Brad Jefferson is the CEO of Animoto.com, a web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos using patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology.

Briefly describe your team.

Animoto.com is a startup focused on user generated video content. We have 6 employees and have offices in San Francisco and New York.

How are you using Smartsheet.com?

As a small start-up with virtual offices, project management and task management are key to our business. It's important to stay on track of where things stand and utilize technology to get things done efficiently. We use Smartsheet to manage tasks in different areas such as administrative, legal, financial, business development, and marketing.

When did you start with us?

August 2006

What issues were you looking to solve?

The Animoto team is geographically dispersed so online collaboration is key. We also use Smartsheet as a simple project management tool for managing key business initiatives.

What stood out for you?

As a remote manager it is critical for me to stay on the same page with my team and have real-time updates on their progress. I personally like the feature that sends me an automated email to add notes to a task. I set this up to send me a daily email at 5 p.m. so I can record my main areas of focus for the day. It’s kind of like my personal work journal or personal micro-blog.

What were you using before?

Email and spreadsheets.

How did Smartsheet.com address what is unique to your business?

With startup life there are always tons of balls in the air and it’s easy to forget the vast and disparate tasks that must be completed on a daily basis. Smartsheet.com has been a great tool to juggle such tasks across our small, geographically dispersed team to ensure no balls get dropped.