Asana: An App for Greater Team Productivity

While employed at Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein realized that teams were doing too much “work about work” despite having smart and organized members. The tools that people were using to be productive – email, documents, wikis – just weren't cutting it anymore. In fact, the duo concluded that technology was failing us. With so much time and energy spent writing and reading emails, attending status meetings, and tracking down updates, people were being prevented from moving forward faster, producing more results, and chasing larger goals.

Frustrated, Rosenstein and Moskovitz decided to build a web application that would remedy this loss of productivity. After the app was adopted by Facebook's teams, employees had fewer meetings, sent fewer emails, and got more done with less effort. Moskovitz and Rosenstein knew that the opportunity to increase team productivity was not unique to Facebook or tech companies, so they launched Asana in 2009 to “help humanity thrive by enabling all teams to work together effortlessly.”

Aiming to be the next step in productivity, Asana puts conversations and tasks together in one place, eliminating or reducing the need for email, status reports, and meetings. With Asana, teams can create, assign, and comment on tasks; see what's getting done and who's doing it without asking; view other people's tasks and priorities; create calendars from tasks; and more. Accessible via the web and iOS and Android devices, the application re-imagines how work gets done and keeps everyone connected without overwhelming them.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Asana is supported by a group of investors and advisors that include Benchmark Capital, Founders Fund, Andreessen-Horowitz, Peter Thiel, Aditya Agarwal, Peter Deng, Sean Parker, Eric Ries, and Owen Van Natta, among others. Organizations that use Asana include Dropbox, Uber, Virginia Tech, Pinterest, Nyaya Health, Variable, Bare Fruit, Disqus, Mission Bicycles, and more.