Using Delightful Software: Fizzy
I was grateful to get an invite to the early version of Fizzy.
I’ve been following the development of this very closely, and I’ve really enjoyed watching a master (Jason Fried) tease and talk about this new product.
After all this time waiting, I was highly invested in the outcome. Jason originally described it as bug tracking for anything, physical or virtual.
So, in the few weeks that I’ve been using it, I’ve really enjoyed what it has to offer.
First, getting onboarded is super simple! It so simple you don’t really need any onboarding. I’ve been arguing this for years that software should be so simple to use you don’t need any training on it. And I’ve been a big advocate of that for school-based software specifically for years.
Upon creating your account the onboarding is done using the tool itself. I love when things work out like that. For this it’s really handy, because going through each card in your account’s Playground is all the training you need.
And a nice little touch, cards are numbered across the whole account, and the final card you see when you go through your tutorial is the last card on the list, but was the first one added, so it has number 1.
There are all kinds of great little touches that make this software really fun. The colors, the “golden ticket” idea that keeps a golden ticket front and center, the way search results are circled and colored:
Another great thing is how the keyboard shortcuts are right there for you.
This app is very keyboard friendly, even so much that I don’t really care to use it on mobile because it suits so well on the desktop.
But what do you use it for?
I have two main uses for it right now.
- As a podcast editing workflow manager. I already use Trello and Basecamp (card tables) to keep track of podcast editing, but those are all spread across different projects. My production manager and I use Fizzy to keep a single page-view on everything. We have the cards set to auto-close (another great feature) in 7 days because we meet every week, and if it isn’t done within the week, we are failing!
- I’m working with someone developing the ops processes for their business. There are a lot of little things in Hubspot that need to be adjusted, changed, fixed, and documented. We’re using Fizzy to keep track of all those things and make them work better. We use Asana for Tasks that must be done, but Fizzy is great for us to keep track of what would be nice to be done.
- I also made a public board asking you what things I should do next. So, you are welcome to join it and add a card, or just look at the public version here. Will anyone join and add suggestions for me?
Speaking of you joining my board, the access is pretty sweet. The link I shared above can be used 13 more times, so if I get spammed, I can adjust that number or change it. No big deal. I can easily remove someone from the account, and I can also easily change the access link and refresh it. Also, I have one board that is open for everyone, all the others are closed off and you can’t join them unless I specifically invite you to them.
It makes it easy to get in and use the software, instead of worrying about joining. I hope this easy of joining is a feature added to Basecamp itself in the near future.
Pricing
As of this writing, I haven’t learned what the pricing strategy will be, but I suspect it will be based on cards you add, rather than people you invite. They way the software is designed it seems to be bent toward ease of creating cards, and I am curious what it will end up being.
My guess is this: first 250 cards are free, then you buy card packs at less than $0.15-25/card. unlimited users, unlimited boards. Only thing you pay for is cards. 250 is enough cards to get you to really use it, and makes it easy to make a decision about using into the future.
Update: First 1000 cards are free. I’ve been using it pretty regularly for a couple weeks and I’m only at less than a hundred cards. After that it is just $20/month, or you can even run it for free all yourself, and you don’t have to pay them anything, because the code is open source!
The Fizzy Beta tracking account is only at 239 cards since it was launched and it has about 130 people on it.
This is very generous to get started. I like that a lot.
Overall, beautiful, functional, endearing software. Love it.