case study
How MinuteMe saved $40K a year by switching to TinyMCE
Simon Steele
Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, MinuteMe
At first it seemed counterintuitive, but in the end we actually saved money by switching to TinyMCE’s premium full-featured editor.
Customer
MinuteMe is a cloud-based platform that takes meeting management to the next level by providing solutions to some well-known pain points. It results in less administration, better meetings, more accountability and gives people time back in their day to do what they do best. In particular, MinuteMe replaces disjointed record keeping solutions like separate word processing documents, PDFs, emails and spreadsheets with a purpose-built solution for the record keeping and distribution of meeting agendas, minutes/notes, action items and other relevant reference documents.
All names, titles and results were correct when originally published.
Industry
SaaS
Location
Australia (Global)
Key Results
Switching to TinyMCE saved MinuteMe
2
days/month of editor related support tickets
38
weeks of fixing bugs and developing custom plugins
3
weeks of dev time per editor update
$40K
per year in developer time
The challenges
To embed resilient editing capabilities into MinuteMe’s core user experience
KEY CHALLENGES for MinuteMe (before TinyMCE)
Poor copy-paste
Poor list formatting
No cross-device compatibility
No table formatting
No APIs for customization
As an experienced manager involved in highly complex construction projects, Simon Steele knew there was an opportunity to improve how meetings were planned, conducted and followed up. That’s why he created MinuteMe.
When used to prepare, record and track action items for meetings, MinuteMe’s core experience delivers the ability to efficiently create rich text content in a way that’s familiar to users.
While MinuteMe was initially built upon another popular open-source editor, Simon and his team quickly found themselves running into roadblocks that required time-consuming workarounds and custom code.
With their original editor, users were constantly running into issues with copying and pasting, list formatting and cross-device compatibility. Not to mention, many of the features their users were requesting — such as table support — weren’t available, and their only choice would have been to develop the functionality themselves.
Ultimately, to support their custom Action Items functionality — which is built directly into the editing experience — they needed an editor with well-documented APIs that could be leveraged to ensure Action Items worked as a core part of the editing experience, instead of appearing as an afterthought or add-on.
It quickly became clear to Simon that MinuteMe had outgrown its original rich text editor and it was time to start looking around for a replacement rich text editor.
For us to build and maintain our current editor with the functionality our users were asking for, it would have taken up half of one of our developers’ time. That’s at least $40K per year. Or we could just use TinyMCE at a fraction of the cost.
The solution
A reliable and extensible WYSIWYG editor with extensive support
Once he decided he wanted an editor with a proven company behind it, Simon narrowed his list to three of the most popular editors — CKEditor, Froala and TinyMCE.
His team tried each one, and after a thorough evaluation, Simon chose TinyMCE because of:
Its ability to self-host at a more economical price point than others
Its extensive API
Turn-key file upload capabilities
PowerPaste plugin (clean copy-and-paste)
The native React framework integration, which fit into MinuteMe’s existing application architecture.
Initially, Simon’s team turned to the TinyMCE documentation to decide which plugins to include and how to integrate it into MinuteMe. Then, when it came time to integrate the Action Items functionality into the editor, they reached out to Tiny’s support team for assistance.
Once TinyMCE was live inside MinuteMe, users were quick to share their excitement about the new features — especially their ability to create tables and embed images into their content.
We were seeking a code library that wasn’t maintained by disparate individuals, but rather a single business entity that would have standards and processes in place… in essence, a quality solution with a group that is going to be around for a while and not just disappear with a lack of support.
The result
Less support tickets and delighted users
18
weeks dev-time
saved
5
feature requests
out-of-the-box
7
open issues
avoided
In addition to lightening the load on support, Simon’s development team avoided a large chunk of work had they stuck with their old editor. For example, they avoided an anticipated 20 weeks of development effort needed, to work through the seven open issues with their old solution.
They also saved an estimated 18 weeks implementing five feature requests that were available out-of-the-box from TinyMCE. And upgrades to their previous editor (usually a three week effort), have decreased to a fraction of that time with the move to TinyMCE.
While we were thrilled to be spending less time supporting our editor, the real ‘aha’ moment came when our customers started talking about how they were loving the new features we introduced — inline images, tables, emojis, mobile support and others.
What’s next
Growth and expansion
For MinuteMe, growth is on the horizon. With the mission of making meetings better, and providing solutions to well-known meeting pain points, Simon wants to expand MinuteMe’s reach into specific fields like Legal, Construction and Accounting and Finance — integrating with leading tools in those industries.
To see TinyMCE in action, head over to MinuteMe.com to try it out for FREE, for yourself.
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