Keeping key team members in the loop
"All our work happens on Slack,” says Jaron Soh, who uses both Starling and Slack for his two businesses. “It makes sense to have everything in one place."
Jaron, 26, founded ethical marketplace Artisan & Fox in 2015 while he was still at university. The team now works remotely and independently, made up of one person in the UK, three in Singapore and artisans from around the world. Recently, he’s been focusing on his new startup, Traktion, co-founded in 2019 with Saher Shodhan. Their aim is to help freelance digital marketers find businesses and startups that match their experience and expectations. Each marketer has a profile on Traktion that proves their abilities through data analysis of previous advertisements that they’ve worked on.
“Some digital marketers might not have so much charisma to sell themselves but their results will speak for themselves,” he says. There are two others on the Traktion team, plus additional freelancers and occasionally interns.
Both Saher and Jaron have access to the Starling business account for Traktion on their phones but there are other core people who will also benefit from being notified. “I opened a Starling business account for Traktion after I saw how easy it was with Artisan & Fox,” says Jaron. “The in-app notifications are very useful and it will be really good to have that on Slack as well. We do quite a few small payments independently and usually don’t ask for approval but now we’ll all be able to see what’s being spent rather than asking each other.”
Seeing Starling notifications on your laptop
A further benefit of connecting Starling to Slack is that your real-time notifications will come through both on your phone through the Starling app and your laptop through the app for Slack.
Khalia Ismain, 26, runs Jamii, a discount card for Black-owned businesses. It costs £14.95 per year and opens up a range of discounts for online and shop-based businesses. “A lot of the products can be used by anyone, such as shea butter or clothing, but they’re made with Black people in mind,” she explains. “I didn’t want it to be an exclusive platform but I wanted to find a way to support and build up the businesses in our community.”
She switched to a Starling business account last year. “It’s helped a lot with revenue, being able to organise funds into separate goals and see how much I’ve got coming in."
Khalia and her younger sister Courtney, a full-time employee, use Slack to communicate. Thanks to the Starling integration for Slack, Courtney can also be kept up to date on the business finances. “Her role isn’t so connected to the basic numbers but I like to keep her informed on everything that goes on with Jamii and my goal is to train her to take on more senior-level responsibilities as time goes on.”
For more information on other integrations available with your Starling app see Starling Marketplace.