Lisa Salzer & Lisa Kohls
Caliiro is an all-in-one project management and finance platform designed specifically for freelancers, creatives and the self-employed. The system combines day-to-day project work, overall organisation and financial management into a single, seamless workflow.
The idea came about whilst we were at university: when we were developing a website for a client together in our fourth semester, we realised just how many different, isolated software tools and manual processes were needed to successfully manage a project whilst also handling the administrative tasks in the background. Client data, time tracking, tasks and invoices were scattered across countless applications, leading to a high administrative burden and unnecessary complexity.
It was out of this frustration that the vision for Caliiro was born. The platform automates time-consuming administrative tasks and brings together projects, deadlines, work logs and invoicing in one central place. With Caliiro, we enable creatives and freelancers to radically minimise their unproductive administrative workload, so they can focus fully on their actual creative work. In the long term, Caliiro will thus become a digital companion for the entire working day – from the initial project idea to the final invoice.
What are your biggest challenges at the moment?
Our biggest challenge at the moment is to segment our specific target audience using data and to gain a detailed understanding of their deep-seated, day-to-day needs. To avoid missteps, we are currently conducting comprehensive quantitative surveys as well as in-depth qualitative interviews with freelancers and agencies. The aim is to align Caliiro’s architecture consistently and uncompromisingly with real user requirements from day one.
What is your goal for the EXIST-Women programme?
Our primary goal during the EXIST-Women programme is to put the insights from our intensive user research directly into practice. On this basis, we want to develop an initial, fully functional Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and put it through its paces directly with real users in closed beta phases.