Where Do We Fit?

Let me introduce myself. I am Keith Lipman, co-founder of Belt Software, alongside Sheetal Jain. This is our second start-up; our first, Prosperoware, was sold to Litera in January 2022. Sheetal and I have been working together now for two decades. When we decided to start a new venture together, we began by talking with the shared network we had built over that time – and an idea was born.  

The initial ask from a number of people was for a better tool to manage email. My initial thought was that people were simply asking for more efficient ways to organize their inbox. I was wrong!  

As we started interviewing professionals across a variety of industries, a recurring theme emerged: everyone was struggling workload management; i.e., requests coming from clients, bosses, other stakeholders, and projects. Workers devote an astounding amount of time and mental resources – and try out endless tricks and techniques – to ensure they “do not drop the ball” and provide good client service. Industry after industry, profession after profession, role after role: the same problem shows up everywhere.  

Sheetal and I were left wondering why so many workers were having issues keeping on top of their work lives, given the vast number of project management and task management products on the market today. Surely some of these products should be meeting those needs?  

As we discussed project management software with those who have tried using it to manage tasks, we repeatedly encountered the complaint that project software was not designed to handle the quantity of completed tasks. Project management software is designed to track a project's status and who owns a particular phase of work, but it offers no information to the project manager about when a person will perform a task. 

Conversely, task management software is focused entirely on the individual and makes assumptions about productivity and working practices that most users struggle to maintain. These products are usually not integrated into the enterprise; they ignore the fact that many people’s daily work lives are organized around meetings; and they fail to understand the need to delegate tasks and follow up to make sure they are completed in a timely fashion.   

Our conclusion, drawn from all those exploratory chats and user interviews? The world needs a new class of software product, distinct from both project and task management approaches.  

I'd like to introduce you to Belt, your AI Central Calendar. Its key features are:

• Monitoring a user’s communications (initially just their email, but integrations with channels such as Teams, WhatsApp, SMS and so on are planned in future) to identify requests and deadlines.
• Providing an integrated central calendar that contains all your tasks and events in one place. 
• Understanding the basic fact that few business tasks have precise deadlines.  
• Integrating with the enterprise so that tasks can be tagged and tracked according to project or matter. 
• Enabling people to report progress on work items across the organization, while implementing a robust security model to restrict access to sensitive data. 
• Allowing people to easily delegate tasks and follow up with their new owners. 

We have designed Belt to work for creative knowledge workers, professionals who manage multiple clients and/or projects simultaneously. This includes those in fields such as legal, accounting, consulting, freelancing, commercial banking, private equity, family offices, IT, finance, sales, marketing, customer success, and many, many more!