There’s a long-standing internal debate inside Fullstory, an Atlanta-based startup that hit unicorn status in 2021.
Specifically, Fullstory team members go back and forth about how they pronounce the name of the audience participation platform BWAMP, according to Chief People Officer Gabrielle Sirner-Cohen.
“Is it pronounced bwaaaahmp (like swamp) or bwaaaaymp (like camp)?” she told Hypepotamus.
But there is little debate that BWAMP has become an important tool for Fullstory’s remote-first work environment, according to Sirner-Cohen. Built by Fullstory’s engineering team, BWAMP is a separate emoji-centric feedback channel that runs alongside video meetings, making it easier for remote teams to feel connected during video all-hands and meetings.
“I simply cannot imagine having a virtual meeting without this tool,” she said, adding she is firmly on team “camp” when it comes to the pronunciation.
Fullstory rolled out BWAMP to its team – and other companies searching for better and more fun video collaboration software – in May 2020. Since the height of the pandemic, companies have struggled to keep productivity up and employees engaged.
BWAMP is one of many new tools created during this renaissance of sorts in enterprise collaboration software.
Yes, the large players like Slack, Asana, and Atlanta’s own Calendly were pre-pandemic business staples. But over the course of the last two years, private platforms like Loom, Notion, and Zoho have grown significantly.
Productivity and collaboration tools are jointly looking to combat two growing trends in the workforce: Tech workers are burned out and “toggled” out.
That is impacting how individuals work and how team members engage. A Microsoft survey from 2021 found that cross-group collaboration fell by 25% since the pandemic, while upwards of 50% of employees are burned out at work.
Building Hybrid Tools in the Southeast
Beyond Fullstory’s BWAMP, the Southeast has proved to be fertile ground for collaboration software startups.
Down in Atlanta, the Techstars-backed Punchlist is making it easier for remote teams to gather feedback on web content from its visual, intuitive platform.
South Carolina-based project management and work management startup Moovila raised a $4 million venture round this September. In Nashville, Arvo is tackling the lack of solid documentation within teams with its corporate training-focused SaaS solution, something that is particularly useful as teams onboard remote workers.
These are on top of the growing number of HR-focused startups looking to improve what productivity looks like within remote and hybrid teams.
Productivity and collaboration tools have a unique opportunity to grow even as other tech verticals face slowdowns and market uncertainties.
“Now in a remote environment, it’s all the more important to have a formal, systemic way to understand how employees are experiencing life at the company,” added Sirner-Cohen.
