The rapid shift and popularity of remote work have introduced the need for specific collaboration and communication tools for companies to support this new workforce dynamic. One of the biggest changes is the reduction in synchronous communication (face-to-face) and a corresponding increase in asynchronous communication, making it more difficult for employees to share information across a company network efficiently. Employees spend 1.25 workdays per week searching for documents, information, or people to do their jobs; the revenue impact of this inefficiency is an estimated 20-30% reduction. Tango addresses this for companies with its workflow documentation platform that simplifies capturing processes and provides step-by-step tutorials for virtually any process, ensuring that teams and employees are seamlessly on the same page. Through its browser extension and desktop application, Tango users can capture workflows and annotate them whether it’s for training, employee performance improvement, or onboarding. The captured processes are assembled automatically into a step-by-step guide that can be shared with other employees or even uploaded to a company’s centralized repository for learning management like a wiki. With hybrid work poised to stay in the long run, Tango is making it more viable at scale and the company plans to support 1M users by the end of the year, up from 100K since launch last fall. Companies already using the platform include Verizon, Indeed, LinkedIn, and Netflix.
LA TechWatch caught up with Tango CEO and Cofounder Ken Babcock to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We have closed a $14M Series A funding round, bringing our total funding to $19.7M.
Tiger Global Management led the round with Slack Fund and Atlassian Ventures participation. Existing Tango investors also participated and included Wing VC, General Catalyst, GSV Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, and Outsiders Fund.
Tell us about your product or service.
Tango’s workflow intelligence platform provides the insights necessary to scale internal business operations by standardizing best practices, onboarding and training new hires more quickly, and improving employee performance. Through its Chrome Extension and Desktop Application, Tango overlays existing tools to automatically capture workflows in real-time, resulting in instantaneous beautiful step-by-step how-to guides that can easily be exported into learning management systems and knowledge bases.
What inspired the start of Tango?
We saw an opportunity to reduce the friction in creating documentation. For growing organizations, the key to scale is often making internal process and knowledge accessible. When I was at Uber, our secret sauce was providing the playbook and data for cities to grow without bureaucracy or ambiguity.
How is it different?
Tango does 90% of the work for you in creating documentation. We automatically create step-by-step guides complete with descriptions, annotated screenshots, and links. When a user finishes their Workflow, we make it easy to share with other users or export to commonly used wiki applications.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
We’re tackling the $370B workplace learning market.
In tandem with our funding announcement we are launching Tango’s Workspaces to bring powerful collaboration features, including shared folders, viewership analytics, workflow discovery, and user permissioning. We have over 25,000 teams currently using Tango highlighting the need for team-level functionality.
Organizations saw how important it was to remain agile when our workforce quickly shifted to a remote environment during the pandemic. Whether working in person or remotely, collaborating and accessing information across an organization is still one of the biggest challenge businesses face.
On average, employees spend more than one full workday per week searching for documents, information, or people to do their jobs, which can cost companies 20-30% in revenue. In addition, 43% of employees would consider leaving a company if there isn’t an easy and efficient way to access information. Today companies face the challenge of creating and maintaining documentation to drive the everyday flow of operations.
Tango’s Workspaces will allow teams to capture workflow in the flow of work, enabling real-time access to information for all team members. In addition, Tango will help organizations transform how work is done through its analytics and workflow discovery features. With real insights into how work is getting done, organizations can standardize best practices learned from top performers, identify knowledge gaps that may exist, and support employees to improve their performance and become their best selves.
What’s your business model?
We have options for businesses of all sizes including a free Starter plan that is great for individuals and teams just getting started, a Pro plan that brings more features and functionality, and an Enterprise plan for organizations needing advanced security, control, and compatibility.
Tango’s Workspaces launch applies to all plans, making team-level collaboration seamless, regardless of which plan you’re on.
What are your post-COVID office plans?
We launched as a fully remote team during the pandemic and we continue to embrace a freedom of movement philosophy, meaning you can work from anywhere.
What was the funding process like?
Funding remained an entirely virtual process. Meetings were relatively easy to schedule, but as a result, we needed to manage our endurance and time. Finding the balance between fundraising and operating a business in tandem is tricky. We were constantly updating metrics in our deck as the business grew and changed weekly.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Having launched in September 2021, we were admittedly early for our Series A. However, we had the confidence that early success meant we needed to double down and move faster (through capital). Many investors agreed, but some passed simply because of limited data. Now, with over 100,000 users and exponential revenue growth, our intuition served us right.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Our path to 100,000 users was largely driven by word-of-mouth referrals and organic adoption. While there’s still work to be done on our marketing channels, investors recognized this early, explosive growth as a sign of good things to come. In addition, our ability to hire top talent in a challenging hiring environment gave investors confidence we could execute on our vision.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We have an incredible team that has been hitting major milestones like our recent Desktop App launch and now Workspaces. In addition, we quickly scaled to over 100k users and 25K teams in just eight months. As we move forward, we are focusing on new internal collaboration features for both the creator and the viewer. We envision a future of work where documentation mirrors the organization: a living, dynamic approach to internal knowledge.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
We’re in a tricky venture environment with the market downturn. Our interpretation is that businesses with demonstrable product-market-fit and a core persona showing a willingness to pay will continue to receive funding. Venture capital won’t dry up – it’ll just become more selective.
We’re in a tricky venture environment with the market downturn. Our interpretation is that businesses with demonstrable product-market-fit and a core persona showing a willingness to pay will continue to receive funding. Venture capital won’t dry up – it’ll just become more selective.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We intend to double the size of the team today with the fresh round of funding. These additional team members will enable us to execute on our vision of helping people be their best at work. Documentation is a two-sided process, which means we’ll continue to build tools for creators while adding functionality for viewers.
What is your favorite restaurant in LA?
I have a line item in my budget dedicated to Sugarfish.
