Balsa - Docs for building software | Product Hunt

Docs for building software

Thanks for hunting us, @chrismessina!

We designed Balsa to be the best tool for writing PRDs, and any other kind of software project docs.

Balsa is crafted from our collective experience building software at companies like Slack, Stripe, Google, Ripple, and elsewhere. We've written and read thousands of product briefs, PRDs, design docs and tech specs. We wondered, what would a document look like that was crafted specifically for building software?

Certainly, it would start with a crisp and simple writing experience. For that, Balsa takes inspiration from general-purpose writing tools like Notion and our personal favorite – Dropbox Paper. From there, we infuse all the things you'd want from docs for building software. With Balsa, you can:

* Write any kind of project document (Product Brief, PRD, design doc, or tech spec) using Markdown-assisted rich text (e.g. start a line with `#` to create a header) * Use AI to draft suggested sections to help you expand your document * List out milestones and tasks right in the doc, assign them to team members, and check them off as you go * Annotate your document with a list of the team members working on the project, links to Figma, etc. * Sync key project launch dates to your Google Calendar automatically * Generate status reports that you can send to other folks at your company * See a Gantt view of all your project deadlines in one spot * … and much more!

We know we're just scratching the surface. In the weeks ahead, we're working on things like:

* Image uploads and annotations, so you can post and comment on mockups * Deep integrations with Linear and Jira, so you can see associated tickets inline * Team roster cards, so you can see who's working on what across multiple projects

So much specific care and craft goes into writing great software project docs. We believe they deserve a dedicated tool. We're excited to share Balsa with you, and we'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas!