Hello to Extelli!

It’s hard for busy executives to share what they know.

That problem statement caught my attention during a Harmony Venture Labs open house this summer.

I was living that challenge. As the busy executive of a struggling consumer electronics startup, sharing what I knew meant scrambling to put everything into a Google Doc so that an unsuspecting team member could try to learn in a few hours what I had learned over many years.?

It wasn’t going well.

We started working together to uncover the real problem: It’s too hard for teams to know what to do, how to do it, and why it matters in context, in real time.?

Extelli helps teams do their best work by Knowing How, Right Now.

Why teams? Because the world is run by teams. Companies, non-profits, government organizations, even families; the team is the unit that gets things done.

Why their best work? Because our time is too valuable, challenges too tough, progress too expensive, and life too short to do anything but our best. Extelli believes that people fundamentally want to do their best in everything. We’re here to help.

Why by Knowing How? Because hundreds of discovery interviews, months of research, and decades of experience have uncovered that the main problem teams face isn’t getting the work done, but knowing how to do the right work the right way.?

Why Right Now? Because problems don’t find an ideal time in your schedule. The human response is to start working right away instead of searching for the best practice, partly because we just don’t trust that the “Know How” we need already exists and is well-documented for our team.?

Create. Curate. Collaborate.

“Know How” can’t exist in a vacuum. Without context, siloed knowledge is not just useless; it’s wasteful. Lack of context can point you the wrong direction. It communicates incorrect information to your customers. And worst of all, it takes the fun out of work.?

Modern product culture likes to sell you the smallest, fastest, and most precise "tool" possible and then make you figure out how to use them to solve your problem. Extelli is the only Know How product focused on context.?

How does it work? Our point-and-click feature creates “Know How”, you curate that “Know How” using shared Libraries and Learning Modules, and everyone can collaborate to Know How, Right Now, together.?

Lessons learned are too expensive to become lessons lost.

As someone who donates to Wikipedia several times a year, I’m more than just grateful for all the people who have shared their experience so that others can learn: I’m in love with the very idea.

That’s where “Extelli” comes from: Extelligence, a term from the book “Figments of Reality” that means, “all the human intelligence stored outside a human mind.”

In 2010, I learned that startups and small businesses create 50 percent of all new jobs in the United States. If a lightbulb could have appeared over my head, it would have happened right then. My career was redesigned to support, improve, and create ventures that help make the world a better, more innovative, more equitable, and more sustainable place.

I learned a lot as CEO of Fledging, my first venture, including that lessons learned are just too expensive to become lessons lost.?

This new adventure, in partnership with Harmony Venture Labs, is a wonderful chance to help all kinds of people do their best work, the best way, happily based right here in Birmingham, Alabama.

There’s just something about the community, the people, the sense of togetherness in Birmingham, especially when it’s about making Birmingham better.

Harmony Venture Labs launches new ventures by ideating, validating, and creating high-growth startups, and aims to make a positive impact on local, digital, and global communities by building startups and supporting founders.

HVL believes that new venture creation is a powerful vehicle to deliver value to our communities. By generating new solutions and supporting entrepreneurs, they can foster an ecosystem of empowerment and economic opportunity.

Extelli launches to the public in January 2023?

Join our waitlist to be among the very first Extelli users when we launch in January.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Watch us build in public
• Reserve your Extelli Insider seat
• Learn how Extelli helps your team Know How, Right Now.

You can also sign up for a product demo today to check out the product, discuss early access for your team, and help us make Extelli better. Learning and winning is just better in teams.

We need your Know How, Right Now.?

Ethan Summers CEO, Extelli Powered by Harmony Venture Labs

05 December 2022