There used to be a Reeses’ commercial where, after an accidental collision, one person would indignantly gripe, “You got your peanut butter on my chocolate.” The other character was equally upset to have chocolate in his peanut butter. Until they tried it and proclaimed it delicious. The lesson still holds. Put two good things together and you’ll get something even better.
That’s why we are pleased to announce that HeroCoders, makers of Issue Checklist for Jira, and Okapya Software Solutions, makers of Checklist for Jira, are joining forces.
Sometimes competition research turns into mutual admiration. Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on two great feature sets, Yves Riel, founder and CEO of Okapya, reached out to Paweł Niewiadomski and Jacek Jaroczyński, cofounders of HeroCoders. It became apparent that both companies shared similar philosophies (of what makes a good products, of how customers should be supported and of how employees should be treated). Soon, what started as “a boring conversation between two middle-aged guys” evolved into an exciting plan. Rather than forcing users to choose between two great products with similar – but not identical – functionality, why not make it easy for them to have both?
A Bumpy Road
Deciding was the easy part. Getting it done was a bit of a bumpy road. The process took more than a year. The terms had to be revised and revised again. The lawyer HeroCoders started with isn’t the lawyer they finished with, and taxes are a pain. Then, of course, there was the pandemic – with travel restrictions making it all but impossible for Yves to travel to Poland to sign the papers.
But other things went remarkably well. The fact that process was so long and drawn out meant that by the time it was completed, a high level of trust, as well as smooth day to day working relationship, between the two teams had evolved. Atlassian was there to clarifying the technical impact the merger would have and suggest the best way to navigate it.
Shared Values
Perhaps the reason that the truly important stuff went so well is that both HeroCoders and Okapya have similar values, that we can now put into practice together:
- We believe in being there for our customers – by building great products and backing them up with responsive, friendly, accurate support.
- We believe that great software provides an excellent user experience; that software should be functional, flexible and intuitive. And that its uses should go beyond what we can imagine.
- We believe that the best way to build great software is to hire and retain great people. To that end we support remote work, offer a competitive salary, profit sharing, annual leave and in-house quarterly hackathons .
What’s Next?
Combining our teams will allow us to deliver new checklist features faster, explore concepts for future apps and to become a Platinum Atlassian Marketplace Partner. We’re aiming to grow our team by 30% during the next year. (Apply here!)
For our customers, your checklists will continue to function as they do now, but you’ll see a few changes in the new year:
- Issue Checklist for Jira will be renamed Checklist for Jira – There will also be a new logo.
- New data residency options will be available.
- A new Cloud edition that combines the best feature from HeroCoders and Okapya will be developed. You’ll be able to choose the tier that works best for you.
- No price increases are planned at this time.
