Project management tools are supposed to make our professional lives more organized, efficient, and ultimately easier. However, organizations face challenges related to adoption, onboarding, and differing preferences across different teams that often create siloed and disparate systems that are not in the interest of collaboration in an organization. Height is an all-in-one flexible project management tool that’s designed to work for the entire company. The one solution, offers configurable building blocks, allowing teams to implement any type of workflow they prefer, whether it’s tasks for engineers or calendars for sales. The blocks serve as a powerful growth agent providing the organization with the confidence that they will be able to scale without having to worry about introducing a new project management solution down the road. Height is largely based on already familiar tools like spreadsheets and chat, resulting in a quick learning curve for organizations and employees to get set up. Key integrations with commonly-used platforms like GitHub, Figma, and Zendesk ensure that organizations are not adopting another disparate tool that employees need to pay attention to but rather able to leverage Height as a true organizational-wide collaboration tool.
AlleyWatch caught up with Height CEO and Founder Michael Villar to learn more about how Height brings a fresh perspective into project management platforms, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $18.3M, and much, much more.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Series A – $14M – from Redpoint Ventures.
Tell us about the product or service that Height offers.
Height is the first project management built to be so flexible that it works for the entire company, even as companies are quickly growing.
What inspired the start of Height?
We believe every team works in its own unique way. But existing software options are too rigid and enforce their own way of thinking on teams.
We started Height to build a tool that adapts to you, and your team, however, you prefer to work. Height evolves with your company — as you grow your team, Height grows right alongside you so you can build a more interconnected company.
How is Height different?
Unlike traditional project management tools, some of which were designed 10 or more years ago and haven’t evolved the UX to the current standards, Height provides an intuitive and flexible platform. Regardless of how a team likes to work – sprints, milestones, recurring tasks, with tools like GitHub, GitLab, Figma, Zendesk – Height is flexible and powerful enough to adapt to their needs.
Additionally, other collaboration platforms solve for one thing or focus on one specific user within a business. Height, on the other hand, is built to work for any type of team, solving collaboration for the entire company.
What market does Height target and how big is it?
The Project Management Software market was valued at $5.37 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $9.81 billion by 2026 and grow at a CAGR of 10.67% over the forecast period (2021 – 2026).
What are your post-COVID office plans??
We are a remote-first company and are looking to hire the best talent, untethered to any one specific location.
What was the funding process like?
Fundraising was relatively smooth for us — we were lucky to find investors whose views of the space aligned well with our own.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
We’d expected fundraising over video calls to be more difficult than traditional in-person meetings, but it wasn’t the case at all.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
The past couple years have accelerated the adoption of collaboration tools, and our investors recognized that the moment is right for a new product to push project management forward.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We’re excited to grow our team — we’re primarily hiring engineers and other product folks. We’ll also continue to execute against our product roadmap and build key features that have been highly requested.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Focus on building a product you want to see in the world, and the rest will follow.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We’ll continue to focus on adding critical new features from our roadmap, while keeping the polish and craft of the product high.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC
We’re big fans of MaLa Project in the East Village — they have a lovely outdoor back patio!
