ClickUp

Productivity SoftwareFounded 2017- HQ today: San Diego, California, United States

Founders

Who Founded ClickUp?

Zeb Evans, Alex Yurkowski · Founded 2017 · HQ today: San Diego, California, United States

Who founded ClickUp?

ClickUp was founded by Zeb Evans, Alex Yurkowski in 2017. It is now led by Zeb Evans.

Founders: Zeb Evans, Alex Yurkowski
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: San Diego, California, United States
Number of founders: 2
Current CEO: Zeb Evans (since 2017)

Where was ClickUp founded?: ClickUp was founded in San Diego, California in 2017.
When was ClickUp founded?: ClickUp was founded in 2017.
Who started ClickUp?: ClickUp was founded by Zeb Evans and Alex Yurkowski.
How old is ClickUp?: ClickUp is 9 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

In 2017, Zeb Evans was running a fast-growing tech startup, but he was losing his mind managing the software stack. Half his company used Jira, the marketing team used Asana, and everyone used Google Docs. Nothing connected, and important information was constantly lost. He decided that the 'best of breed' software philosophy was fundamentally broken. He and his co-founder Alex literally locked themselves in a house for a year to build a single platform that could do the job of all three apps, launching ClickUp to end the nightmare of context-switching.

What each ClickUp founder did

Founder	Role at founding	Contribution
Zeb Evans	Founder & Chief Executive Officer	—
Alex Yurkowski	Co-Founder & CTO	—

Zeb Evans

Background

Before ClickUp, Evans founded and ran several smaller internet businesses. He has spoken publicly about surviving near-death experiences, which he credits for his focus on saving people time.

Role at ClickUp

Zeb Evans is the co-founder and CEO of ClickUp. A serial entrepreneur, he started ClickUp in 2017 with Alex Yurkowski after experiencing how much time teams lost moving between disconnected work apps. He led the company through about $535 million of venture funding, a $4 billion valuation in 2021, more than $300 million in ARR by 2025, and an AI-first restructuring in 2026. Zeb Evans was born in 1989.

Alex Yurkowski

Background

Yurkowski is a software engineer who worked with Evans before ClickUp. Few other details of his career are publicly documented.

Role at ClickUp

Alex Yurkowski co-founded ClickUp with Zeb Evans in 2017 and is its chief technology officer. He built the original product, first used internally before its public release, and its flexible data model that lets one set of work appear in many different views. Alex Yurkowski was born in 1989.

ClickUp: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Zeb Evans

Founder & CEO

2017 – Present

Took ClickUp from an internal tool to more than $300 million in ARR and 20 million users by September 2025.

Alex Yurkowski

Co-Founder & CTO

2017 – Present

As Co-Founder and former CTO, he led the engineering team during the company's absolute hyper-growth phase, rapidly shipping features to fulfill the audacious 'One app to replace them all' marketing promise.

Keep researching ClickUp

Who Founded ClickUp? FAQ

Who founded ClickUp and in what year was the company launched?

ClickUp was founded in 2017 in San Francisco (later moving to San Diego, California) by Zeb Evans and Alex Yurkowski under the parent corporate entity Mango Technologies, Inc.

What was the initial internal pain point that led to the creation of ClickUp?

While building an earlier software venture, the founders found their team constantly context-switching between Trello for task boards, Asana for project tracking, Jira for bug reports, Google Docs for notes, and Slack for chat, inspiring them to build a single unified tool.

Why did the founders relocate ClickUp from Silicon Valley to San Diego?

In January 2020, Zeb Evans moved ClickUp's global corporate headquarters from the San Francisco Bay Area to San Diego, California, seeking a vibrant coastal culture, lower cost of living for employees, and access to top engineering talent.

How did the founders achieve viral early traction without spending on paid ads?

The founders grew ClickUp to its first 100,000 users organically by posting transparent weekly product updates on Reddit and Product Hunt, engaging directly with users in online forums, and building requested features in days.

Who was David Sacks and how did Craft Ventures back the founders?

In early 2020, well-known SaaS founder and investor David Sacks of Craft Ventures discovered ClickUp's organic hyper-growth metrics, leading ClickUp's $35 million Series A round and joining the board of directors.

How did the founders pioneer the weekly product release cycle in SaaS?

The founders established a famous company culture of shipping new software updates every single Friday without fail, releasing hundreds of major features and improvements annually.

What is the core philosophical mission established by the founders?

The founders established the permanent corporate mission 'To make the world more productive by saving people time', with the core goal of giving every human user back one full day every week to focus on what matters most.

What is the lasting industry impact of ClickUp's founders on enterprise software?

Zeb Evans and Alex Yurkowski challenged the SaaS industry dogma that enterprise apps must be narrow and single-purpose, proving that a deeply customizable, all-in-one platform can successfully scale to millions of users worldwide.

Who founded ClickUp?

It was co-founded by Zeb Evans (CEO and visionary) and Alex Yurkowski (CTO). They famously bootstrapped the company in its early years, sleeping on air mattresses to save money before taking massive venture capital.

Related Founder Profiles

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Competitor

Explore ClickUp

Core profile pages, founders and related research hubs for this company.

Who founded ClickUp?

Founding Story

What each ClickUp founder did

Zeb Evans

Background

Role at ClickUp

Alex Yurkowski

Background

Role at ClickUp

ClickUp: CEO & Leadership History

Keep researching ClickUp

Who Founded ClickUp? FAQ

Who founded ClickUp and in what year was the company launched?

What was the initial internal pain point that led to the creation of ClickUp?

Why did the founders relocate ClickUp from Silicon Valley to San Diego?

How did the founders achieve viral early traction without spending on paid ads?

Who was David Sacks and how did Craft Ventures back the founders?

How did the founders pioneer the weekly product release cycle in SaaS?

What is the core philosophical mission established by the founders?

What is the lasting industry impact of ClickUp's founders on enterprise software?

Who founded ClickUp?

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