DirectSuggest has been named winner of the Best Overall Design Collaboration Solution of the Year award in the 2021 RemoteTech Breakthrough Awards.

DirectSuggest was chosen from 1,800 nominees for their success in breaking through the crowded field of technology solutions for remote workers and teams. The previous winner inVision, is used by all 100 of the Fortune 100. They are also joined by fellow industry leaders including Zoom, Salesforce, Zapier, Monday, and Canva.

I reached out to DirectSuggest founder and CEO Riley Moore to learn more about this startup. Following is our conversation.

Riley Moore

What does your startup do?

DirectSuggest makes it simple for employees to make suggestions on any device with the assurance they arrive to the proper decision-maker and collaborate on suggestions through voting and commenting to enhance the quality of the idea. We call our employee suggestion box app ‘The Suggestion Box Reimagined’.

DirectSuggest is brought to you by RM4Tech. RM4Tech’s mission is to affordably innovate and revolutionize people’s lives through software while retaining our roots of a family-owned and family-operated business.

 

Why did you start this company? How did the idea for your startup come about?

I was back home for a few weeks visiting from college during the summer. My family was spending time enjoying one of our favorite television shows to watch together, Undercover Boss. While watching an episode, a lightbulb went off in my head.

I realized that while all these organizations participating in Undercover Boss episodes were drastically different, there was one thing they shared. Their employees on the frontlines in all different roles had vital knowledge and incredible ideas that those making decisions in the organization were largely unaware of. The organization missed out on resolving issues and transforming their organizations in powerful ways.

At this point, I decided we should develop DirectSuggest to enable organizations to give their employees a voice. As Slack had changed communication, our mission was to transform employee suggestions and the concept of the suggestion box.

 

Tell us about the problem/challenge that you’re solving. Who is your customer and what challenge or pain point of theirs are you solving?

We made it our goal to increase innovation and engagement by enabling 1,000,000+ employees worldwide to be heard. We wanted to make it easy for employees to effectively use their hands-on experience and knowledge to not only positively impact their organization, but the world as well. The traditional suggestion box and sharing suggestions verbally do not enable this on a large scale. Communication systems that are used as substitutes such as Slack or email don’t initiate or facilitate this.

We are tailored for organizations of any size regardless of industry, made to be used by employees in any job role. DirectSuggest has the privilege of serving incredible organizations throughout the world including Comcast, Nokia, and TD Bank.

We wanted to provide a price point where there is no hesitation for any organization to find incredible value using DirectSuggest. Our solution only costs $0.50 per-employee per-month and we have incredibly high ROI/Savings potential with an average 33X return on investment.

 

How did you validate that your solution was viable?

As development began and we were on our way to launching DirectSuggest in January of 2018, we conducted extensive research regarding the topic and concept. During this time, the understanding of how much of a necessity a solution like DirectSuggest is for any organization became even more apparent. This belief was based on several prominent success stories from iconic organizations throughout the world.

Toyota has utilized an employee suggestion box for almost a century; fielding and implementing millions of suggestions to continue to improve. If you wonder how they continually provide affordable and reliable quality, this is the reason why. In one year, Toyota fielded over 700,000 employee suggestions, implementing over 99% of them. The annual savings/ROI accrued was unbelievable, reaching somewhere around $70,000,000.

The initial idea for Amazon Prime was made by an employee via their employee suggestion box. The software developer Charlie Ward came up with the idea. Then, Jeff Bezos and the rest of the decision-makers at Amazon brought Amazon Prime’s service to life. This entirely transformed Amazon from a company that sold books to a company that provides anything someone could ever need within a couple of days.

Starbucks went from a small-scale niche coffee establishment to the largest consumer coffee provider in the world. This did not happen overnight and was not only due to the founder Howard Schultz’s vision. Howard and the rest of the executive team at Starbucks knew from the beginning that listening to their employees is essential. This mentality instilled in their company culture propelled their employees to use their voice to transform Starbucks. Successful employee suggestions include low-fat/fat-free milk in Frappuccinos, bottled Frappuccinos, and the viral Unicorn Frappuccino.

 

What are some of the biggest accomplishments, milestones, or wins you’ve had so far?

 

What were some key entrepreneurship lessons-learned you’ve learned so far?

  • Don’t buy every piece of advice you hear on social media or podcasts, and read on Entrepreneur, Forbes, Business Insider, etc.. There are many common things entrepreneurs do or claim as effective that can appear to have value but don’t.
  • Pay attention to what matters to your entrepreneurial pursuit and avoid getting distracted by things that do not truly move your pursuit forward. The ego can compel you into thinking an opportunity has value when it is a waste of time. Other people’s egos can also do the same.
  • Understand social media awareness is largely nonexistent without paying to play. Less than one to ten percent of your total following receive a post on their Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter feed. Other outlets such as email marketing are more effective at this point.

 

What stage are you at and what’s next?

DirectSuggest is currently in the growth stage. What’s next is to continue to grow and provide value on a larger, more mainstream level. We want DirectSuggest to be the next Slack.

 

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome as a startup founder?

The biggest challenge I’ve had to overcome as a startup founder is maintaining balance and not getting obsessively consumed by my work. This has required making the time to work on personal development and have faith in the entire process.

 

How has Covid-19 affected your startup and what have you done to adjust?

DirectSuggest has been used across the globe to assist organizations in managing, adapting, and mitigating issues surrounding Coronavirus. Thousands of employees stayed engaged and made innovative suggestions to do what is necessary to prevent the virus from harming their daily operations. It’s been truly incredible to see the resilience and adaptability as motivated employees have focused on getting through these times.

Based on the way we operate and the solution we provide, we were blessed to not be personally impacted. We did not make many adjustments outside of certain ways we marketed DirectSuggest to shed light on the value provided in terms of what was going on. We did want to do our part in helping as much as we could, so we did offer a free 90-day trial all throughout these crazy times.

 

What needs do you have to grow and take it to the next level?

DirectSuggest needs to continue increasing the amount of awareness surrounding our product and the value it provides. We’re a proven solution that simply needs more eyes on us and to be in the hands of more employees.

 

What’s your take on the startup scene here in your area? What has been helpful?

I’ve interacted with the startup community in San Jose, Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Sacramento. Sacramento is by far my favorite startup scene out of all these communities. In my experience compared to the other communities, there are more genuine people looking to help one another, partner to find mutually beneficial success, and assist in growing the community.

 

What do you think as an entrepreneur would be more helpful to have here in the region?

While what I said about the community is no doubt true, the same cannot necessarily be said about the local media. Outside of StartupSac and Sac Business Journals, the local media does not seem too interested in the startup world or spreading awareness to the local community. This is drastically important for startups in the area and can be tremendously beneficial for creating mainstream awareness. This is partially why startups launched in places like the Bay Area, Seattle, or Austin grow so quickly and are often featured in outlets like Entrepreneur, Forbes, and TechCrunch.

 

Do you have any words of advice, inspiration, or encouragement for aspiring entrepreneurs?

  • Don’t let others telling you no discourage you.
  • Strive to find balance in life and don’t forget what’s important like family.
  • Seek out purpose and significance beyond money and possessions. You can’t take anything you buy with you to your grave.
  • Keep going, things take time.
  • Focus on a frugal mentality and finding ways to do things effectively, efficiently, and affordably.
  • Focus on organic growth and understand paid growth is largely not sustainable growth.
  • Read books like Built To Last and Trust Me I’m Lying.

 

How can people find out more about you and your startup?

To learn more about what we are doing visit: