Luffa Technologies Inc. is building software that will help bring their core beliefs into offices around the world. That belief being that all organizations have the potential to innovate, they just need the right support.
Luffa was created by startup veterans Juan Pablo Di Lelle, Gijsbert de Haan and Filippo Tampieri as part of an innovation group in a renowned Montreal tech company. Luffa then spun off to become an independent company in 2017 with the help of Austin Hill and Chafye Nemri. A few months later new teammates Kylie Szymesko, Julien St. Laurent, and Eric Dangleant were brought on board to create the team of doers that they have today.
Luffa is a platform that came about after months of research and years of technological experience. The team was in the lucky position of having been tasked with exploring how to use media with the intent to unlock innovation in the workspace. After conducting extensive interviews and exploratory conversations the idea for Luffa was born.
Setting up shop in Montreal’s well-loved Plateau neighbourhood, the team crafted a unique working environment that highlights their approach to work and complements their product. Walls covered in acoustic paneling have cut down on echoes, for cleaner voice capturing and add a pop of colour to the all-white walls. Other walls completely covered in early conceptualizations sketches of the app as well as current user flows for quick visualization. Reminders of how the app started, the problems that the team is trying to solve and who we are trying to help.
Those problems? Lost knowledge and wasted time in the workplace. Luffa focuses on the knowledge that people struggle to capture and use; tacit knowledge. The knowledge that lives in people’s heads that is difficult to write down but invaluable to teams. After months of research, the team discovered that this knowledge isn’t completely impossible to capture and that the key is to capture it from the source, through the voice of the person who holds it. From conversations that people have when they talk about their work.
And so Luffa’s capturing platform began to take shape. The goal was to capture conversations and give people ways to interact with this audio; flagging moments directly on the audio, adding visual elements and other contextual clues all in one place. Giving them a tool that will help them make connections between people, projects and ideas. To collaborate in a space that makes it possible for all voices to be heard.
The Luffa team has been able to build an environment and a product that helps them innovate on a daily basis, with their platform they want to help other teams do the same. Luffa is a tool that’s designed to bring teams together, shape new habits, and build better working relationships that are conducive towards innovative and creative spaces.
At the heart of Luffa is the idea that you already have a smart and diverse team, the platform will simply help you realize what you’ve been missing while helping you build trust and knowledge sharing practices in the workplace.
