{"id":2118,"date":"2016-06-22T10:30:01","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T09:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=2118"},"modified":"2020-08-12T18:09:18","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T17:09:18","slug":"spotlight-gosquared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/spotlight-gosquared\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight &#8211; GoSquared"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\"><em>The world that we operate in today has changed, from the design tools we rely on, to the devices we use. James Gill, Co-Founder and Designer of <a class=\"link link--blue fontWeight-4\"href=\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\">GoSquared<\/a>, talks to me about the importance of product design in an ever changing space.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\">For GoSquared, the changes over the past ten years since its inception have been fast and monumental. At the age of 14, when any regular teen would have been focusing on studying for their GCSEs, James, Geoff and JT launched GoSquared.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\">Now, GoSquared has evolved into a customer analytics and communications platform and is making a big impact on the customer relations space with a fantastic digital product. They saw that most companies were using spreadsheets to manage their customers, as well as an array of tools to communicate with them. GoSquared brings all your customer information together in one place. With some innovative projects in the pipeline and an obsession with building a great product, they\u2019re making a solid impact in customer relations.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-2118 gallery-columns-1 gallery-size-large'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3995.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3995-1500x1000.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3995-1500x1000.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3995-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3995-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_3995.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<blockquote class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s position-relative marginTopBottom-l breakPointM-marginTopBottom-xl\"><div class=\"blog-quote-before position-absolute bg-marvel\"><\/div><div class=\"tweet-quote blog-quote-after position-absolute bg-marvel cursor-pointer transitionDuration-l transitionProperty-all transitionTimingFunction-cv-easeOutCircular scaleUp--hover zi-weak\"><svg class=\"fill-white opacity-0 pointerEvents-none position-absolute pinCenter transitionProperty-all transitionTimingFunction-easeInOut\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"20\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 20\"><path d=\"M24,2.37a9.64,9.64,0,0,1-2.83.79A5,5,0,0,0,23.34.37a9.72,9.72,0,0,1-3.13,1.23A4.86,4.86,0,0,0,16.62,0a5,5,0,0,0-4.8,6.2A13.87,13.87,0,0,1,1.67.92,5.13,5.13,0,0,0,3.19,7.67,4.81,4.81,0,0,1,1,7a5,5,0,0,0,3.95,5,4.82,4.82,0,0,1-2.22.09,4.94,4.94,0,0,0,4.6,3.51A9.72,9.72,0,0,1,0,17.73,13.69,13.69,0,0,0,7.55,20c9.14,0,14.31-7.92,14-15A10.17,10.17,0,0,0,24,2.37Z\"\/><\/svg><\/div><p class=\"blog-quote position-relative textAlign-center c-marvel\"><span class=\"blog-quote-text transitionDuration-l transitionProperty-all transitionTimingFunction-easeInOut\">\u201cWe\u2019re not a charity but having an important reason to exist is pretty key.\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\">Whilst the company purpose has changed a fair bit from its early days, they remain passionate about building great software. James tells us that: \u201cThe way companies think about what we do has changed. So a lot of our journey has been iterating and changing what we\u2019re about. We make sure we have a mission everyone believes in - we\u2019re not a charity but having an important reason to exist is pretty key\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\"><span class=\"long-quote\">\u201cEssentially, what has always stuck despite these changes within our company is design. Engineering to create a product that people love to use. Just because you\u2019re selling this software to businesses doesn\u2019t mean it has to suck.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\">When talking about what motivates GoSquared to create a product with such a strong focus on user experience, James says: \u201cWe believe that the way most businesses communicate and understand customers is really broken and backwards. We think if we can solve that, then we can help customers have a way better experience when talking to businesses and make them happy. Then we can also have a really big impact on the people who have the jobs of talking to customers, like those in customer service, people in sales roles and even in product roles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\">Throughout the years, the design process has evolved. The team may still put their initial ideas down into moleskine notebooks piled high around the office but gone are the days of using Adobe Illustrator and organising screens in Keynotes. They found early on it\u2019d be much more useful to arrange a flow to and from screens, which is where Marvel comes in. First wireframing their product within Sketch, then using the Marvel Sketch plugin to sync the work and figure out the flow, then back into Sketch to develop the design more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\"><span class=\"long-quote\">\u201cThe Sketch plugin really makes it so much easier to iterate and keep Marvel in sync with what\u2019s happening in Sketch. Before that it was a significant amount of effort to get your designs into Marvel - downloading your designs and uploading them as pngs. Now it\u2019s just a click.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\">GoSquared uses Marvel to mockup their products. From the <a class=\"link link--blue fontWeight-4\"href=\"https:\/\/www.gosquared.com\/blog\/solutions-not-features\">remake of their marketing website<\/a>, to their new Live Chat product that\u2019s helping businesses talk to their customers across their website and mobile apps. \u201cWith the marketing site, we wanted to be more focused on the value of the problems that we were solving for people; moving from talking about analytics, dashboards and live-chat, to talking about how we can help users acquire more customers, build a better product, close more sales and provide better customer service.\u201d So before embarking on these projects, James and the team wanted to create a mockup of the website and acquire feedback from potential users, using Marvel to do just that.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-2' class='gallery galleryid-2118 gallery-columns-1 gallery-size-large'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_5491.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1125\" src=\"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_5491-1500x1125.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_5491-1500x1125.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_5491-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_5491-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\">\u201cThe comments feature is one of the most important things for us. Being able to view the part of the design that they\u2019ve commented on is pretty game changing, rather than things getting lost in translation. For both of these projects, we received a wide range of feedback on a lot of things that we probably would never have heard of if we had just built it and put it out into the ether. Marvel has also been pretty influential on significantly reducing the amount of time it took to build the first version of the chat product. It saved us around three or four weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s position-relative marginTopBottom-l breakPointM-marginTopBottom-xl\"><div class=\"blog-quote-before position-absolute bg-marvel\"><\/div><div class=\"tweet-quote blog-quote-after position-absolute bg-marvel cursor-pointer transitionDuration-l transitionProperty-all transitionTimingFunction-cv-easeOutCircular scaleUp--hover zi-weak\"><svg class=\"fill-white opacity-0 pointerEvents-none position-absolute pinCenter transitionProperty-all transitionTimingFunction-easeInOut\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"20\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 20\"><path d=\"M24,2.37a9.64,9.64,0,0,1-2.83.79A5,5,0,0,0,23.34.37a9.72,9.72,0,0,1-3.13,1.23A4.86,4.86,0,0,0,16.62,0a5,5,0,0,0-4.8,6.2A13.87,13.87,0,0,1,1.67.92,5.13,5.13,0,0,0,3.19,7.67,4.81,4.81,0,0,1,1,7a5,5,0,0,0,3.95,5,4.82,4.82,0,0,1-2.22.09,4.94,4.94,0,0,0,4.6,3.51A9.72,9.72,0,0,1,0,17.73,13.69,13.69,0,0,0,7.55,20c9.14,0,14.31-7.92,14-15A10.17,10.17,0,0,0,24,2.37Z\"\/><\/svg><\/div><p class=\"blog-quote position-relative textAlign-center c-marvel\"><span class=\"blog-quote-text transitionDuration-l transitionProperty-all transitionTimingFunction-easeInOut\">\"Design isn\u2019t just about making it pretty. It's about making fundamental calls on what belongs in the product.\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"pageWrap pageWrap--s marginBottom-m paddingBottom-s c-slate lineHeight-l fontSize-l fontWeight-3 breakPointM-fontSize-xl breakPointM-lineHeight-xl\">James transposes his passion for creating simple and intuitive user interfaces into all the elements of the company. \u201cThe way we think about an interface - always striving for simplicity and ease - is a philosophy we\u2019ve implemented across the rest of the business. Be it throughout the company, the tools we choose to use and the way processes work - always striving for simplicity enable us to move faster and makes everyone\u2019s lives easier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world that we operate in today has changed, from the design tools we rely on, to the devices we use. James Gill, Co-Founder and Designer of GoSquared, talks to me about the importance of product design in an ever changing space. For GoSquared, the changes over the past ten years since its inception have been fast and monumental. At&#8230; <a class=\"link link--blue fontWeight-4\" href=\"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/spotlight-gosquared\/\">Read More &#65515;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":2119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[24,27],"class_list":["post-2118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-spotlight","tag-marvel","tag-startup"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v15.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/spotlight-gosquared\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spotlight - GoSquared | Marvel Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The world that we operate in today has changed, from the design tools we rely on, to the devices we use. James Gill, Co-Founder and Designer of GoSquared, talks to me about the importance of product design in an ever changing space. For GoSquared, the changes over the past ten years since its inception have been fast and monumental. At... 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