Marcus Richards
FacileThings is a personal management application based on the GTD methodology (Getting Things Done). Our mission is to help people achieve a productive, calm and rewarding lifestyle.
Tell us about yourself?
I am a software engineer who, after 15 years working for a software development company, started looking for a way to live better, with less stress, and doing the things that I most like. That led me to get to know GTD and, after not finding any tool to easily help me implement GTD in my life, to create FacileThings later. This was 10 years ago already.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Stop constantly improving your product and spend more time doing marketing and educating your users. FacileThings is not just an application, it is a way to learn to be more effective in your life and at work, and it requires a certain learning curve.
What problem does your business solve?
Most people haven’t been taught how to properly organize and prioritize their actions, so they try to do their best with a to-do list and a calendar.
That’s ineffective and stressful in most cases for many reasons. FacileThings integrates a structure and workflow based on neuroscience, which allows great performance while maintaining a low level of stress. That leads to higher productivity, better relationships, more free time, and more happiness.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
As I mentioned before, the origin was my own personal experience. I was an executive who couldn’t cope with all the projects at hand.
That forced me to work long hours and weekends, and to always be reachable. That is not sustainable in anyone’s life and, fortunately, there are ways to do it right. GTD improved my life and inspired me to build FacileThings.
What is your magic sauce?
Other personal productivity apps typically offer a wide range of features, but it’s up to the user to choose how to use them and integrate them into their lives. That doesn’t work with everyone. FacileThings has a 100% embedded methodology based on the best personal management practices, so that users don’t need to try and make mistakes. They’re always guided on rails.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We are investigating how to analyse and evaluate user behaviour using data science and AI techniques, in order to make valuable recommendations to our users. In the coming years we want FacileThings to provide much more value to our users as a kind of assistant or coach for their personal management.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Bootstrapping a tech company with no outside investments is hard, since it forces you to go step by step, always evaluating what’s most important, crossing your fingers, and totally focusing on it. When you have few resources you can’t do everything you want, and you have to make suboptimal decisions. However, for better or for worse, we have never changed course; we still stick to the original vision.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
(Sorry, this question doesn’t really resonate with me at our current stage, or maybe I misunderstood the example – you can drop the answer if it’s not exactly what you want).
We target people that often have the feeling that they are always too busy and stressed, that there’s not enough time to get it all done. We try to provide a reliable organisation system that will help them reconcile their tasks in all their areas of interest (work, family, leisure, personal development, etc.) and, ultimately, to help them be more effective in their work and personal life.
