• The article introduces Playbook.com, a tech startup founded by Jessica Ko and Alex Zirbel. Playbook is a cloud-based storage system designed for designers and freelancers, aiming to solve the challenges of organizing and finding design files.
• It offers features such as custom tags for organizing files, a browsing interface similar to Pinterest, collaboration tools for visual projects, and the ability to turn assets into a shared portfolio. Playbook provides 4TB of free storage for designers, which is twice the amount offered by Google Drive at a paid cost.
• The article highlights positive user reviews and testimonials from sources like TechCrunch and Product Hunt. Playbook has raised $22 million in funding and plans to expand its features for freelancers and in-house designers while targeting enterprise clients in the future.
If you are a creator or any kind of visual design content creator, then you know the hustle of taking your project from untitled to a done project. But in between comes the maze of folders and twin cousins named Finall1.psd, Final1.Psd, or, if you are my kind of person, "The other ones". The time that goes into verifying which is the finished file with all the changes takes time away from your creative flow, and that's not productive. To change that, Jessica Ko and Alex Zirbel came up with a Tech startup named Playbook.com.
Team and Who?
In this situation, to understand the relevance of this product, we have to understand the founders. Jessica Ko is the Co-founder and CEO of Playbook.com. She was a UI designer and developer, Engineer, User Experience Lead, and Senior User Experience Designer at Google. She left Google to become a founding member of Opendoor, a company that was redesigning how people buy and sell homes. After one year, she became the Head of UX and brand design for four years and then left to invest in certain start-ups and founded Playbook.
Alex Zirbel, the Co-founder and CTO of Playbook.com. Alex had an internship at SpaceX and has been working as a Software Engineer since 2013. He was also a part of Opendoor and was appointed as a Senior Software Engineer. The synergy of both Jessica and Alex worked together and formed a vision of creating the "Dropbox for Designers."
How Playbook Became Play-Book?
Jessica Ko, who has been in the design industry for almost a decade, experienced the challenges of finding and organizing design files. This often led to recreating assets or designs or buying photos that they already had simply because they couldn't find them when needed.
And at deadlines, you can't stretch it just because you can't find the file. Jessica teamed up with Alex and launched Playbook in 2020 in Palo Alto, California.
Meet the Star of the Show
Playbook is a cloud-based storage system that is targeted towards designers and freelancers. It lets you store, organize, and share your designs. What sets Playbook apart are the features it provides to do those things:
Custom tags - Users can create custom tags to organize their files or use AI to automatically tag images with relevant keywords. This makes locating and saving files much easier.
Browsing - This is a fun part of Playbook; it lets you browse your files like Pinterest, allowing you to see the content or images beforehand and making it a quicker and more enjoyable experience.
Collaboration & Publishing - Playbook lets you collaborate on visual projects with teams and clients, and it also provides you with tools to turn a set of your assets into a live shared page. One application of this can be that it can work as your portfolio for your prospective clients.
4TB Storage - Playbook offers 4TB of storage for designers for free, while Google Drive will cost you Rs 6500/Year for just 2TB of storage.
User Reviews or Testimonials
Playbook.com is being used by over 50,000 freelancers and in-house designers. It has raised $22 million in funding from investors.
TechCrunch reports that Playbook has raised $4 million in funding and aims to be the "Dropbox for designers." The article includes a quote from Jessica Ko, the founder of Playbook, who says that the company has built a storage system that can be accessed by all parties, as opposed to just sending files via different channels. The article also mentions that Playbook is currently focused on the needs of freelancers and plans to monetize and launch to enterprises next year.
Source: TechCrunch
On Product Hunt, a website where users can discover and share new products, there are 44 reviews of Playbook. The platform is described as having a sleek and intuitive interface that makes it effortless to store and organize creative files.
One user says that they love the product and that it's like Dropbox mixed with Pinterest. The user also mentions a new feature that allows them to group design files together and publish them as a micro-portfolio website in a couple of clicks.
Source: Product Hunt
Future of Playbook
Playbook is currently focusing on increasing its features for freelancers and in-house designers. The company is planning to monetize and expand its reach to enterprises next year.
I am a proud user of Playbook as well. I was looking for an affordable solution for my storage needs and came across it. 4TB of free storage is pretty tempting. However, you have to be verified as a designer or a creative content creator to be able to redeem this feature. But when I started using it, I found out that it is so much more than what it looks like. And you should try it too!
Edited by Shruti Thapa
