Shorter Loop (formerly known as Prodeasy) is a ‘super app’ for ALL your ‘customer-centric product management work’ for seamless product development and smarter collaboration, and communication between product teams from product managers, to engineers, designers, sales, marketing, leadership, customer support, etc. Loved by 1000+ product teams globally across industries and all the sizes of companies.

It’s an all-in-one AI-powered end-to-end product management platform that enables product teams to discover by uncovering customer’s hidden pains, identifying the right product-market fit,  gather, validate customer and team ideas, issues and synthesize these with AI-powered insights to take real-time actions by converting potential ideas (customers, internal teams, brainstorming) to work items, create opportunities and solutions (i.e. sustainable MVPs and whole product) led by business objectives and customer centric metrics, with 53% reduced product market risk, 80% faster product launches with one page product roadmap with flexible intervals set up, 70% increased experiments, hypotheses validation, and 30% increased customer satisfaction.

It also provides uber collaboration with digital whiteboards, doc hubs (like wiki without managing document versioning, history control and directory structures) and one dashboard to manage all your experiments (kanban view) and all your metrics in one page across user journey

Imagine a Swiss Army knife for product management – it’s got everything you need, from customer insights to strategy alignment.

What Is ClickUp?

ClickUp, on the other hand, is task and project management tool. It’s a work management tool that can be used by any teams to handle tasks, timelines, and collaboration. It provides tasks, Docs, Chat, Goals, Whiteboards, and more.

Features Showdown: Shorter Loop vs. ClickUp

(Source: G2)

Shorter Loop Features:

• Continuous Discovery to identify the right product-market fit through product discovery, customer, solution and market discovery
• Idea Manager – Collects all ideas, issues. You can integrate with Slack channel where ideas are being discussed so that AI provides the details after analyzing ideas at scale and provides problem statements, possible solutions recommendations and finally let product teams take real time actions from potential feedback by converting potential ideas to work items – feature, epic and user story. Brand your own feedback portal.
• Design MVP that ties business objective and customer persona and value proposition together powered by AI-insights; now brainstorm solutions and deliverables together that product and engineering teams will find easy to explore while making it intuitive
• Supports Multiple Product Planning roadmap types (value based, theme based, objective based, timeline, now-next-later, short term, mid-term and long-term – you name it!)
• Agile, realistic, strategic roadmaps aligned with business goals
• Prioritization matrix to focus on high-value work items using various frameworks Eisenhower, RICE, Effort /Impact etc.
• Seamless integration with tools - Jira, Slack, and any analytics tools support time series analysis over time – GA, Amplitude, Mixpanel
• Customizable dashboards to track all product metrics in one place to get overview of product health
• Agile Realistic Product Backlog Management
• Intuitive dashboard to see all the product metrics in one page, set up the overall metrics across user journey including north start metrics, and then also bring metrics from other tools that supports timeseries data
• Document Hubs (you don’t need Atlassian) to manage all your product documents in one place with no worries on version control, directory structure, history tracking, and share these documents and all other product work with teams instantly allowing smarter and integrated communication
• Digital Whiteboard: brainstorm, alone with group, or use individually, support prepopulated library, calling
• Collaborationfriendly comments and approvals along with the whiteboard and document management features

ClickUp Features:

• Task management, timelines, and collaboration
• Customizable dashboards for high-level project overviews
• Integrations galore (Outlook, Zoom, Google Drive, GitHub, and more)
• A cloud-based playground for productivity

The Dark Side of ClickUp: Negative Reviews

1. ClickUp – Glitchy and Complex Solution:

• Occasionally glitchy, like a caffeinated robot.
• I would like to see more automation abilities.(G2)
• I found the support to be terrible (G2). The product is overwhelming. It purports to be the one app to rule them all, but that means it's mediocre at several things.
• It is a bit complex, and there is no way to add subtasks to any subtask. Sometimes I need to divide a big task into subtasks which are big tasks as well, so I want to separate them. (G2) (Mid-Market)
• The lack of price differentiation within the company represents a limitation. It would be useful to be able to create "premium" users with advanced features like AI, while maintaining basic profiles for others, thus allowing for cost optimization. Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, particularly with Teams, has some limitations. This can create difficulties for companies that make extensive use of these solutions, potentially affecting workflow fluidity. For example, there's no direct integration with MS Project, making it challenging to import existing project plans. (G2)

2. Lack of Pomodoro Timer:

• Some users miss having a built-in Pomodoro timer to help them focus on specific activities1. It’s like not having a trusty tomato-shaped kitchen timer when you’re cooking up productivity stew!

3. Intimidating Options:

• With so many features, ClickUp can feel overwhelming. It’s like stepping into a massive library and not knowing which book to pick first1.

4. Email Communication Glitches:

• Replying via email doesn’t always work smoothly. Imagine sending a carrier pigeon with an urgent message, only to find out it got lost in the digital wilderness2. Discord becomes the backup communication channel!

5. Collaboration Limitations, Integrations:

• While ClickUp offers collaboration features, they won’t replace dedicated tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams. It’s like trying to turn a Swiss Army knife into a walkie-talkie – close, but not quite3.
• I use another more robust software called Boardmix for mind maps and white boards. I do not feel like ClickUp does these features at the levels I need for our business of designing highly automated business processes.
• It would be great if the "action items" could also be copied into "subtasks," as some points are identical. As a user, I wasn't aware that my colleagues don't receive notifications when I mention them in a subtask, but only in action items. Additionally, it would be helpful if an action item could be assigned to multiple people, as sometimes tasks are worked on collaboratively.
• Importing a spreadsheet is still not my favorite process. 2. Progress per time estimate. Progress can be rolled up based on story points and tasks completed, but not based on estimated time. I get that time tracking corresponds with time estimates but completing an 8 hr. (estimated) task for an 80 hr. project should still roll up as 10% complete. Tracking time only works when there is an incentive to do so, like tracking billable time.

6. Half-Baked AI Features:

• Some users find ClickUp’s AI features not fully baked. It’s like having a robot assistant that occasionally serves burnt toast instead of helpful insights3. Oops, the AI chef needs a software update!

7. No Billing and Invoicing:

• ClickUp doesn’t handle billing and invoicing. It’s like going to a restaurant, enjoying a delicious meal, and then realizing they don’t accept payment – awkward

8. Difficult Integration and Lack of Price Differentiation:

The lack of price differentiation within the company represents a limitation. It would be useful to be able to create "premium" users with advanced features like AI, while maintaining basic profiles for others, thus allowing for cost optimization.   Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, particularly with Teams, has some limitations. This can create difficulties for companies that make extensive use of these solutions, potentially affecting workflow fluidity. For example, there's no direct integration with MS Project, making it challenging to import existing project plans.

(Source: G2, PCMag, Software Advice,  Capterra, ClickUp website)

Shorter Loop Case Studies

1. Bank (Fintech)
2. Software Dev
3. HealthTech
4. Marketing Agency (check other case studies)

Conclusion: Who Takes the Crown?

In our humble opinion, it depends on your needs. If you’re all about product management, project management, OKR, Sprint and product lifecycle management including product development from discovery, define to collaborate, plan, deliver, and measure with the formulation of innovative product strategic roadmaps, concurrent launches, designing sustainable MVPs powered by customer, market and product insights, multiple product lines with many cross-functional teams and users, agile realistic customer centric backlogs, AI-powered customer insights, Shorter Loop is your wingman.

But if you want a versatile task juggler, ClickUp is your go-to. Choose wisely!