Decktopus Partners with Saasuma: Cloud Engines Changing the Game Plan

An Integrated Search Tool Meets Interactive Document Creation Platform

Decktopus is proud to announce their partnership with Saasuma, a software stack optimization solution. Working with multiple companies, clients and organizations that offer varying tools and online solutions for the same purpose may be demanding. That is why Saasuma strives to connect an all-in-one platform that assists people in navigating the over abundance of their digital tools.

In our first-ever podcast episode, Decktopus Media and Communications Manager Ceylan Ersoy had a thorough and insightful conversation with Simona Aleksovska, the VP Operations of Native Teams. Here is the inside scoop and eye opening quotes from the series.

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Decktopus & Saasuma Podcast  

Ceylan Ersoy (00:04):

So Simona, thank you so much for joining me for the first-ever podcast that Decktopus is going to be hosting today. Our guest is Simona from Saasuma, and I'm really excited to talk to you.

Simona Aleksovska (00:18):

Hi, thanks for inviting me. I'm very excited to be here

Ceylan Ersoy (00:22):

So Simona, can you kind of walk us through what Saasuma does and your background working with this company, and what you guys have been offering to your online users?

Simona Aleksovska (00:50):

Okay. So we want to provide for our customers, the software where they can connect all of the apps that they're using and all of the devices that they're using and basically have this unique experience to search through all of their content. And besides that, we offer a lot of other tools like switch cloud. And with this tool, you can basically transfer all of your files from one cloud storage place to another. And we were thinking about, okay, like after you do that, how will you get organized? So we added additional features like labels like collections. So basically with a Saasuma, you can organize all of your files, as you would do on your computer. And that was our starting point for the design. I mean, and the whole concept of the software, where we just wanted to present to the users, the familiar way of working.

Simona Aleksovska (01:46):

So for example, when you go to your like, finder on your Mac or your windows you have like on the left this menu with all of the folders, and also you can find all of the filters in the horizontal row. So that's what we are doing also with our directory. So it would be like everything in one place but a bit easier to locate because we are working a lot on improving our search functions. So we can sort of stream images if there is a word on the image. And yeah, so that's us, those are our core features. We have recently got something new and that's our extension that can be added to Google. So how we came to that is that many times we're trying to like right now explain what's a system with us.

Simona Aleksovska (02:43):

And I was once asked, how can you explain in a few words? And I was like, yeah, well, it's like Google, but for your own things. And then there was this idea, like, why don't we put all of our customers like only for them, of course, secure and visible for them next to the results that they are finding on the internet. So, yeah, with our new extension, basically on the left side, you will see all of the results from your browser, and also on the right side, you will see with the same keyword the results from your data. So yeah, like that we are helping users to save on time to like find everything that they are looking for, and also to communicate it and share it with their teams. So if you create a teams account with Saasuma, you will be able to organize ad rights sharing possibilities, and like that communicate with your old, with your whole team, with the documents that you have.

Ceylan Ersoy (03:46):

That was definitely a great explanation. Thank you for walking us through that. I feel it's really relevant, especially given the time that we're experiencing right now with the growth of online tools. And it would be super helpful for all users to kind of find this platform that will organize online things and like where they store their documents and other things that they need access to really quickly and kind of save that time, saving that time for them is going to be super helpful in this time period where we're using online sources and documents more than ever. And time is money obviously more than ever right now.

So it's really exciting to see what the features Saasuma offers and how people can capitalize on these futures. Kind of helps me jump into my second question there. Can you talk us through our partnership with Decktopus, obviously we've been working on this partnership for a while now, and it's been really exciting to partner up with you. How did that partnership unfold for you guys and what has your experience been like? Did you start seeing the benefits right away?

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Simona Aleksovska (04:52):

Yeah, great. Collaboration and great teams. So I must say that, yeah, Nicole, our business developer was the one that was leading the communication. And whenever we were sharing, like our thoughts, we were extra excited to have a call with you guys. So we have great collaboration, which is also like with my equivalent, with my experience with your customer support, because I also am a user. So far it's going great. Personally I am using it, but also we are exploring opportunities to integrate it in the future. But we are going to keep that, I don't know, like in the future and update all of our users through our newsletters. I'm going to speak a bit about my personal experience. So for example, every second week we have our company update call and we're supposed to create this presentation.

Simona Aleksovska (05:49):

And mostly I'm in charge for grading the presentation for this product. And when we have a busy week, because right now we're just trying to have a new release every second week and so on. Sometimes I don't have the time to do it, like hours and hours in advance. So I would just go there and very quickly change the layout or change the image, according to the newest feature that we are releasing like in those two weeks. So, yeah, personally, I like it. Also like we have our sales department, so when our sales department was creating presentations, we were doing it the old, traditional way with the slides. Like, and then maybe we need to struggle and ask for a designer to spend some time and design our slides which would take them away from their work on our product. So right now, basically our team is not only the designers who are engaged in designing the slides for our sales presentations and yeah, with Decktopus basically they can do it in your platform and yeah, musically that's okay. Something that I don't know, should they share, but they will is that we have used one of those slides as a header image for our emails, so, yeah, we had a great response rate to that one. So thanks for giving us those creatives

Ceylan Ersoy (07:24):

That is so exciting to you and happy to see that that compass has definitely helped you with your business initiatives. It's really nice hearing back from users and saying that we're responsive to their needs and stuff, because we've been actively trying to build our community of user base and integrate them into our slack channels and social media channels so that we keep that conversation ongoing at all times. And for the new futures that we're going to launch, we directly take that from what they need. So definitely trying to listen to user requests, user preferences, and kind of shaping our product roadmap according to that. So it's really nice to hear that it's been helpful for you guys as well.

So we've definitely been experiencing this very unusual and unique time period with the pandemic, and then a lot of people across the world have been trained all online sources, resources as a means of mitigating that situation, whether it be for online education, whether it be for work from home situations. So a lot of what we used to do in real life is taken online. So online solutions that are just going to help with saving time or just optimizing how we do work and then making it more efficient, making our time more efficient in delivering solutions has been really necessary. And so finding those all kinds of solutions have been really significant for everyone going through this pandemic. So what do you think were some trends that you guys have been observing at Saasuma with your users, and then do you think those trends are going to be permanent? And how do you think online tools can mitigate that situation?

Simona Aleksovska (09:14):

Yeah, well, definitely. I think when this period with the coronavirus started, I mean, I was working remote even before that, but that's just me, but what I have noticed is that many people were trying to be, I don't know, let's say it creative and trying to find a way like to go through this period then in that process, like everybody was looking for some too, and sometimes it was a good one sometimes not, but I guess that's one of our biggest goals system not, and I mean, even though we have started with this game and before this period is to basically make that this period easier and the organization and location of all of your documents and files, especially if you're working in a team when you're only online it's just made so much easier because if you would have been an office, you could like ask your colleagues.

Simona Aleksovska (10:15):

And so on, of course you can get that right now on Slack. But even that can take almost half an hour altogether; like the communication, the location of the files, and so on. So yeah, that's why with Saasuma, we have this, let's say the community of people that have decided to share some of their data with somebody from their company or organization, making it basically easier to communicate and to share files. Let's say the team's side of things; if something was in hard-copy or you were using fewer tools in the past today, especially people that are working on many projects, let's say freelancers or they are engaged with different teams on different platforms.

What I have noticed especially through co-working spaces, the ones that are open right now is that they have so many tabs open and there is JIRA, there is a Saasuma, there is Drive, also there is Dropbox, and a different client. So many platforms are basically doing similar things; some things can be mapped out. So that's why we're thinking like, okay, so do we need to have to work on so many fronts or can we just combine all of that and somehow map it out and help the users locate everything from one place and integrate all of those software that they would like, all the ones they have to wake up and open in the morning. All of that. My personal experience is that when I was working in the past, I was working in a digital marketing agency.

Simona Aleksovska (12:08):

I had different clients and they would all ask me to create different Gmail accounts. And one of them was using Trello. One of them was using Saasuma, so they would create for me and would add me as a user on those platforms. So sometimes it would just be exhausting for me to have an easy overview of how my deal looks like, and what is shared with me, if I have to go and log into every separate platform for every separate client. And yeah, personally, I have struggled with that. So, yeah, that's why I hope that this will be useful for many people that are in a similar situation, that they can basically save on time. And also not only on time, but maybe save their nerves, I would say and go to one software only, which is sooner and search for everything from there,

Ceylan Ersoy (13:05):

Definitely on the same page with you there working with so many startups feel as for myself has also been difficult to navigate given the abundance of applications and different platforms. I needed to be working with different emails I needed to have. And so definitely being able to manage that from one place would be super easy and time-efficient at the same time. So going forwards do you think there will be more solutions like this, trying to kind of save time for people, especially as a work from home is looking to be something that is here to stay, especially for like a lot of companies are giving the option for their employees to work from home forever, and then some, most of them are transitioning into a more hybrid working situation. So what do you think is going to happen in the near future?

Simona Aleksovska (13:54):

Yeah, we are following that. We are following those trends and those statistics frequently because yeah, we want to improve our product in that direction, but it seems like with some analysis it came out that a big percentage of the people that weren't working remotely after this have said that they would partly go back to the office. Like, I don't know, a few times, a few days in a week or they would completely stay at home. So I think that this is like an awakening for those industries that can allow for their employees to work from home. That basically it's doable. I mean, we have come so far with technology and we are creative and right now there are a lot of people working in the industry. So I think that, yeah, the world is going in that direction.

And even those like traditional companies are seeing good results right now from people that are working remotely. So what's next is how to make that easier. How not to make it an issue and how to me I mean, help companies and also in place understand that this is not like I changed that you just need to go through, but it's actually a change that may be positive. So I guess it's like our way of approaching that change. And by making it easier and pleasant and actually more productive, I just, we are learning new ways that we can even adapt now, but I'm also keeping the future.

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Ceylan Ersoy (15:45):

Definitely. That's a great way to wrap up our mini podcasts. So I really thank you for your time. Appreciate you joining us for the first podcast of Decktopus plus in collaboration with Saasuma. So I hope you have a great rest of your day and thank you so much for joining us.

Simona Aleksovska (16:00):

Thank you very much. I enjoyed it. Have a great day. Bye-bye. Thank you.

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For more details tune into our Youtube channel and watch the full episode! To discover how your company can benefit from the Decktopus Business Plan and generate wonderful looking interactive documents, check out our plans or schedule a live demo.