Charlotte entrepreneur Trent Hawthorne's side hustle, Standup Pro, gives companies the tools they need to maximize team communication and productivity.
Hawthorne worked alongside Emir Dukic and James Strong at sports tech startup KYCK, which was founded in 2011. Sport Ngin acquired the company in 2016, and Hawthorne, Dukic and Strong went on to co-found Rabbu in 2017. The startup is a technology and operations company in the short-term rental market that provides guests with travel experiences and accommodations through its tech-enabled homes while providing property owners with higher returns on their investments.
It was during their time at KYCK that Hawthorne began planting the seeds for what would become Standup Pro. He said communication among team members was poor, and as team leaders, he, Dukic and Strong were frustrated.
Hawthorne began taking notice of the software development team's daily standup meetings and decided to implement them into his team's daily routine as well.
"The point is to give information on a daily basis and have full transparency," he said. "We saw an immediate improvement in our team communication, culture and accountability."
Hawthorne said he started tracking goals and information from those meetings in a Google Doc sheet, but he quickly realized he could build out software that would help both his team and others experiencing the same issues.
"I started working with other early-stage startups using this Google Doc I'd created, and I decided that if people are going to use this, I should build a software product," he said. "That's how we created Standup Pro."
The platform, Hawthorne said, is simple to navigate. Users log in and fill out their main goals for the day. They're able to see their teammates' goals and mark off whether goals for the previous day were met.
"Using this tool, these meetings never have to last more than 15 minutes," he said. "We do this at Rabbu, even still. It's a very simple product, and it's intended to be that way."
Hawthorne said Rabbu was the first to utilize the Standup Pro software, beginning in late 2019. Currently, about 20 businesses — primarily based in Charlotte — are using the software regularly and about 50 more have signed up. The platform is free to use for up to five users, then it's $5 per user, per month for each additional person.
"My goal, now, is to nail the product market fit and determine whether it's going to be a better fit for a small startup with 10 people or within larger corporations where individual managers can use it for their teams," he said. "Having that information can mean different things for who we market to and target the software toward."
