Trainual is a training manual for modern businesses. It works as a simple and intuitive business playbook builder, making it easy for growing teams to get everyone up to speed and on the same page quickly. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Trainual founder and CEO Chris Ronzio to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Chris Ronzio’s Background
What is Chris Ronzio’s background? Ronzio said:
“Being an entrepreneur is in my blood! I started washing cars at 4 years old, sold wrapping paper door to door in elementary school, did yard work, cleaned houses, sold popsicles on the school bus, and made money in dozens of other ways before I was old enough to ‘get a real job’. I started my first business with employees when I was a freshman in high school, and ended up running that company for 12 years before selling it. My second business was an operations consulting firm, where I leveraged the technical skills and process/logistics knowledge from my first business to help organize the chaos in other growing businesses, and it was inside that company that Trainual was born.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Ronzio shared:
“My first company was a video production business that filmed youth sporting events in all 50 states. To staff those productions, we hired and trained hundreds of freelance videographers and editors over the years, and I developed an appreciation for the efficient transfer of operational knowledge. After selling that company, I started an operations consulting firm to help organize the chaos in growing businesses. I noticed that every business has systems and processes. Every business has a brand and culture. Every business has rules, regulations, roles and responsibilities. Yet most of the companies that I interacted with didn’t have this information organized in an easy way to get new hires up to speed, like I had done with my video crews. So, the idea for Trainual – a simple tool to house all of a company’s knowledge – was born.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Ronzio reflected:
“There was a day when my brother and I were shooting a commercial with Montell Jordan and Daymond John in a Brooklyn studio, when I also had my finalist interview for EY Entrepreneur of the Year, and we also closed our Series B financing round. That was a pretty great day.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Ronzio explained:
“Our product is a SaaS application that helps companies document and share their internal knowledge and how-to’s. The features span from capturing and creating flow charts, tests, videos, screen recordings, employee bios, job descriptions, standard operating procedures, employee handbooks, and more inside a simple web and mobile app.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Ronzio and the team face in building the company? Ronzio acknowledged:
“AI has introduced challenges, for instance, how do we build it into everything that we do as quickly as possible. In tech, you have to be nimble and ready to adapt to whatever tools and technologies are at your disposal. So, strategic plans sometimes have to remain in draft status, and teams have to be ready to shift on a dime. When Chat GPT introduced LLMs to the world, we spun up a proof of concept team and shipped our own AI content builder in less than 60 days.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Ronzio noted:
“Our product has evolved from being a simple course delivery software that was pretty one dimensional to a space that is purpose built for documenting all sorts of company information. We think of Trainual more like a worksheet than a blank sheet of paper. Often, companies will document knowledge inside a Google Doc or a Word Document, and they don’t know where to start. So, as we learned more about the types of material that our customers were documenting, we created interfaces that were specifically designed to house that information. As one example, we saw that everyone was creating training on their people teams – leadership teams, coworkers, and so on. So, we built a browsable directory with employee bios, and a roles feature for outlining the purpose and responsibilities of every role in the business.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Ronzio cited:
“In 2018, we won the Arizona Innovation Challenge, a grant awarded to the most promising businesses in the state. In 2019, we were awarded “most promising startup” by Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak. Certain milestones along the way, like passing 1,000 companies using our product, or 100,000 people using our product, were also really gratifying to know how wide of an impact we’re making.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Ronzio about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“With almost 10,000 customers today, we have no shortage of case studies and testimonials. They span a wide range of results, from scaling a company from 2 to over 700 people, or from opening 25 new locations, or from being able to successfully sell a services business. Our product enables companies to organize their operations for whatever purpose they have in mind.”
Funding/Revenue
When asking Ronzio about the company’s funding and revenue details, he revealed:
“In total, we’ve raised over $30 million of funding, and we’ll pass $100 million in lifetime sales this year.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Ronzio assessed:
“The global e-learning market is over $400 Billion, but Trainual is a product that is useful for companies with 10 employees or with 10,000 employees, and we’re crafting a new category of software that we believe every business will have in the next couple of decades. It’s an enormous market.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Ronzio emphasized:
“We are a hybrid between a traditional learning management system, an intranet, a wiki or knowledgebase, and a training management system, but designed around our Business Playbook methodology. Every company has a business profile, people, policies, and processes, and we’ve designed an interface to capture and organize those elements of a business that is unlike other places where companies might loosely document knowledge today.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Ronzio pointed out:
“In 2024, we expanded to 4 new languages and reached users in all 195 countries, but we have aspirations of expanding more intentionally to markets around the world. We’ll also continue to expand our product offering, integrating with all of the other operational tools that a company uses to sync data and search information wherever it may be.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Ronzio concluded:
“I love talking about delegation, why most people are bad at it, and how to think through what to take off your plate via prioritization and documentation.”
