Wake

Wake, founded in 2013 by Chris Kalani, Johan Bakken, and Tobias Bæck, operated as a platform offering collaboration tools specifically for designers. The company was established in San Francisco to address the need for better visibility and interaction within design teams and across different departments.

Chris Kalani, who served as CEO, brought a wealth of experience from his previous roles as a product designer at Facebook, where he worked on projects like Messenger and Graph Search, and at Jive Software. His background in designing products for major companies like Microsoft and Nike informed Wake's development, which began as a side project and organically grew into a full-fledged company. This journey from designer to CEO shaped the company's focus on creating a tool that solved a significant pain point for design professionals.

The business provided a tool that enabled designers to share their work-in-progress, facilitating early and frequent feedback. This increased visibility aimed to improve alignment among stakeholders, speed up the product development process, and foster a more connected design team, especially as organizations scaled. Wake's client portfolio included prominent design-forward companies such as Airbnb, Spotify, Facebook, and Capital One. In April 2018, the digital product design platform InVision acquired Wake for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, the Wake team joined InVision to continue developing the product, which was set to operate as a separate brand while being integrated into InVision's broader platform.

Keywords: design collaboration, product design platform, workflow visibility, team feedback tool, designer collaboration, UI/UX design tool, design process management, stakeholder alignment, InVision acquisition, Chris Kalani, Johan Bakken, Tobias Bæck, digital product design, design visibility, creative collaboration, design project management, remote design teams, agile design, design feedback, prototyping tool