Despite advancements in data analytics and other tools that help companies make decisions, businesses have historically lacked a system for tracking the outcome of those decisions themselves. Did the data lead to a good decision? How long did it take to make that decision? Who was responsible for the decision, and was every relevant team member able to collaborate on it?
Those are the questions Chicago startup Clearbox wants to help companies answer. The startup, through its core software product Cloverpop, has created a platform for businesses to make better decisions. Its software allows companies to better track, collaborate on and learn from their decision making.
Ultimately, the startup is making what it calls the "Salesforce for decision making," Clearbox co-founder Lanny Roytburg said.
"A company’s biggest asset is its ability to make decisions ... But if you look across companies, there’s very little attention paid to the overall quality of the decision making," Roytburg said. "There’s really no system that helps companies manage, track and learn from their decisions."
Clearbox works with a handful of Fortune 100 companies, which Roytburg declined to specifically name. But he said the startup primarily works with consumer businesses, helping them with decisions around things like marketing, sales and strategy.
Companies have used Clearbox's product Cloverpop to answer and track decisions around whether to change the price of their offerings, if they should acquire another company, or if they should increase advertising spend. Cloverpop has helped companies manage over 20,000 business decision since the software was developed in 2015.
Roytburg said Cloverpop helps companies on average decrease the decision making process from 28 days to 7 days, remove cognitive bias from decision making, and better catalogue decisions as they take place. Cloverpop puts all of a company's decisions in one central place, allowing everyone to see what was decided, who decided it, and the outcome of that decision.
The platform also helps companies search and analyze past decisions in order to help make future ones. It uses decision trees and other templates to organize decisions, which can help speed up the process to coming to a conclusion. Its product also integrates directly into a company's Slack and Microsoft Teams account.
Clearbox, which acquired the Cloverpop software platform and team in July, recently raised a $2 million round led by Chicago's Sandalphon Capital. The startup, which currently employs 15 people, plans to use the funding to grow its team and bring its product to more companies.
