trello consultant but my background is large scale business systems like SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Netsuite, Salesforce, Jira etc...

When realising that there are a lot of people who want help with Trello, are realising that it can do so much or have it in a group with other SW such as Clickup, Asana and Monday.com, I was very conscious to ensure that my bias towards Trello doesn't stop me picking the right solution for my clients needs.  I spend a lot of time getting to know the alternative solutions and quite honestly, some of them are really great, often more feature rich than Trello and with a whole toolbox of features that on the surface Trello doesn't have.  

What keeps me coming back to Trello though is that with all of those features on the other software comes a pile of constraints.  They are far more in the realm of you use them how the companies want you to and not the other way round. 

I'm of the view that if a piece of software requires you sculpt your process around it, it has failed already.  It is a tool and the tool should work for you, around you and to make your life easier.

Trello really does have that, it is a blank canvas with freedom and flexibility that goes far beyond what I have found with other similar software.  From Trello, I have been able to create a tool that works for every business function I have come across and in a huge array of sectors.  

Trello's strength can also be its Achilles Heel though, its blank canvas can be somewhat daunting and overwhelming at first and it is difficult to know where to begin.  There are so many ways to do the same thing and it is all about what your vision is.

There are plenty of Trello templates out there, you can try here:

Templates | Trello

My advice would be to draw out or work through your process.  You could use a whiteboard and post-it notes or you could draw it out.  Sketch out your process stages, what has to happen at each stage in order to move it to the next.

Then when you have done that, you can basically design that out in Trello, there are some great bits of info here Trello Guides: Help Getting Started With Trello | Trello.

Once you have translated your process onto a Trello board, you can evolve that.  Who needs to do what, how will we deal with dates etc...

Then when you get familiar, this is when you would start to think, 'What automation would make our lives easier?' and you can start to get Trello to take some of the work from you.

How to use Trello automation for task automation | Trello

Alternatively, you could engage with a consultant.  There are quite a few on here and this is a great starting point:

Trello Consultants Right Here In The Community! - Atlassian Community

If you are interested in having some guidance from me, I have a deep knowledge of Trello but also as a business systems and transformation consultant, have a vast knowledges of process development for start-ups and SME's in many business sectors.  I could help you with the process definition and really get Trello working for your business.  Take a look at my profile and contact me via the website if interested

[Öykü Sorgun]

Hey Lydia, 

I'm Öykü from Hipporello. We are a startup building Trello Power-ups for business processes, and we use Trello extensively for our business as well.

As we have an extensive hands-on experience with your question, I'd like to explain how we use Trello as a team and also what our Trello Power-ups offer. 

The first thing is that Trello is an intuitive tool, which diminishes all the complexity of the other project management tools. I think the simplicity of Trello is quite handy especially when it can be a bit difficult to keep the documents updated in an environment with a lot of workload like startups. The Power-ups we build, you can consider them as integrations that amplify the power of Trello simplicity, help teams streamline their different business process on Trello. 

In short, Hipporello Power-ups increase the functionalities of Trello by: 

• Bringing forms and/or emails to Trello as cards
• Collaborating with outside-of-Trello users without adding them to the board
• Allowing board members to communicate with form requesters or to email messages without switching tools
• Keeping all the information under Trello, where all the action is happening

For instance, our contact us form on our website is made with one of our Trello Power-ups, Hipporello Service Desk. When a user fills up the form, a card is created on one of our boards with all the form fields. Our team then responds to the user inside the card with the conversation module that sends an email to the form requester. They can track all the conversations happening for that request. 

For recruitment processes, we also utilize Trello with our Applicant Tracking Power-up. Similar to the Service Desk, we receive applicants through a portal (here is our career page) and handle all the application processes on Trello. 

Another example I can give from our practice is using Trello as a knowledge base for the self-service guides of our products. We utilize one of our power-ups as well, which is Knowledge Base Power-up. We have created our Support documents with that. You can check out our support page here. We'll launch it in the coming days. 

If you'd like to learn more about our products or if you have any questions, feel free to book a session with me from here.