Emily Chang - eHub Interviews

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June 26, 2006
eHub Interviews 14 Dayz

Thanks to Marko van der Puil and the rest of the team at 14 Dayz for this email interview.

eHub: What is your web application/service about?

14 Dayz: We used to have a co-worker who, when asked to estimate a simple task, would invariably answer: 14 Dayz. No matter how hard or easy the task was. 14 Dayz is about being more effective, about making the most of every day. The amount of time to spend in a day is becoming an increasing bottleneck for most of us. You have to be selective about what you do and don’t. Keeping track of what you actually spend your time on is the first step in making more informed decisions about how to spend your time tomorrow.

The same is true for companies and free-lancers, to make the most out of their key assets, their staff, they need a service that allows them to actively track and monitor their efforts. A thorough time registration is the solid basis for billing, which means revenue, which means profits, which means life and growth for any company.

14 Dayz is a simple on-line service with which you can log your hours and create specific reports. 14Dayz is suitable for teams but also for individual use. A lot of attention and detail have gone into usability. 14Dayz takes the hassle out of your spread sheet based time tracking solution and makes time registration fun and simple.

eHub: Why did you start this project?

14 Dayz: One of our first projects when we started our company in early 2005 was a web based time tracking solution for Dutch lawyers, who needed to comply with recent Dutch legislation putting heavy demands on Lawyers time tracking obligations. Traditional vendors where unable to comply quickly with these government demands, putting the whole of the sector at risk. We founded our company on agile values and principles; we were always boasting how fast we thought we could go. So we were put before a challenge by a group of lawyers in the region we’re located. And we just couldn’t say no…

In less then three months of active collaboration with customers and other stakeholders in the sector we were the first company to launch a time tracking service which was fully compliant with the new legislation. Lawyers loved it. That was weird.

You see lawyers and computers have some sort of hate-hate relationship. Unlike us they just don’t like technology very much. They know they need some to do their job, but in the end, they just like plain old pen and paper better then say Word processing and Laser printers.

So for us the positive feedback we got was a clear signal that we’d done something very right. Then another customer suggested; “Well if lawyers like your software so much, why don’t you make it available to the rest of us as well? I know I hate my time tracking solution!”

So we did.

In about eight weeks time, in short iterations of sometimes 3 or 4 days, working closely with a selected group of beta testers the valuable system that 14Dayz is now was developed. Web 2.0 techniques like Ajax and Dom-scripting were embraced to help enhance usability. Development focused on simplicity and needto-have functionality. The result is an application that can help you take the hassle out of time tracking and bring back the fun in your job. It’s just so simple.

eHub: How much time do you devote to its growth?  Do you have a day job?

14 Dayz: We work on improving and extending our service daily. We do consulting work for selected clients as well. The experience we’ve gained from developing 14Dayz could well benefit our clients’ projects as well.

eHub: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

14 Dayz: Brains4All is a team of four people with differing, but complementary skill sets:

Bart Helms - Developer. Author of the first unit testing framework for PHP5 (UT5). Passionate about the cleanliness of his code and the simplicity of the solution. He’s build hundreds of large consumer and business oriented web applications.

Serge Nijsten -Designer. He has the talent to capture simplicity in his designs and he’s brilliant in coding XHTML/CSS2.0. Still, he is notorious about quality and will call upon his right to deliver high quality work no matter what. Serge has created and designed hundreds of consumer and business oriented website and applications for large audiences.

Jan Bakker - Is our CEO and CFO rolled into one. Jan is the one who makes sure the rest of us can do their jobs while he takes care of business and finance. His background is in HRM, finance and accountancy on the board level and as such he is considered a sparring partner for many a CEO and Marketing VP in any issue relating to web technology. He’s been in computer technology since the early 1980’s.

Marko van der Puil - Engineer. I’m responsible for technology and support, and I write the blog. I also do the sysop/network administration, marketing and PR. I’ve been active in computer technology since 1983 and active on the internet since 1993. Hundreds of successful large consumer and business oriented websites and web applications have been built under my supervision.

eHub: What is your design philosophy?

14 Dayz: We are dedicated builders of simple and fun to use web-based software. We value simplicity over needless complexity. We value people over tools. We prefer working together over following a process, measuring results and adjusting course frequently over sticking to a plan no matter what. But most of all we love to make engaging software that works for you.

Today, 80% of the features in business software remain relatively unused by the majority. Recent studies show that 50% of customers are put off by complex technology.

Because of this unneeded complexity software is often late, expensive, not up to the job or of abominable quality and most of all not fun or easy to use. Have you ever been fighting with a piece of software just to get things done? We have, and we do not think that is time spent efficiently. That is why we make simple tools that give you the ability to perform.

eHub: What technologies are you currently using?

14 Dayz: 14Dayz is a multi tiered application. We use virtualization a lot on the Linux servers. We use MySql for a database server, Apache as a web server, ATB5 - which is our OO-PHP framework for building web apps quickly - We do unit testing with UT5 - We use XHMTL/CSS with a JavaScript behavioural layer featuring prototype and scriptaculous on the client side.

We use Ruby on Rails and Perl and other JavaScript frameworks in other projects too. We use a lot of brick and mortar “technology” too. We like index cards. The walls of our pit are covered in them. We do stand up meetings and pair programming, but also pair Design stuff if we feel like it.

We’re very proud of our autobuild feature that allows clients to be able to track the teams’ progress in working software, straight out of the repository.

eHub: What are the most requested features from your users/community?

14 Dayz: Everybody wants us to build a planning tool. Then they want to keep track of their business expenses as well as their time. The ability to save report filters. It is very diverse actually.

eHub: Does your user base reside in a primary geographic location or is it distributed?

14 Dayz: Most teams are in the United States or the Netherlands, that’s where we are too. Then there are a lot of teams from all over Europe and a surprising number of people from the Southern America’s and India as well. There is always some team member, somewhere in the world, logging their hours into 14Dayz.

eHub: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months?  The next 2 years?

14 Dayz: We’re pretty excited about the planning tool, that should be finished within 6 months and we’ll increase the business value by simplifying complex tasks like reporting and team management. We’ve started adding internationalization as well. In two years time we hope to increase the user base significantly. We think 14Dayz will become the standard way to collaborate on planning and tracking your work or personal life on-line.

eHub: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

14 Dayz: The challenge is making this application, which we know people need because they get paid by the hour, more attractive and interesting so that more people can continue to enjoy using it.

eHub: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the project?

14 Dayz: The discipline to keep it simple and keep on making it simpler, easier, more fun.

eHub: Do you have a business model?  If so, what is it?

14 Dayz: We have a simple business model. We offer a lifetime free account that has enough room to test the product thoroughly and even allows you to run a simple small business on. There are several paid accounts for teams that need more features, or work on more projects simultaneously.

We don’t have a user fine on any plan. Invite as much team members as you want. Even in the free plan. We hope we can help the teams on the free plan to grow, so that they’ll switch to a paid plan when their needs increase.

eHub: If you’re able to disclose this information, how much traffic or usage do you see on an average day?

14 Dayz: We have between 300 active users a day in the weekend and up to 1200 active users on a average work day. Still, daily use is growing pretty fast and we’ve only been live for about 14Dayz.

eHub: What is the one thing you’re most proud of about the project?

14 Dayz: We’re proud of building a team effort. We’re proud of how our beta testers at first, and our customers now, love working with us to constantly increase value, ease of use, accessibility, a.s.o.

We’re proud of the team effort itself and the way the team has added up to become more that the sum of the parts and how we interacted with the feedback we got, and how we build a better product in so little time. And I love all the completely excited users. That’s brilliant.

eHub: How would you describe the shift that’s occurring with the web right now to future generations?

14 Dayz: The important difference between the web now and then is that as broadband coverage increases, place is leaving the equation on the importance of where you are for communication and collaboration with people across the globe. As interconnectedness between people and the applications they need increases, collaboration and social contribution will be key factors to increase productivity and effectiveness.

It would be like what happened to our team, when everyone is doing what they are best in, excelling at their work and each other person is adding value and meaning to each other person’s efforts. Project this line into the future and on a global scale, increasingly the collaborative whole (global) team becomes more and more than the sum of the parts.

eHub: What site(s) do you visit everyday other than your own?

14 Dayz: Hyper (which is sort of a personal start page/RSS reader written by our own Bart Helms) is always my first hit, it helps me get to the sites I need fast. I also use Gmail, Basecamp, a truckload of blogs and SCARAB our internal CRM as well.

eHub: How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

14 Dayz: Sleep is so Web 1.0… I tracked my sleep time with 14Dayz, says I slept 155 hrs and 39 minutes in the past 34dayz…

Thanks to Marko van der Puil and the rest of the team at 14 Dayz for this email interview.

Visit 14 dayz
Originally added to eHub on Mar 23, 06

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eHub Interviews is a series with the creators of Web 2.0 applications and services by Emily Chang, author of eHub, designer, and co-founder and principal of Ideacodes, a strategic web consultancy in San Francisco that she co-founded with Max Kiesler.

Also see eHub Interviews in Japanese at CNET Japan