Smartsheet was first introduced in 2006. According to the company's co-founder, Brent Frei, initial adoption was slow because the software was too difficult to use.[1][14] At the end of its first year, it had only 10,000 users.[15] The company began making changes to the software in 2008, eventually cutting 60 percent of its features for the purpose of making it more user-friendly.[4][13] Following the 2010 launch of the redesign, adoption grew to 1 million users at 20,000 organizations by 2012.[13]