What is Motion.io? Features, Benefits, and How We Got Here

I speak for our entire team (team at present being just 3 co-founders) when I say it feels both surreal and overwhelmingly exciting to be publishing our first post on the Motion.io blog. 

Getting to where we are now, with a clear answer to the question of “who is Motion.io for and how does it help them?” has been no small feat. It’s required hours of discussion, research, interviews, and user story mapping just to create a simple product pitch that summarizes the key features and benefits of Motion.io.

Yet despite this being one small step on a much bigger journey to launch, it’s also one of the most important. If we’re going to be successful in developing a product that helps agencies drive measurable results, whether that be time saved, team size, new referrals, or revenue growth; we need to be confident in the features and benefits of Motion.io from day 1.

While we think our pitch represents a product that will help keep projects moving in ways other software offerings do not, the only way to know this for certain is by hearing from potential users. 

So, we’re making the pitch public in hopes you’ll let us know what you think. 

How did we get here?

Each of our three co-founders has experience starting and growing digital agencies. Motion.io was born from a desire to solve the biggest problem we each faced working in agencies: increasing client load while continuing to meet and exceed expectations. In other words, we had to figure out how to reduce the amount of stuck or delayed projects.

Many times additional hiring wasn’t an option, so we’d look for software to solve the problem, seeking tools to help us understand client design preferences, gather actionable feedback, and ultimately reduce back-and-forth communication. Unable to find a single solution, we were relegated to hacking together third-party tools with our own forms, spreadsheets, and manual processes.

The degree of success with which these Frankenstein solutions actually helped us keep projects moving was…mixed. When they worked, they did the job OK. But, the complicated tangle of automation, applications, and software meant things would often break, leading to lost information, miscommunication, and even further project delays. Our earliest idea for Motion.io was to create a tool that would allow agencies to avoid the pitfalls of a technological mishmash while helping them to get the things they needed from clients to complete projects faster.

But, a hunch isn’t enough. The 3 of us shared a problem we thought software could solve, but did other agencies? If so, where did their projects get stuck?

After conducting interviews with 25 people generous enough to share their time, expertise, and insights with us (if you’re reading this, thank you!) we learned a lot about where, when, and why client projects get stuck. From there, we came up with ideas for how Motion.io could help get those projects unstuck.

Our most impactful learning was that while project management tools might work well for internal collaboration, such as tracking tasks and deadlines, they don’t help agencies with what they truly need for projects to move across the finish line: client communication and collaboration.

Motion.io Features and Benefits

After recognizing that in order for Motion.io to be useful the focus needed to be on the agency/client collaboration process, we refined our ideas into the following list of features and benefits:

• Collaboration & Communication – At its core, Motion.io is a collaboration hub; instead of collaboration and communication strewn across multiple systems & emails, we centralize everything, reducing miscommunication and preventing redundant conversations.

• Guided Feedback – Instead of trying to schedule Zoom calls or responding in-line across multiple threads, our Guided Feedback System presents designs alongside questions agencies need answered, prompting focused discussion around specific design elements.

• File Management – Instead of messy Google Drive folders with confusing permissions & naming structures, Motion.io centralizes design files, tracks feedback and file revisions, logs design decisions, and helps agencies get to “Design Approved”.

• Decision Tracking & Design Approved – Instead of getting lost in emails, Motion.io tracks and logs deliverable feedback, tracks revision versions, and provides a record of why decisions were made.

• Client Dashboard, Tasks, and Automations – Instead of chasing clients down with phone calls & emails to get the feedback or content needed for a project, Motion.io automates reminders to clients and provides visibility into what is needed from them while keeping them updated on the progress.

And finally…Motion.io will be dead simple to setup and use. We heard throughout our interviews that other project management solutions required complicated setup or the need to change current processes. With Motion.io, you can add a new client in seconds, and use it for a single part of your process, like sharing a client file for feedback, or, managing entire projects.