Calido review – How to build the best possible product

I have tried to build numerous products, but my question is always, what should I prioritise next? Right here is Calido who has built an algorithm to help you always prioritise the right tasks and get a quick win for your product. Let’s check it out.

Here we are in the Calido platform, and we’re just thrown straight into it. There are two workspaces. There is my own workspace where I have some quick notes. I have a simple roadmap which is basically just a list of the different tasks. Then I have more features and roadmap where it’s a kanban view.

1. Features of Calido
2. Calido Pricing
3. Alternatives to Calido
4. Future of Calido
5. Pros & Cons using Calido
6. Last thoughts about Calido

Features of Calido

We can also change this up here into a tree view or roadmap view actually in this sense. And then we have some user personas which have been built for my business in this case. And you can see we have Sally, the Novi salesperson, Mike, the sales manager and so on. All of these different views out here are basically the same but with different content. So, this first time here I will not dive right into it.

But what I will show you is my sample workspace here. Within a sample workspace, we have three different categories to focus on. We have the strategy, product management and product marketing. So let’s start with the strategy. Under a strategy, you can see we have the OKRs, which are the goals we need to reach.

All of these goals have a risk, an assignee and the team. They do also have a due date and the risk is not super important. But you can set it if you want to. It is progress that is most important. So here you can see that, for instance, we need to scale the Salesforce ecosystem to 2K daily active users by Q2 22.

I can then get it elaborated if I press edit on the side panel, and then we can see the related one which is basically the same under here. We can set comments, and we can see and set attachments. But what is fascinating is to see these under here. So here we have implemented real – time customer record synchronisation in Q2. What we can do is set a risk if we want low, medium, high.

But it is the progress bar here which is most important. So when these are created, you can see that we have some different values to set here. But it is definitely the progress that is most important and will be updated the most because when I update the progress here, then the overall progress is also updated. So you can see I can set these all the way up here, and then I have to actually manually set this one up here. That would be a nice feature that it updated by itself.

But this is the OKR section. Then we also have initiatives and goals. And here we can see that we want to add video conferencing, and we want to have 1000 teams using the video conference. If I want to see it again, I need to edit it, and now you can see it is the same view, but we have different values we can work with. We have the initiative score that we can set here and this is based on the competition, the growth and the risk.

Then we also have competition, growth and risk out here. We can also link this to a Jira task if there is one in there. So they will always be updated. So this initiative score, if I change, the competition will also change, and we want this one to be as high as possible, because then we will focus on it, and you can see as it changes, it also goes down because this is sorted by what we need to tackle first. So, right now it is video conferencing we need to tackle first.

And overall, within Calido what I really like is that these different types of values you enter will be calculated into one score and that score you can use to do multiple things. In this case, the higher the score, the sooner we need to focus on this. Now let’s move on to vision. This view is very simple. You can see there are two visions, a collaboration app and a mobile app and I can then edit it in the side panel to see related, comments and attachments.

On the details we can basically describe the vision, give it a name and that’s it. Of course, we can add a vision statement, we can add child tasks to it, and then we can duplicate it. So a vision statement is basically the same as you see here. It’s just a new vision. So this view is very simple.

So let’s move on to the SWOT analysis. And again, you have probably seen it now, but all of these views are more or less the same. They just change a bit with every different type of module. So here you can see we have our strengths, our weaknesses, opportunities and threads. So here you can basically just enter under the strength.

If it’s a strength, you want to enter the weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Because all the modules we are going through right now are related to the product strategy, soon we will come to the product management. We can see this is a string. So we can see what the action plan, is. And again, we have the related comments and attachments.

So it is the same view. You can see we can finish it, we have worked on it, we are done with it. But you can say that a SWOT analysis, you don’t really finish a strength, it is just there to highlight that this is a strength. Then the last menu point on the strategy is customers and leads and here again, we just have a list and this is a small CRM system that would be interesting if they would maybe integrate into another CRM system. But here you can see that we have a renewal date, the health of this client, what products they have bought, the lifetime value and so on.

So these different types of values are great. We should probably have a way to update this because if you have 1000 clients, it would be a nightmare to keep updated. But that is something that we will wait to have in the future with all the integrations coming, especially the Zapier integration. But this is just a small CRM system. Now let’s move on to product management.

Within product management, we have three different modules to work on. We have our capacity planning, our collaboration app and a payment app. So let’s start with the capacity planning here. And the capacity planning is a way for you to see whether you have enough space to take on more work. So here you can see that here we have a Salesforce integration.

Right now it is on the product team and Zak is here, Zak is the assignee, and he has completed this task. Let’s go back and see if there is one that’s not completed. So here you can see that the Zendesk integration is right now on the development team, and it is in progress. What we can do is we can close down here, and then we can show the kanban view because it’s a little easier for us to see. So, right now the kanban view is made by different types of people working on it.

Let’s see if I can change it to be the status of the task. So if I click on kanban settings you can see if I change the status here then we have a different type of view and this counts for all the different views you’ve seen just before. So now let’s move on to the Collaboration app. Within the Collaboration app, we have ideas, customer feedback and a features roadmap. The features roadmap is the same as we’ve seen up here and here you can see the different tasks.

But before we dive into that, everything starts with an idea. So here we have all the different ideas, and you can see that these three down here have been submitted. This one up here is actually planned. We have some large ones and are under consideration. So let’s try and open up this one called Build Role Editor for Admin module.

You can see the status is submitted. What we can do is change it to a plan. So now it also updates our public roadmap which we had shared with all of our users. And in that roadmap they can also vote. So you can see all the different votes here.

So, in theory, we should focus on Salesforce integration first, but that has already been launched. Next is the HubSpot integration which has been planned and then, in theory, we should go with the two-factor authentication for collaboration apps. But here it is strictly integrated with your public roadmap. So all the votes and everything from there is pulled here. So you can see what ideas to work on next.

In the customer feedback again, it comes from your public roadmap and with integration soon we can pull in feedback from Zendesk and through Zapier from Intercom or whatever chat system you’re using. But here you can see that we have some feedback that they’re not able to save report filters. It has critical importance, so we just need to tackle this as fast as possible. I feel that I’m missing a way to easily move this from the customer feedback over to the roadmap because as I see here, we can set some feedback channel progress the customer which is related to this, the importance, but we can’t set the roadmap for this specific task.

That would be a nice feature, just an add-on. But when we then want to tackle this feature that we’re not able to save Report filters. Then we could go over here to the features and roadmap, and then we could basically just add it as a task in the plan, maybe. And then we’ll basically just write in can’t save reports, and we’ll save it as planned for now. So now you can see that we can’t set reports here we need to focus on this.

Now, what I really like here is this rice score. So if I go back here, and I click on Roll up Dashboard, you can see it has a rice score of 34. And this is based on four different parameters. It is based on the reach, the confidence, the effort and the impact.

So the higher the reach and the higher the effort and the higher the impact, the more we need to focus on this. But if the effort is too high and the impact is not high enough, then we should not focus on this because then it will take a long time to work on, which means it will take a long time before the users can actually start using this feature. That is what I really like about this rice feature. It is definitely my favourite feature within Calido, but that is how you use the roadmap.

In the payment app. I will just quickly show you again, We have ideas, we have customer feedback, and we have the features and roadmap and that is because we have a collaboration app, and we have a payment app. So these are two different apps that we’re working on. So this means that under product management you can set up multiple roadmaps or multiple products to run simultaneously. Now let’s move on to the last module, which is the product marketing. And this is a very simple module.

First off, we have personas and personas are just your regular type of target group. So you can see here we have some different values to set. Technical experience, road warrior, experience level, and so on. We can then see more information about it here. Or you can see the persona, persona type.

We can see again all the different values that I just told you before. And then again, we have related comments and attachments that go through the entire system. So if I close this one down, we can then add an item which is a persona. We can call this one Phillip the Freelancer. And then I can start to fill out information about this type of persona.

What this does, even though it’s very simple, are that it collects everything within Calido. So you have everything you need for your product within Calido and all the information is saved here So even though it’s simple, it is a really neat feature. We also have the launch plan here, which is again the list view. But here we can set up the different tasks that we need to do.

We can set a start date, end date. We can change to the kanban view again, as you’ve seen before, to really get an overview of what it is we need to focus on. So here, for instance, we have marketing and communication readiness. This is the marketing team, the status is in progress, and so on. So this is basically just a task board, but it is giving us a way to tell that it’s a launch plan, so everyone knows what it is.

The last module down here is competitive analysis and here we can add all of our competitors. So the first competitor here is WinCollab. So, if I edit this in the side panel, then you can see that this editor has a start date and end date. That seems a bit irrelevant to me, but here we can add a description of it. We can say how good are they?

How do we stack up to them? The pricing and the feature set would be really nice to see. Again because this is something we’ve seen in the entire platform. But based on these parameters, how close of a competitor is this to us? That will be fascinating to see, but that is overall the Calido platform.

As you can see, even though a lot of the modules are simple and do not have a lot of functionality, when you dive in, and you start working with the scores, and you follow the system that Calido has built, then you will end up with a great product that is built for your users, which means that it will hopefully just excel.

Calido Pricing

Now, the price of Calido is very different compared to the alternatives. Normally, in this industry of these types of products we see a per member price. But with Calido it is a package deal. You get where you get the amount of members inside that package, and they don’t have a free plan, but they do have a free trial that you can test out Calido for 14 days and asked that I when I started testing out Calido, and it is a great way for you to try out Calido to figure out whether it fits into your Arsenal of products.

Alternatives to Calido

Now, the first alternative to Calido is Productboard, and Productboard is the number one choice within these types of product management boards because Productboard allows you to integrate to almost any type of other product out there. And this makes it possible for you to streamline your entire workflow. And then they just have a great and fantastic platform to work with. Now, the other alternative is ClickUp, and ClickUp is more of this diverse type of product that can do almost anything. But ClickUp does not have the same type of OKRs, the same type of goals to follow and the overall structure.

ClickUp is really just a skillet that you get, and then you can build on top of that. So I will say ClickUp is more of a second competitor, whereas Productboard is right in the inner circle of being a straight alternative to Calido.

Future of Calido

Now, the future of Calido is really exciting. First off, then they’re working on a lot of small tweaks, so it will be a lot easier to use Calido and we really need that because sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to figure out where the different features are. Then they are working on a Zapier integration and this integration is really exciting because this will open up to almost anything. Now, you can integrate with your Jira. If you’re using that for your Sprint management, you can integrate with Zendesk to shoot in directly from Zendesk, some different types of products or different types of tasks you want to develop and so much more.

Then they are also building an entire notification system. And it is so important for us to stay in the loop. Without notifications, it’s difficult for us to know what we need to react on and what has actually happened since we were last signed in to Calido. Last but not least, when we look further ahead into the future, then they have a lot of integrations under consideration at the moment. This means that all of these integrations, like Zendesk and HubSpot are integrated, are native integrations which makes it a lot easier to use Calido and basically just streamlines your entire workflow.

Pros & Cons using Calido

Now, after using Calido, I really like that you get a full product with OKRs and much more. Then you get a modern UX and, overall, help to build a better product. Now, the thing they should improve is definitely the UX. It can be a little difficult to figure out sometimes, and then we’re missing a lot of integrations to really utilise Calido.

Last thoughts about Calido

Overall, Calido is a great product with a score that helps you make product – driven decisions. I want to give Calido four stars. It is a neat product, but they really need to improve the overall flow of the application. That’s my review.