Building a Modern Project Management Tool — How Plaky Came to Be

At this time, you might already be familiar with Plaky — our project management tool. But, have you ever wondered how Plaky came to be what it is today?

What was it that made us want to create such software? Where did the idea come from? How come our design team does such fantastic work with its UI? 

Well, you’re in the right place. Here, we’ll dive into Plaky’s history and look into how it started, how it’s grown, and where it’s going.

Why a project management tool?

The idea for Plaky came way back in 2021. Our company, CAKE.com, had already built two project-centric apps. First came Clockify, our time tracking app, which went on to dominate its niche. Second was Pumble, our business communication software, which connected teams all over the globe.

While developing both Clockify and Pumble, we used several project management tools, but none of them offered the kind of reliability, simplicity, and customizability that we wanted. So, we decided to make our own project management software.

This was our boldest move yet, as we were venturing into a market already chock-full of similar apps, but — as with Clockify and Pumble before it — we developed Plaky to fit our needs.

The earliest days

Our small team of, at that point, around 20 developers, proved their worth by completing the launchable version of Plaky in less than 6 months. We wanted it to have every basic project management feature necessary by then — a table view, boards, fields, and items. We also opted to offer the first version completely free of charge.

Our focus with Plaky was always versatility — from the get-go, we wanted to make every field customizable. Even at launch, you could use the status bar as an importance tracker, priority signifier, or anything else you need. And, this is a principle that we stuck to with every feature since.

Trials and tribulations

Of course, we weren’t left on an easy road — even with so many other tools having walked it before. So, we had our own fair share of obstacles.

The first hurdle actually predates Plaky’s launch — it was building the team itself. We needed to build a competent, well-versed team that was ready to take this project head-on. And we did so meticulously, spending half a year to make sure we have the best team possible. 

The high standard we set was great for the end product, but it made the hiring process long and strenuous. Honestly, at the time, we really could’ve used Plaky’s recruitment template. 

While many employees chipped in to help, the process of creating a development team was spearheaded by one man — Miloš Jovanović. 

The second obstacle was dealing with competition — and oh boy, was it intimidating. We definitely saw ourselves as the underdogs at the time, as if we were trying to brainstorm in the largest board room in the world.

Still, we were determined. We didn’t want to just create a couple of hastily built, flashy new features, just so we would stand out from the crowd. Instead, we opted for solid, reliable quality — and knew we would show our worth in time.

Houston, we have a liftoff

In February 2022, we officially launched Plaky. And our first celebratory move was to, naturally, have it become the company’s task management software of choice — and we were its main critics. 

Remember, at this point, Plaky had only the basic features implemented for use. Other PM tools we were using were definitely still more useful to us — but that was the whole point.

We wanted to share the pain points our clients would have with our tool. We wanted to give immediate, no-filter, actionable feedback internally — and it worked like a charm.

To this day, the largest and most useful portion of feedback comes internally, from our own team. It ranges from pointing out occasional bugs and little things that can be improved to requesting bigger features we would like to have. We customized Plaky to our own needs — to make it as dependable and versatile as possible. 

Our first year

During 2022, we focused on improvement, iteration, and refinement of Plaky. We were excited to share our board templates, and found a need for an activity log — so we built it.

External user feedback also proved vital in this first leg of our journey, and we focused on listening intently. We fixed many issues and changed and improved features as we raced through the months. We launched the Android app and the iOS app versions of Plaky. 

Near the end of the year, so much of our focus was on improving board features, and therefore the core user experience. We added a board option menu, improved our UI, and improved board filters.

2023 — focusing on features

From Plaky’s conception to the beginning of 2023, we worked without a product manager. By this point, all of the basic functionalities of a PM tool we wanted were there and working pristinely.

So, in January, we decided it was time to bring a product manager on board — Dragana Nešić — and clearly define our process of choosing and creating new features. It was time to get creative, and technical, to make the tools we were so looking forward to.

Every new addition stemmed from a problem we wanted to solve — either a problem we noticed our clients struggled with or we had ourselves. Our main focus was still on making the features as intuitive to use as possible. We didn’t want anyone to have to dig through help page after help page just to be able to switch views.

Our first step towards this future was an option to duplicate items, a step toward automation. Additionally, we were happy with our summary row feature, which helped improve clarity in cluttered boards. We also added a timeline field, which further improved task clarity. And, of course, these are just the additions we were most excited about.

Finally, we were also proud to announce the addition of paid plans offering additional value to users. 

Unlike much of the competition, which frustrates their users into getting the paid plans through arbitrary limitation — like limiting the free plan to only 5 users — we decided to keep all core features necessary to run any project free. This includes unlimited users, boards, and items. 

Instead, we wanted our more complex features to provide genuine value and be worth their asking cost.

This proved to be a great move, as we had our first subscription within 24 hours of launch — a milestone we couldn’t be more proud of.

2024 and beyond

Speaking of features we’re proud of, in 2024, we rolled out the long-awaited Gantt chart view. This is a feature we’d been looking forward to (and working on) for a while.

As with all features, we did our best to make it as easy to use and flexible as possible. Our fantastic development and design teams worked together to create a satisfying, uncomplicated new view.

You can use Gantt chart software to see how tasks are interconnected on the timeline and how their due dates intertwine. With this, bottlenecks are much easier to spot.

So, what’s next? Well, we don’t want to spoil everything, but here are some teasers.

We’re planning to add subtasks in the near future, as a way to break down your tasks into more actionable steps. But, the feature we’re especially excited about, and are working tirelessly on, is automation.

We can’t wait to finally be able to automate actions in Plaky. From WHEN-THEN automation, which triggers a response under set conditions — for example, adding a reviewer in the assignee field when a task is labeled as “done” — to automatically creating repetitive tasks, you’ll be able to reduce the amount of repetitive actions in Plaky. 

We’re also working on integrating automation with external apps.

But shh — that’s all we can say for now. Stick around, and we’ll be happy to share more in the future.

Check out the result of our hard work and give Plaky a go

As you can see, so much effort and passion went into the creation of Plaky. We wanted, first and foremost, to make a tool that we’d be happy to use internally. In this, we have succeeded.

All of the improvements we make are driven by user feedback — our own included— and we’re always happy to hear your suggestions.

We worked hard to make Plaky the most reliable, versatile, and easy-to-learn project management tool out there. So, take a look at what the end result looks like, and sign up for a free Plaky account today.