Over the years, the Sharetribe team tried many tools. Some made collaboration harder, others required constant context switching, and many didn’t scale well as their processes matured. Once they discovered Whimsical, the shift was gradual but natural. Piece by piece, more of their work found a home in one place. Today, Whimsical is central to how Sharetribe brainstorms ideas, plans cycles, aligns across teams, and shapes new product ideas.

A visual home for planning and communication

Sharetribe organizes their work in three-week cycles followed by a cooldown and planning week. Every cycle, the entire company aligns inside a single Whimsical board.

Teams track projects using lists and cards. They review progress in weekly meetings using color coding to highlight what needs discussion, while comments allow them to add details asynchronously. Each cycle has its own snapshot, creating a historical record of decisions and progress.

“Whimsical is basically the online version of the physical post-it board we had when we were only a small team,” says Thomas Malbaux, COO at Sharetribe. “It keeps everything visual, and that has shaped the way we share ideas.”

For a distributed team, that shared visibility makes a difference. Everyone can access the same boards without asking for permissions or digging across tools. Before asking a teammate for help, most people simply search within Whimsical because they know the answer is likely already documented there.

Product specs, diagrams, and early ideas

Beyond cycle planning, Sharetribe uses Whimsical to shape new product features from the very first idea all the way to detailed specs.

The team uses:

• Wireframes to design flows, explore variations, and discuss copy
• Diagrams to map transaction logic, decision trees, and support processes
• Docs to outline specs and connect them directly to cards in boards

Wireframes are especially important to their process. With a full library of reusable components built over time, designers and product managers can reuse existing patterns and focus on flow, language, and decisions rather than pixel-perfect visuals. When it is time to move into high-fidelity work, they switch to Figma, but all the early shaping happens in Whimsical.

We don’t need our wireframes to be beautiful. We need them to be collaborative and Whimsical is perfect for that.

Thomas Malbaux COO

A single place for retros, public roadmaps, and updates

Sharetribe also runs their retrospectives inside Whimsical. Teams gather feedback on cards, vote on what to discuss, group insights, and decide on next steps. Real-time collaboration, commenting, and the timer help them keep discussions focused and time-boxed.

Even their public roadmap is powered by Whimsical. Instead of building something custom, they embed a simple Whimsical board on their website to show what they are working on, what is next, and what’s already built. It is a lightweight way to stay transparent with customers without maintaining a complex process.

Why Sharetribe chooses Whimsical

Over time, Whimsical has become the backbone of how Sharetribe collaborates. For them, a few things stand out:

• A comprehensive toolkit: Boards, wireframes, diagrams, docs, embeds, comments, and real-time collaboration all live in one place. Sharetribe no longer needs to maintain separate tools for planning, low-fi design, and documentation.
• A sense of momentum: New features arrive frequently and clearly respond to real customer feedback. “It feels like the product is alive,” Thomas says. “We want that same feeling in our own work.”
• A human-first support experience: The combination of speed, care, and thoughtful detail whenever they need help really stands out. “It’s the kind of support experience we want to give our own customers”, Thomas shared.

Whimsical didn’t just replace tools. It changed Sharetribe’s habits. The team now uses Whimsical as their main reference point.

“Before asking someone for help, most people just search in Whimsical,” Thomas explains. “Everything is in one place.”

When Sharetribe starts a new project, they begin in Whimsical. When they plan their next cycle, they do it in Whimsical. And when someone needs to understand what happened last month or last year, they know exactly where to look - in Whimsical.