Our history

A software company is for adventure

Discover how bringing clarity to product development sparked a company, a product suite, and a new approach to business

The Aha! moment

Brian de Haaff and Dr. Chris Waters founded Aha! in the spring of 2013 in Menlo Park, California. We knew that people were struggling to set clear business strategies and connect them to the work of building products that customers love.

We related to the need — our own careers had been dedicated to trying to build great products at both emerging and well-established software companies. There was an opportunity to help people set goals and initiatives, connect them to the execution, and provide greater organizational clarity into who was working on what.

Back to basics

We wanted to do something different, something true. We did not want to build just another software company. We wanted to build exceptionally high-quality products and create a place where people would love to work. And we wanted to allow people to work from where they were happiest. In fact, we are still a 100% remote company today.

We were well-acquainted with the startup model that had been celebrated in Silicon Valley since the mid-1990s, and we knew there had to be a better way to fund our vision than chasing venture capital and trying to manufacture scale with no substance. We self-funded the business and aimed to be profitable fast.

Striking a chord

It was immediately obvious that others shared our vision. Product managers and company builders were looking for a better way to build what their customers wanted and enjoy their own work at the same time.

We crafted the first version of Aha! Roadmaps. During an early-access beta program, we spoke with and demonstrated the software to more than 500 product development teams. We ended the beta program in the fall of 2014 and signed up 125 paying enterprise customers within four months. We were profitable and on our way.

Phenomenal growth

As we defined a new category of roadmapping and Aha! rapidly became the obvious choice for product builders around the world, we wanted to share the philosophy behind how we built products and worked with customers. We introduced the concept of the Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) — the idea that teams should build products people genuinely love from the start, not just products that meet minimum requirements.

In July 2014, we codified a framework for personal and business success named The Responsive Method (TRM). TRM is centered around the belief that interactions with urgency propel people and organizations forward. It is a simple way to have mutually beneficial exchanges.

In April 2017, we shared more details about our company philosophy when Brian published Lovability, a bestselling book about our people- and profit-first approach to business. Drawing from Brian's experience founding successful tech companies and creating award-winning products, the book reveals how to build a business that people love and be happy doing it.

After years of working with thousands of companies using our roadmapping software, we knew that every team needed a better way to plan ahead, link their activities to strategic goals, and provide greater visibility to the impact of their work. So in 2019 and 2020, we introduced purpose-built workspaces for marketing, IT, services, project, and business teams to set strategy and build visual roadmaps — all while staying connected within one company account. And we established Aha! Academy to provide learning paths for teams to develop roadmapping skills and increase product development knowledge.

Customers asked us to help them drive innovation, develop greater empathy, and engage their teams via a dedicated feedback product. In October 2020, we launched Aha! Ideas: a tool for teams to crowdsource ideas from customers, employees, and partners, and then incorporate those ideas into plans for new features and functionality.

In May 2021, we expanded our suite to support engineering leaders who want to align technical work with business strategy. Aha! Develop provides the visibility and control needed to optimize workload, streamline delivery, and ensure engineering efforts drive real impact. Of course, Aha! Develop tightly integrates with Aha! Roadmaps — so product management and development teams can seamlessly work together to achieve their best.

In 2024, we introduced new whiteboarding and knowledge base tools. Aha! Whiteboards provides a visual space for product innovation — so product teams can define user flows, create mockups, and collaborate on plans. Aha! Knowledge enables teams to create and share product documents from a single hub, generate internal wikis, and craft self-serve documentation.

We also had a major revelation from our own product discovery work over the last few years. We and many other teams needed a better way to proactively gather insights and turn them into meaningful product decisions. In 2025, we launched Aha! Discovery to help product teams jump-start their customer research. Product, design, and research managers can now centralize customer interviews, uncover learnings, and tie insights directly to their product plans.

Soon after, we introduced Aha! Teamwork: a dedicated space for managing project work alongside the strategic plans that guide it. Many organizations use Aha! Roadmaps to define goals, initiatives, and new user experiences. Engineering teams then build new functionality. But the delivery and implementation effort is often led by teams in operations, IT, or marketing, each using separate tools and methods. We wanted to bring those teams into the same system. Now, they can manage tasks, timelines, and dependencies in one place — with full visibility into how their work supports the broader plan.

In January 2026, we launched Aha! Builder: an AI-powered product built specifically for product managers to create business applications. Product managers know what internal tools their companies need but have never been able to build them without engineering resources. Aha! Builder changes that. Product managers can now create applications themselves by using our powerful AI assistant to handle the technical implementation. Unlike tools built just for generating code quickly, Aha! Builder is designed to meet enterprise standards from the start — taking a strategy-first approach, crafting secure and scalable software, and centralizing tool management across the portfolio.

Agile teams can start with any Aha! product or use the full Aha! software suite to go from product discovery to delivery — building software that customers love and creating the internal applications teams need to work more effectively.

Award-winning

We are proud of what we have created. And we are humbled when others recognize our accomplishments as well. In 2018, Aha! was #143 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. and #13 out of all software companies. Aha! also ranked #50 on Deloitte's 2018 Technology Fast 500 and in the top 100 on Forbes' 2021 list of best startups. We have been included on many lists of the best workplaces, including Inc. (in 2018 and 2025), Best in Biz Awards (in 2025), and LinkedIn. In 2025, Brian de Haaff received the Gold Stevie Award for Thought Leader of the Year in Business Products. The award reflects more than a decade of writing and speaking about what it takes to building meaningful software and a lasting company.

We have built a $100M+ recurring revenue company that was highly profitable from the start with no venture funding, no office, and no salespeople. We remain focused on helping teams innovate and inspiring other companies to think differently about how they, too, can build a people-first company.

Our history is still being written — join us!

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Giving back

As an entirely distributed company, we are in a unique position to make a global impact. We believe that we are responsible for sharing our success with those who are less fortunate. So in 2019, we formalized Aha! Cares: a unique approach to corporate philanthropy that includes funding for local charitable organizations, community service, and discounts for nonprofits. We are proud to have now contributed over $1.5M to the communities we live and work in.

We are also champions of the Bootstrap Movement. We hope to inspire others to think differently and boldly about how to build their own exceptional software companies.