OKR App

We started as simply as possible: an Excel sheet with plain progress bars. One bar per goal – which held up for exactly as long as the two of us were working towards the same goals.

Where it started: OKRs and progress bars in a plain spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet hit its limits fast. Values had to be recalculated by hand, the links between goals existed only in our heads, and the moment a second team joined, everyone maintained their own version. The software available back then either lacked the functions we needed or was hopelessly overloaded.

So we started building our own: first an internal web application, then a second one with progress in real time. Over the years we refined it on live projects and on the feedback that came back from them.

Several iterations turned the internal application into today's app.

The third iteration is what is online today: a lean tool with a clear, list-based view. Objectives and their key results are visibly connected, and every row shows ownership, progress, status and due date. That is the result of years of practice – and of everything we threw back out of the first two versions.

Today's view – one quarter, every objective, key results you can expand.

Most features nobody needs. Those years gave us a feel for which functions a team genuinely needs when working with OKRs, and which ones exist to justify a high price tag. Plenty of what shines on a feature list goes unused in practice and slows the software down for everyone else. What came out of it is an application limited to the core of the framework: set objectives, make key results measurable, show progress, align teams. Setup takes minutes and nobody needs training.

OKRs do not work top-down. We learned that they work best when they are shaped by the team rather than handed down. People who help phrase their goals also carry them. That is what our app is built around: everyone on the team sees their own contribution and puts it in, instead of being assigned it.

An OKR tool is not a project management tool. That is the most important lesson, and it is deliberate. Most companies already have tools to manage their projects. Nobody needs another one adding admin overhead. We deliberately start where the OKR method earns its keep: team alignment, focus on the right goals, and the view from above on progress. Which is why comparing it to a large project management platform misses the point – these are two tools answering two different questions, and most teams need both.

In practice that means both can sit side by side. The tickets stay where they are. What gets added is the layer above them.

Every function in the app has to answer one question: does it help a team keep its goals in view, or does it just create upkeep? Whatever failed that test was never built in the first place.

Start, target and current value per key result – progress calculates itself.

Around that sits everything that keeps the day quiet: every objective and every key result has an owner and a due date. A traffic-light status shows whether something is on track, at risk or off the rails. And filtering by owner and status turns “what concerns me?” into a two-click question, even when several teams are running in parallel through the quarter.

There is no setup project, no implementation phase and no mandatory onboarding call.

1. Create a workspace – set up your team and invite members by email. The workspace is the bracket around all of a team's goals.
2. Define objectives – phrase your goals and attach measurable key results with a start and target value. Add sub-objectives underneath if you want to show what feeds into what.
3. Track progress – update values and watch the dashboard show in real time where the team stands. A short weekly look is enough.

If step two raises the question of whether a goal is well written: that is exactly what Nikola and Simon are there for. It is part of the product, not a paid add-on.

Most OKR tools come out of the US market and are cut for large corporations – with the matching scope, the matching price and the matching distance to the people who made them. We go the other way:

• Support from the people who built it: when you have a question you write to Nikola or Simon, not to a chatbot – about the OKR method too.
• Lean instead of loaded: only what a team genuinely needs to run OKRs well.
• Prices you can follow: the free plan stays free. Paid plans start in the single-digit euro range per month and workspace, cancellable monthly, with no annual contract.
• EU hosting & GDPR: all data sits in an EU data centre. For stricter requirements there is an on-premise option on your own infrastructure.

And because we run the app ourselves every day, feedback does not vanish into a backlog graveyard. What gets built next is decided by what is missing in daily use – yours as much as ours.

The open beta is the complete application, not a stripped-down trial. What still gets added extends it and does not invalidate goals you have already set.

Which honestly includes what is missing today: permissions are still coarse – there is the owner of a workspace, and everyone else. For a team working towards shared goals that is enough. Once several departments run in parallel inside one workspace, it is not. So we are building it – exactly when it lands depends on what teams tell us first.

If you want to set up OKRs properly in your team, you can be running in minutes. The free plan is enough to play through a first full cycle. And if questions come up afterwards – about the app or about the method – a message lands directly with us.

Start free in the beta · See pricing · All features · Talk to us about rolling out OKRs

• What are OKRs? The basics, explained simply – objectives, key results, and how they differ from classic target agreements.
• How to implement OKRs: a step-by-step guide – the concrete plan for a first cycle, including the most common mistakes.
• Why OKRs keep getting more relevant – what distributed teams and short planning horizons have to do with the method.