🎤What does this GTM fanatic love about Whimsical?

Taapsi 0:02

Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Down and Dirty. And today I have with me Guru Prasanna. He is the marketing and growth lead at a fintech company called Bluecopa. You're also a GTM fanatic. You are, you have an engineering background which is so interesting to bring into marketing and you have a particular interest in B-to-B SaaS and AI tools, right? So glad to have you on Guru and I thought, you know, as a way to jump right into the conversation, maybe you can start by telling us what is a day in your life look like from the time you wake up, you know, till you go to bed and you say I'm done with the work, what are you doing?

Guru 0:44

I, I guess the, the, the session is long enough to cover this one question then. So, yeah. Taapsi, so my day more or less covers a variety of things to start off with, being the marketer. So I sort of navigate myself in, in most of the GTM activities that we do within Gloop and since we are a seed-funded start, which is in very early stages, I sort of put, put multiple hats around you know, product marketing, content marketing, events marketing and so on. So my day, more or less looks like having a few meetings with internal and external stakeholders, planning a few things with the current and the upcoming quarter. You know, working on a few personal items of mine, which are my own projects and collaborating with the engineering and the product team on a few product-specific activities as well.

Taapsi 1:40

OK. So say that again?

Guru 1:43

A variety of things. 

Taapsi 1:45

A variety of things. So it makes sense that as someone who's kind of leading GTM that you have to be the liaison between, you know, different types of stakeholders to make this, you know, make the strategy come to life other than meetings where you're working with stakeholders, setting agendas, you know, and thinking strategy is there, what, are you also involved with implementation or do you have a team that you're working with? Like how is that part? Working down down the funnel a little bit?

Guru 2:11

So the down the funnel activities are mostly handled by the implementation and the customer service team. So I draw a line where I you know, sort of present the customers to the team and then I take a step back. So in terms of marketing primarily. Apart from the the agenda, the planning, and the strategy, we work on a lot of internal activities around content and product which is handson done by me and the team.

Taapsi 2:37

Understood. Understood. So in this, you know, this life that you're straddling between meetings, conversations, a critical thinking, you know, strategy planning, what if I had to look at your computer and just see your desktop open? What are some of the tabs that are that I'm expecting to see open all the time?

Guru 2:58

So there are about 60-odd tabs.

Taapsi 3:02

Give me your favourite of the ones that you use the most like what is open?

Guru 3:07

So HubSpot is open all the time. Given that marketing bread and butter for me I use a tool called Whimsical in specific which is more on strategy, more on planning and strategy. It helps me communicate better to the team and also think better. And the, rest of them are marketing like we have the Google Suite. Notion is another tool that we use for the collaboration, Zoom for all the meetings. So some of them are these.

Taapsi 3:37

So, all right. Any project management stuff I'm assuming is Gmail versus Outlook.

Guru 3:45

Gmail, Gmail. Yeah. So we are, everything is Google. Yeah. Yeah. Hardcore, hardcore G Suite, hardcore slack users. And yeah, so we, we juggle between slides sheets and everything and for anything project management we use Notion internally.

Taapsi 4:02

Got it. Got it. And where do you go for your research, marketing, and research insights? You know, I mean, HubSpot is still implementation, you know. But are you also using any other anything with AI, you know, given that everything is given where we're at right now?

Guru 4:19

Absolutely. Sorry, I forgot to mention that ChatGPT and Bard both are tabs open. So I sort of take to whichever is more relevant and reasonable to me with, with the query that I come up with the prompt that they come up with. So most of my research comes from here on the Google search that I do. Because again, right, despite having ChatGPT and Bard, there's always you know, old-school Google search that gives you a lot of information. So I, so these are the areas being searched again. So all the search engines as well as YouTube is one underrated place where you can find a lot of information irrespective of what kind of content or what kind of information you search for. So I just did a YouTube search on how to be a podcast speaker. I hope that tab doesn't show up now

Taapsi 5:10

And, and let's, let's do a debrief after the session is done about whether they were on point, whether all the, hacks worked out and all the tips came in handy. So, yeah. No, no, no, it's gonna be fine. OK. So we are gonna talk about Whimsical, right? In particular, as one of the tools you, one of your go-to tools in order to just do your job better every day. So, tell me a little bit more about the tools with someone who may not have already heard about Whimsical. What does it do for you?

Guru 5:40

Right. So Whimsical in, in a, in a very specific, in a very generic way is a planning tool. So it helps you you know, express your thoughts and ideas in the form of a mind map in the form of a flow chart which is pretty similar to how tools like Miro operate. So let's say you have a set of actions that you want to do, you can do a Kanban board out of it. Let's say you have a see thought and you wanna branch out of it and build a whole plan, right? So Miro, Whimsical helps you with that. So it's, it's more like something that lets you build up an idea strategy and you can present it to the external or internal stakeholders.

Taapsi 6:22

Got it, got it. So what are some of the use cases that you yourself have you know, use Whimsical for in the work that you

Guru 6:32

Primarily anything that, with regards to let's say there's a new project coming up, a new experiment that we're trying within Bluecopa our own content, our own product or own any other sort of marketing. So the idea stage goes into Whimsical, we sort of branch out, we sit together as a team, we put in all the ideas, then we branch out, we connect us to which of these ideas make sense, which of these don't make sense, which is feasible. And in so then we finalize as to what are the things we're gonna pick up, then we go about you know, building them further, right? We build mind maps out of that. And then plan to do a checklist of sorts based on what needs to be done to achieve that outcome and then build the whole structure within Whimsical. So each one is a project, for example, a, a, an example that I could quote out of blue is we were working on a, on a content project with a few interviews that we wanted to do with CFOs. So that project whole the whole project was stemmed out in Whimsical and then we took a checklist and then we started implementing it.

Taapsi 7:35

Got it. OK. So let's break that down. This is a, this is great segue into going down and dirty into that use case, right? So let's say you are thinking through you know, you're doing these user interviews, you know, with, with CFOs. How did the entire project, I mean, to what extent did you scope that project out on Whimsical? So let's start with step one. Like you first created. What what happened? Can you take a step by step till where you left the platform to do something else outside the platform?

Guru 8:08

Sure. So do you want me to

Taapsi 8:10

Yes, please, if we can do a share screen, that would be fantastic. Perfect.

Guru 8:14

Let me just, could you please enable it?

Taapsi 8:18

There we go.

Guru 8:20

I think here we go. Just a moment. I wanna confirm if you folks can see my screen.

Taapsi 8:27

Yes. Yes.

Guru 8:29

Let me just open a blank canvas for now. Just so that I can show you folks how it works, right? So let's say I am working on a content project. So I first take up a mind map, right? The content project. This is what I start with. Then I sort of I know what are the things that needs to be done. So first thing is I need to find a list of interview, the people that I wanna interview, right? People to interview. Then I go about finding the dates or the set of you know, timelines when I want to interview them. What are the things or topics I want to interview them on. So all these things each gets listed out as a narrative and then within the people to be interviewed, I against them out and then list on. Ok, let's say Bill Gates is one. We'll have Warren Buffett as another. We'll have Mark mother, we'll have Laura's mother and so on. Right. So we keep extending this until we find out an exhaustive list. And then we sort, sort of then bring it down to. Ok. Is, is Bill Gates a feasible speaker for us. OK? If it's yes, then we go about selecting them and moving them to green and so on. So this is one of the activities that we do. So the the the whole brainstorming process, what seems very small here. I can probably show you an example. So this is this is one of the projects that we just did on what all we need to do in terms of the September activities. This is another

Taapsi 9:59

Are you using, are you using your color codes then to kind of define status? Is that what you do?

Guru 10:04

Yes, yes. So we so this one again, right? So whatever is in yellow is work in progress, whatever is green is done, whatever is in purple is basically to be started and whatever is in red is stopped post.

Taapsi 10:17

Now someone could argue that you could do the same thing in tabular form and have drop downs. I mean, you use Notion. So you know, that they have an extensive you know, array of tools at a database level to manage that. So why Whimsical over a table?

Guru 10:31

So I think it's easier for you to navigate you simply type in your so the flow of idea is not interrupted in Whimsical is what I feel. Right. So I, I've tried Miro, I've tried other tools, I've tried Google Sheets as well, but I think Whimsical lets you flow down the ideas, a lot easier, a lot cohesive as compared to the rest of the players out there.

Taapsi 10:55

Interesting. Can we specifically hone in on where Whimsical is different from Miro to do the exact same thing?

Guru 11:04

So, Miro also has its own advantages. It has a number of templates that they could literally you know, import and start working on. So the time to value at Miro is a lot quicker. But with Whimsical, it's, it's about the user interface, it's a lot easier to navigate a lot easier to get things done. And then the product flow, right? The ease with which you can bring the idea and then do the whole planning it, it's a lot easier with Whimsical as opposed to Miro. It's more qualitative than quantitative for me to define what the value prop is. But yeah, that's that's why I prefer Whimsical over Miro. And of course, there are plenty of other use cases that we use it for one of them is the landing pages. So the the website landing pages that we do at Bluecopa, right? So those were also initially, you know, we, I import them into Whimsical. I give them any if there's recommendations or changes, we mark them, and we let them know there is any change in text illustration, image, everything we come and collaborate here.

Taapsi 12:10

Got it, got it. All right. Are you using the templates and the themes? You know, that's something that Miro pushes a lot. Miro verse is a, you know, it's quite significant. It's a big chunk of its experience, product experience. Do you leverage templates here or do you find it just easier to kick start your own project planning in the way that you just showed?

Guru 12:34

So it, I'm more happy to come up with my own idea, come up with their own flow. So that's another reason why I prefer Whimsical because it lets me, let's the user to be themselves as opposed to Miro with I, I'm not denying that Miro doesn't let you. But the, the point is that Whimsical lets you choose your own flow. It starts with that as opposed to Miro which suggests templates and then if you don't like one, you could probably go ahead and start your own.

Taapsi 13:02

Got it. OK. So let's come back to this particular use case So this is something that you actually worked on, right? Like a content plan where you were talking to CFOs, you said, you know, so what the objective of the use case was to talk to CFOs to understand what content matters to them. Was that the objective?

Guru 13:18

Yes. So we wanted to set release a few content pieces out of local and we want them to be extremely relevant to the CFOs. That being said, we wanted to collect the whole content, curate it from CFOs and give it to the CFOs. We didn't want to be the manufacturers of content, but rather just distributors of it. So we thought, OK, who would be the best person to give us information? It would be the CFOs themselves, right? So we took a few CFOs unless we sort of reached out to them who are more camera friendly and are more open to giving us interviews. We did a few sessions with them, we took their recordings, we worked on it and then we, we are yet to share it, but this is one project that's going live very soon.

Taapsi 14:02

Amazing. So, I mean, first of all, the fact that you got CFOs is a big deal. So that's, you know, big pat on the back for, for, you know, getting people to talk to you and then have them be recorded in order to get it.

Guru 14:13

So, Let me put a disclaimer that only two in ten people genuinely agree. Eight, probably six don't even respond, to mostly you don't,

Taapsi 14:24

You don't have to tell me about recruiting. It's what I do day in and day out, it's what we do as a company and it is really hard. So which is why I said the fact that you got these CFOs is great. So, so tell me something. So OK, this is the objective of the project. So now, now it's anchored this into Whimsical. So you came in, you have a content project and you kind of listed these things out. It's easy to kind of make a list of people who you would, would like to talk to. Where else did Whimsical come in in this content strategy piece. So you have dates and themes. So once you start branching these things out, then is it kind of done or are you gonna bring in team members? Are you guys commenting like what's happening? How else are you using?

Guru 15:03

So, so this is a collaborative experience. So I will invite my team to work with me as well on this. So the initial effort, right? So, right from opening the mind map and building out all of this is done collaboratively. So let's say I focus on the people to interview, there'll be a teammate of mine will be working on the dates, there'll be another person will be listing our teams. So all the effort is done collectively and once we are done with the whole mind map, right? So then we take it with the leadership, we sit with them, we talk, we present our ideas and then we make decisions, we colour code them based on what's approved and what isn't. And then we remove and then we, we, I mean, it, it depends, we either go to Notion back and then build the whole project plan there or we can do some sticky notes here as well. Right? Let's say, I want to the feedback is that get more us leaders for content published in us or let's say, get a diverse audience audience you know, working across multiple industries to share information. So all these things that we are getting as informal as notes could also be mentioned here.

Taapsi 16:24

Understood, understood. So OK. And you are, so you're using the share button, I'm assuming, I mean, the share feature, the ability to bring in people into the project and this is happening. So would you say that you're thinking about this first? You lay everything out and then you invite people to come in and com comment. Is that how you would say a general, the general flow

Guru 16:45

Yeah, if it's a project fully owned by me, I will do the ideation the thinking and present it if it's a so the content project is not simply mine, it's a team effort. So the team and I will sit together and do it. I primarily handle product and event marketing here. So anything with regards to that comes to me and then I do all the planning by myself.

Taapsi 17:05

Got it. And when you're working with stakeholders, are they in the platform itself or are you doing an actual share outside the platform? I mean, you're physically sitting with them and talking, you know, I'm trying to think about how easy is it to bring in different levels of stakeholders into, you know, a project experience? Yeah, into Whimsical, right?

Guru 17:22

So Whimsical being a very new was not familiar with a lot of people they go to. So once they saw how good the platform was or how easy it is for them to get things done. My found, one of my founder actually had you know, registered, signed up and joined the Whimsical workspace. So initially I was doing a screen share or I would give this get shareable link, which is a public link. So I can now have the the Whimsical canvas public to anyone, right? Anybody in the audience also come and watch this page if they want to. So that's how I used to do it then. But now that the founder has joined the workspace, it's easier for me to just send the link to them.

Taapsi 18:00

Got it, got it. And how many people have have an account. Would you say people who you work with, you know, product and marketing go hand in hand when you're doing GTM. So how many people have their own accounts versus

Guru 18:10

Probably four or five people at the max?

Taapsi 18:12

Out of how many stakeholders?

Guru 18:16

About 25

Taapsi 18:17

OK. So about 1/5 of the people.

Guru 18:19

The 20 five is not just the GTM, 25 the whole organization you know, count let's say about 12 people are in the GTM team and out of that five people are in Whimsical.

Taapsi 18:31

OK. Oh, that's a pretty good number then

Guru 18:33

The whole marketing team, plus the founder is on Whimsical.

Taapsi 18:36

Understood. Understood. OK. OK. Now, in addition to mind maps, what else do you use Whimsical for or have you used it in the past for?

Guru 18:44

So we also do mock ups. So mock ups is essentially where you build landing pages. So let's say we want to do paid media, we want to create a landing page for one of our accommodated keywords, right? So I sit with the the content person, we create the landing page, mock up the layout and then we give it to the designer who goes about building it.

Taapsi 19:06

OK. And you find this again, You know, because then you have, you also have stigma that can do something like this. You also have Miro that can there are lots of tools that will allow you to lay out

Guru 19:15

So the the ability to create something like this is a lot easier in, in Whimsical as opposed to Figma like, I mean, not comparing with Miro, right, Miro and Whimsical are more or less similar. But you know, again, there is some level of elementary knowledge that you need to have to go navigate the platform. Whereas Whimsical it's pretty straightforward, you just choose which interface, which wireframe you want. Do you have a window? Do you have an iPhone? Which kind of device you use it on? And then you say, OK, if you want to add a text, you can add a text if you want to add an image, an image. So nothing concrete is added here. It's just the layout. So we'll say OK, we have a layout like this. We have an image, a hero image and a text, a copy here. We have a few sections here. Follow this that and everything that makes the discal clear as to OK, what it is that I'm expecting out of the page, right? And once that is also add a context to note and explain everything to them saying that, hey, this is the intention of this page. This is what we're trying to achieve. And then the context will also be shared with the founder. They'll have a look at it and see if it's OK or not.

Taapsi 20:19

Got it. OK. So would it be fair to say that in Whimsical the the features or aspects of the tool that you use the most would be creating a project from scratch like a blank canvas and then drag and drop, you know, create your and then just create your mind maps and kind of go in that direction or create the template for a web page as opposed to starting from a template library. Would that be? Yeah. OK. And, and other than that, is it, do you want to call out any other features or working aspects of the tool that you use quite often?

Guru 20:56

So it also lets you generate. So ChatGPT has impacted almost let's say you have you know, a requirement in mind, a mind, a thought, a seed of thought in mind and you want to create a mind map for it, you can do it. Now let's say plan an event in Bengaluru for the CFOs, right? So no, let me zoom in. So this mind map is automatically created if you look at it, date and time agenda. So every single thing here is automatically added, even planning for CFOs in Bengaluru

Taapsi 21:41

OK. Wait, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. OK. You just showed me something. You showed me you doing this manually now AI is obviously helping you do this. So my question to you is very honestly are you using AI to do your stuff or are you still doing what you showed me in terms of creating things from scratch. Like what's the

Guru 22:03

I ,I do both. I'll be very honest with you in case if I get something AI will always remind me of it. But let's say I've taken these five pointers in mind, but I forgot about the catering services or the audio-visual set-up. I totally forgot about the audiovisual set-up, right? So only because I was mentioned, it was mentioned here, I was able to get reminded. So that way I use AI always do it like a reference check for whatever thing that I am planning out.

Taapsi 22:29

OK. So you don't, you know, you're not starting from the mind map here.

Guru 22:33

Not when I have time, only when I'm forced on time. Let's say I have to give the whole plan by 6 p.m. today. I'm starting at 4:30. I will probably need a third case.

Taapsi 22:44

Got it. Can you tell me why would you start with you first and then AI’s is assistance versus the other way around?

Guru 22:52

So it's because you, it again puts you the structure of how you need to think, right? But my mind thinks in my own way, right? I might not start with venue selection. I might not list these first. I will go, I I might be going horizontally first and then vertically. So I would have finished venue selections, hotels, I would have been listing let's say at hotels. I'll be listing Ritz Carlton,Taj I'll, I'll finish the whole hotel stuff completely and then move on to the date and time. So now I'm forced to sort of work in a structure that's predefined to me. Right. So that it's just that freedom. Nothing wrong in it. I just like the way how my mind thinks.

Taapsi 23:34

No. And I think, you know, you are, that is why probably the ideal user for Whimsical, right? Because tools like Whimsical and Miro are made for people to say whatever is in your head, dump it out, here's a way to dump it out because you have your way of looking at the world, right? And, so then it makes sense that if, if that is the objective and the way you work, then you would want the blank canvas as opposed to templates or as opposed to AI, right? That's already kind of pre-defining stuff for you. And then you use those things that support you know, you know, you know, like assistance, right? Like just, just, just assistance to fine. OK. OK. That makes sense. So what do you not like about Whimsical? Is there anything that where the tool falls short for

Guru 24:26

I think it's, it's price for a, for a Indian audience, not exactly for an Indian audience. But again, still not that expensive. But yeah, the, the GTM is pretty focused on US and, the rest of the world as opposed to India.So the way we think the way we operate is something that they probably have an overlap of thought with but not specifically thought for the Indian audience. Right? So we would love to have them think about us is one of the ICPs too.

Taapsi 24:56

Got it. So, what I can, I, can I ask you what is the pricing like? Is it, is it, is it.

Guru 25:03

I honestly have to check I have, yeah,

Taapsi 25:06

I'm just trying to see whether is it easy for someone to say, oh, I'll give this a shot. It's only, you know, 10 bucks a month or six months or something like that.

Guru 25:13

Yeah, I think it's 10 bucks a month. Yeah, it's it's 10.

Taapsi 25:17

Ok. Ok. Ok. So yeah, it's, but you're right, it's not priced in rupees if this is not the primary audience. Yeah.

Guru 25:24

Right. So ideally, for example, if I have to let me get back to the page. So if I have to get five people here, it's $50 per month. Right? So the the usage is not justified. So only it's me and a couple of other people who use it on a daily basis, the rest of them are just the viewers, right? So getting them on the platform as well doesn't justify the cost of it.

Taapsi 25:51

Got it, got it up to 10. Right. Right. So, you still, I mean, if you have five people who are in it, then you're looking at 50 bucks a month which then starts adding up, multiplied by. Yeah,

Guru 26:02

I would love to explore a start-up program option if they have any.

Taapsi 26:06

Mm. That's, that's a good point. Ok. All right. And, ok. So, other than that, is there anything in terms of its functionalities, that you know, that leave something in, leave something wanting?

Guru 26:21

I'm just thinking nothing I could think of. Just what I was thinking, if there's anything else I could show you. Yeah, I, so I'm, I totally love how things work with Whimsical or I, I don't know if everybody experiences the same with it, but I sort of do every single thing in Whimsical and Notion so that those, those two are my mind maps. One is for thoughts and other is for expanding the thoughts. So that way I've never been unhappy or unpleasant with Whimsical. It's always been a really good platform that I go to every day, even today right before. Probably a couple of hours ago, I was working on another mind map for Bluecopa.

Taapsi 27:06

OK. So basically mind maps, which makes sense because you're someone who's coming in to think strategically, right? So for you to kind of put down all the moving parts of things into, into a canvas and then to connect the dots is where Whimsical and then I'm assuming Notion what does Notion do for you? Then once you have it in Whimsical, then what are you doing in Notion with it?

Guru 27:27

I expand my thoughts. Now, let's say we are doing the very same event, right? And the event for CFOs? Sorry.

Taapsi 27:33

Hm.

Guru 27:34

Yeah, we're doing an event for CFOs we finalize the location to be Taj, right? Taj Bangalore. And then we're doing it on a weekday. We are doing it on Thursday that's finalized and all the stuff is done. So then I create a Notion page which is a replacement to a PPT or a Google Doc and I simply share the link with the team, the team can come and comment on it and then we could idea brainstorm I can add relevance to. So it's another canvas where I type and stuff, right? So without switching context, I'll just probably explain. So the event that we are trying to do all the things that is needed for us, these other stakeholders that we work with everything is in motion. So it's externally shareable as well.

Taapsi 28:23

Correct. Correct. And then you can now start adding properties and other supporting you know, data that you need to get the

Guru 28:31

Now, let's say we're, we're tracking our attendees, you're trying your registrations in a different platform HubSpot form or let's say Luma as a platform is where we're tracking so that data can be fed into Notion as well. And we could easily track it centrally, it updates realtime. So that integration works.

Taapsi 28:48

Got it, got it. OK. OK. All right. Let's stop the share screen guru. I still have a few more questions I wanna ask you about the tool itself. So, so let's kind of step back. Let's talk about how you came across Whimsical.

Guru 29:02

Oh That's a very interesting story.

Taapsi 29:05

OK? Tell me.

Guru 29:07

So I was a hardcore Miro user. So I was a hardcore mind map person for, the past 4-5 years and I was exposed to Miro and I was using it for a pretty long time without being aware that there's another tool called Whimsical, which is also quite not about three or four years old, but still familiar within the space. And I was doing a program called GrowthX which is quite famous in India now. So it's a growth program where they teach you about how to apply growth frameworks in your, in your go to market strategies and the whole session was done on Whimsical. So my teachers were the founders of GrowthX, explained everything on Whimsical. So that's how their mind works. They explain things over a mind map.

Taapsi 29:53

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Guru 29:55

You know, it was very fascinating. Oh, ok. This is exactly how the mind works, right? So you think you, let's say you're trying to explain something they're teaching you about how paid media works. So they'll sort of explain everything in the mind map. So they'll explain all the, the checklist that's available. So if it's a paid media, you have a Google paid media, you have, you know, let's link in ads, Quora ads, Reddit, ads and so on and so forth. So everything is again another subcategory within that mind map and they'll explain and expand it. And whenever you want, you can shrink the mind map as well, right? You could let's say you don't want to offer more context, it's very confusing. You could always switch off the Quora ads and just explain Google ads just taking an example. But that's, that's how I learned stuff. And I, I thought it's super fascinating to think that way and I've been wired since that. Ok. OK. Whimsical is my go to tool, and they had a free plan. So I explored it. All my GrowthX projects and the submissions were based on Whimsical and I have become a fan since I'm just waiting for an affiliate program of theirs. I might, I might even become a millionaire if I, if they have one, I've, I've recommended minimum like 30-40 people now. Everybody.

Taapsi 31:10

Ok. OK. And maybe people who are watching this, they're gonna go into Whimsical and there you go, like,

Guru 31:15

Yeah definitely try it. It's, it's really cool.

Taapsi 31:19

So, you were using Miro before, you know, your teachers start using Whimsical, would it be fair to say that you switched from Miro to Whimsical only because you were kind of going along with, you know, the, the, the benchmark that they, they were setting with, you know, the example they were setting with using Whimsical. There wasn't a real or was there a real distinction between Miro and Whimsical? So what I'm saying, did you drop one because it didn't satisfy you or did you adopt the other? Because, you know, your, your mentors were using

Guru 31:51

So the mentors using was certainly a reason, of course, them using this over Miro meant something. So there was some ease of use. I just went a little deeper on that, understood why it was the case. I used it myself. I also found it comfortable. So I ended up sticking to it with Miro right? I used to import a template. I used to work on it. We used to build a flow there and then we, we, we either take a screenshot or we present it to the team directly. We use the free hand sketching there on, on Miro as well. So it was quite easy to work on it. I still use Miro whenever I use a free hand activity, right? But yeah, Whimsical is, is more for strategic activities, planning, thinking, jotting down the whole idea and everything.

Taapsi 32:39

Got it. Got it. Do you remember your first interaction with Whimsical? Like what you used it for? When, when was this, first of all? When did you, when did you adopt this?

Guru 32:47

2021

Taapsi 32:49

2021? OK. So it's, it's been two years, two years.

Guru 32:53

Yeah. One and a half to be precise.

Taapsi 32:54

Yeah

Guru 32:56

So it was, it was in GrowthX. I saw a person doing their class on, I mean, I saw my, on the, the teachers doing it on, on Whimsical. Then I was supposed to submit an assignment slash project where we take a case and we do it. I did it on Whimsical. I presented it to them on Whimsical and then that's how my experience. Wow.

Taapsi 33:19

So you adopted it while you were in the course itself? You, you just said I'm gonna OK. That's cool. It's not like you waited for the course to get over and you were like, ok, let me see if I want to adopt this tool.

Guru 33:27

OK. No, no, no. I, I instantly loved it. I really wanted to try it out the initial first three times a little of a struggle because the navigation was a little different from Miro, right? So that's why I found it a little harder. But then once I got used to it, I never had to use my mouse pad. It's all keyboard focused. For me using keyboard focus, I could simply click a tab enter and I could build the whole mind map out of it using keyboard.

Taapsi 33:57

Can you show that to me? Like I, I, how would you like, I don't even like how, so let's say so this is one let me open another mind map just in case. I mean, because that would just save you so much time. Like if you can do all of this using keyboard.

Guru 34:15

So let's call it you know Guru, right? So I click a tab, it goes to the right. I call it name. If I click enter, it comes down. bio data.

Taapsi 34:27

Wow. So you are just going tak tak tak tak tak just branching stuff-

Guru 34:30

If I want to press enter, if I want to go right it’s tab, that’s it.

Taapsi 34:34

And does Miro do this, do you know? Because I don't know,

Guru 34:38

I, I guess so I think they should have adopted this.I have not been used it. I've not used it since then. I'm guessing this is, this behavior is also in done into the Miro platform as well, right?

Taapsi 34:54

But this is great because this is productivity now, right? You're not just looking at strategically, you know, as a canvas to work on, but you know, productivity-wise, you can do things so much you can get your thoughts down so much faster before they leave your mind.

Guru 35:07

So everything that I have, I'll dump it within five minutes and then I'll mix match, I'll move here and there and everything.

Taapsi 35:13

Fantastic. OK. All right. All right. OK. So I just wanted to see that. So OK, I want you to complete the sentence for me. Shouldn't be tough. Whimsical is a great tool for people who want to _________.

Guru 35:31

Who want to put a structure to their thought.

Taapsi 35:35

OK. But it is not good if you want to _____ or not as good if you want to _____

Guru 35:46

Get creative.

Taapsi 35:49

OK. So if you want to structure your thoughts, it's really good if you wanna get creative, there's not as much as probably a Miro with its, with its temperate library and more ideas, right. Right. More ways of OK. OK. All right. Theek hai. So the only thing that I've left is rapid fire and very easy stuff. It's fun for

Guru 36:16

Is there a hamper for me?

Taapsi 36:17

I'll send you some swag after that. Ok. All right. First question, name, one thing on your bucket list.

Guru 36:26

So do a a hike in, in one of the Himalayan camps based camp or somewhere.

Taapsi 36:34

OK. OK. All right. Next one, which social media platform are you most active on?

Guru 36:39

Instagram.

Taapsi 36:41

OK. What comes to mind when I say happy?

Guru 36:46

 Happy is home.

Taapsi 36:48

OK. And do you believe in Karma or coincidence?

Guru 36:53

Karma. Huge believer in Karma.

Taapsi 36:55

OK. Awesome Guru. That was it. And is there anything that we have not touched that you wanna talk about before we call it

Guru 37:05

No, I think to be honest, this, this experience is very new to me because we don't go about talking to people. Hey, you know, I use this tool. What have you been using? So it's, it's quite fancy, right? It's like it's like showing this is your B to B version or B to C version of showing off your Air Jordans. So I have this Jordan one, I'd have your Air Jordan for what do you have and so on, right? II, I would, I, I always enjoy showcasing whatever I do, how I use a platform because adoption is also something that I'm super fascinated about. So I was a customer success person before a marketer. So I used to teach people how to use a platform. So when I try something new in the platform, I get fascinated by it. And I me showcasing it was a very very nice experience for me. It was very new to me. I'm not still able to quantify or, or put it in words, but it was very new to me. It was very nice.

Taapsi 38:02

I'm so glad that you had a good time and you enjoyed yourself. I know I like learning about Whimsical. I've not used Whimsical before. And the whole objective of this is to, like I said, have exactly these conversations where you're like, what are professionals using? Like what is a marketer using, what's a designer actually using, you know, to get the job done? So this was very insightful and I really appreciate your time and I hope you have a great weekend.

Guru 38:26

Thank you. Thank you. If, if at all, I'm taking any, anything from this session. If it's to let you folks plan the next podcast on Whimsical.

Taapsi 38:38

OK. I'm going to give it a shot. Especially the keyboard thing though. I am loving it. The fact that you showed me how you could do that on keyboards is, is

Guru 38:47

Definitely try.It might get hooked into you. But yeah, you should definitely give it a try once.

Taapsi 38:52

I shall do that. All right, thanks so much guru.

Guru 38:55

Thank you. Thank you. You have a great day.

Taapsi 38:57

Bye bye.