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Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation
Hi HN, We’re Zack and Milad and we’re building Dart (https://itsdart.com https://itsdart.com). Dart is a fully-featured project management tool that can automatically create reports, fill in task properties, generate subtasks, detect duplicate tasks, and more. Here’s a quick demo of some of the highlight features: https://youtu.be/CMsBAv9CCyU https://youtu.be/CMsBAv9CCyU
Like many others we grew frustrated with the constant upkeep in creating and organizing tickets in Jira and other PM tools. We routinely wasted as much as seven hours a week on repetitive PM chores like cleaning up the backlog or drafting changelog updates. At Zack’s previous company he even built a system to try to automate some of this work. In conversations with other founders and engineers we learned that he was far from the only person doing this.
We started Dart when we realized we could bring a new approach to this problem through techniques enabled by generative AI. There are of course a lot of project management tools out there, but none have the ability to automate most of the busywork without having to configure long sets of rules.
For example, one of the most helpful functions is summarizing work that was accomplished over some time interval, by automatically creating a changelog update for it that can be pasted into company blogs or elsewhere. Another highly used feature is giving Dart a large task or PRD and generating a recommendation for how to break it up into more manageable subtasks.
Over the last two years we’ve continued to build a broad set of PM functionality in Dart (task management, docs, roadmaps, etc.) along with what we hope is a neatly vertically integrated application of gen AI that adds value.
Dart is built with Vue on the frontend, Django on the backend, and uses various gen AI models such as GPT-4. We embed almost all of the content that goes into the app for later retrieval and search. Over time we build up context for users, workspaces, working patterns, etc. and are able to provide this context to do situation specific few-shot prompting or RAG, depending on the situation. For better or worse we’ve implemented most of our LLM infrastructure internally and are largely calling OpenAI APIs directly.
While Dart improves its recommendations as users work on more tasks, ultimately it’s not quite ready to replace your product manager. You’ll probably still need to evaluate if the recommendations make sense for your team, and make any adjustments before confirming them. By having a helpful companion offering suggestions as you go we’ve still found that this process ends up net saving time–about 12% of time spent in PM tools according to our users. You can think of it like a helpful tool for generating ideas as opposed to a product that will fully strategize and do all of your work for you (at least for now!).
Our current users come from a wide range of backgrounds including other founders, developers, writers, small business owners, consultants, researchers, etc.
You can try out Dart for free at https://app.itsdart.com/sign-up https://app.itsdart.com/sign-up. We’d really appreciate any and all feedback or ideas in the comments!
- cjdewar 3y agoIs dart currently down?
- leoqa 3y agoI went in pessimistic but the demo was pretty good- every AI-based feature was solving a real point of friction and seemed reasonable.
- zswaff 3y agoThanks! At this point AI is obviously a bit of a buzzword, so we've paid extra attention to only applying it when it actually adds value
- TheFragenTaken 3y agoEven if I am probably not going to use it (too heavily/deeply invested in Azure Devops), I just wanted to give kudos to your product demo. By itself it's straight to the point, doesn't ramble, and calmly highlights whats important about your product. Compared to your other videos on the YouTube channel, it's a dramatic improvement. Congrats on the launch.
- miladmalek 3y agoThanks! Yeah going through the process of making this demo efficient was definitely a good exercise. It's always harder than I think it will be as my default is admittedly kind of rambly.
- samstave 3y agoThis would be great: * Resource loading, availability, tasks summary, personal task completion reports.. * Maintain history of task time, cost, resource, as assigned by tasks, and resources completing their tasks. * Templates of tasks, or projects where if you say have completed a common project that have tasks you do (as if your a consultant with various clients with similar projects you can pull a gant, resource load, historic times as a template - then use them across your Program - and have a report on how similar task groups etc across your program vary. * Typical completion resources required so that if you simply say the name of a task, it will say "To do this, it usually requires ABC - but right now you only have AB available - so your costs and resource availability for this task on this project is X based on current loadout to resources. * Track what external resources were needed in historic tasks "To do this - you'll need these external resources, here is a summary email proposal to that external consultant to get costing and availability - effectively using your project plans to generate mini RFPs to the subs/trades/disciplines/departments needed on that task and have it make it easier for not only them to responde, but when they do - have it automatically give you the diff impact to the project/program/task/schedle/cost.... * as you build out project portfolio, you just throw bullets in and it will pull from previous projects and put in the "project-lets" and allow you to build them in a more automated fashion. * in construction/deployment/commissioning/go-live/acceptance testing (in DCs and Health, and tech), if you can give it a primavera/ms proj/whatever - even a PDF - and have it read what some EXTERNAL PM assigned to you as a sub on the project and have it adjust your section based on your available inputs and effectively import your tasks from some external PM * have it provide your company with a really well written portfolio completed projects. * self-service reporting capabilities to external stakeholders... ESPECIALLY CFOs.... with a little dashboard widget that you can just point people to "dart.MYCOMPANY.COM" which could be a status-page like dash for whomever you allow to see highlevel report on demand for your program/projects/departments/budget/etc... * give scheduling reminders for upcoming resource requirements. - like status checking delivery dates from vendors with simple automated requests for "is component X still scheduled for delivery on DATE" - conversely - sending alerts to delays that will affect subs/trades who need access to a site/area whatever (like concrete guys are two weeks behind, so your delivery area for materials is affected, mr steel guy...) EDIT: I forgot about the BANE of any large project: CHANGE ORDERS. Usually these come from project owner/designer -and can have significant impacts on a project sched/cost/resource avail... If you can track and manage change orders, construction manages/TPMs/any stakeholders will find value in it enough if you can show a report on the history of the projects' intent (budget/end-date) especially because change-orders is usually a two-way street on the negotiations btwn a subs/owner on who pays for what in change order... example: arch designs "thing" - sub implements it. now three scenarios happen: 1. All good. 2. Arch/owner F'd up intent to sub, sub has to fix at certain costs (the owner will say "your job to know my intent" - subs/trades say "nope, show me the money") 3. sub f-d up and they have to eat all/some portion of cost. REDUCING CHANGE ORDERS through such comms that I mention above is a golden goose in and of itself - but only you can prevent dumpster fires!. Finally it ties back to portfolio "reduced change orders by % across N% of our portfolio etc...) (change orders from a sub, obv comes out of their fees/profit - so change order mtgs on big ticket issues are REALLY fn painful mtgs because its a "who communicated what where when with whom" battles... ==== Attempting to build a project based on this comment: https://i.imgur.com/ZYsTSk2.png https://i.imgur.com/ZYsTSk2.png -- this is weird, it just adds checks at bottom of text input - should collapse orig input prompt. I cant click anything - https://i.imgur.com/LXn2RVU.png https://i.imgur.com/LXn2RVU.png Am I only supposed to have one task in this box? https://i.imgur.com/O3bY286.png https://i.imgur.com/O3bY286.png OH I get it... you should have it auto suggest "extract" from each bullet... https://i.imgur.com/2yFXiqd.png https://i.imgur.com/2yFXiqd.png -- the UX on this box is confusing... Or trigger a "would you like to extract/whatever - and have it cycle through each bullet. https://i.imgur.com/2yFXiqd.png https://i.imgur.com/2yFXiqd.png Also - need tool tips. Why the stop-sign? https://i.imgur.com/Kp1FGI7.png https://i.imgur.com/Kp1FGI7.png "I'm posting too fast" - so Ill have to just write you guys a separate post later I guess - but the weird UX halts, no exp on what "/ for AI" means out the gate was clunky, but still dope. (might be better to have your system have an-onboarding example, where you do ALL THE THINGs - and ask the user to reject your examples - kinda like Scenario has prompt chunks with an X if you want to kill that action...)? What do from here: https://i.imgur.com/HhVU8vK.png https://i.imgur.com/HhVU8vK.png - deleted all text, kept "tasks" and cant click anything but X? -- I clicked X - it asked me to DISCARD/KEEP Draft... I KEEP - Where drafts? https://i.imgur.com/1Pb4UMM.png https://i.imgur.com/1Pb4UMM.png I'll build a an email to you guys, from this....