achen187

Thanks, let us know if you have any questions. We'd love to help you guys out.

Thanks! Let us know if you have any questions, we'd love to set you guys up.

Thanks for the data point! It's definitely not for everyone, but the teams that actually need to be in the same room really love Sidekick.

Yes that's really helpful. As a software engineer by trade, I totally understand wanting to maintain flow.

Someone else in the thread talked about how to find the balance between what's most productive for you and what's most productive for the team. I think that's going to be key for our users as well.

Thanks for the data point. Yeah to be honest we do really well with very tight-knit teams right now. Cofounders are generally already good friends.

That's great feedback. Honestly, we haven't set up a team larger than 5 at this point.

However, I also believe that 3-5 is roughly the amount of people who you actually work really closely with. These units are probably the right grouping for who is in one room.

There is no actual max number, but I do think the design and the use case would fall apart right now. But there's some things we're thinking about like separate channels that might help with this.

Makes sense! We're also looking for other markets to expand into so that's really helpful.

Super cool idea! Will definitely reach out.

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, we're going for a different use case than Facebook Portal or other dedicated hardware devices with video are. We're not just trying to make meetings easier and better, we're trying to simulate the magic of being in the same room.

Wow that's quite the creative setup. And yes, something about having a dedicated device makes it a lot less frictionful.

we totally agree!

We should have probably flagged the number of conversations in the original post, that's good feedback. We're on average seeing 20 new conversations per day.

We've built a bunch of other features that also maximize the chances you're not alone in the call. The reason this metric is important is because being alone is the reason why nobody wants to stay in the call. An example is Meeting Mode, which I bring up in the original post - it lets your teammates know that you'll be back in 30 minutes so people don't feel like they're alone.

We actually are working on the ability to talk to one person on the call as opposed to everyone at once. But that's a good flag and it's great to know it's a problem you identify with.

Yes, we ship international! For more details, go to our website: https://sidekick.video/

That's really cool! Have you expanded beyond your cofounders? And are you guys still using it for always-on?

Also, how do you guys handle knowing when you can talk to the other person? How do you know if the other person is in a meeting?

Great idea! We're thinking about calendar integration so something like that could be awesome.

hasn't been a problem yet, but definitely something we're thinking about!

Thanks for the feedback. We actually talked to a bunch of teams that tried the Zoom on an iPad route and it usually failed because it was really hard to get the team in the same room. Sidekick does a really good job at maximizing the chances you're not alone -- I talk about some of the features in the original post.

Totally agree it's not for everyone, especially those users that are really happy with asynchronous work.

We talked to a bunch of teams that tried this. It's really hard to get people into the call at the same time. Eventually, there are enough bad experiences of being alone that people stop using it.

Sidekick's features maximize the chances you're not alone. Some examples are outlined in the original post!

Thanks for the feedback. We're definitely thinking about adding more privacy features.

We're on the same page that Sidekick isn't for everyone. It's great for those teams that want to feel like they're sitting in the same room. For these teams, that's what makes them most effective at their jobs.

Thanks! and yes we totally agree. Sidekick isn't for everyone. For the people that do miss being around others, we want to bring back some of that joy.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

We actually recommend using Screen.so for this: https://screen.so/

It's way faster than setting up a Zoom. All you do is type in /screen and it starts a share!

Here's a loom we made demonstrating it: https://www.loom.com/share/f7941a18a501424db3656b4603cb1179

Thanks! It always warms my heart to hear from other cofounders who experience this pain.

Please reach out if you have any more questions!

Thanks for the feedback! Agree that for a portion of the remote work force, asynchronous communication is probably effective.

Teams that love Sidekick need to be always talking as if they're in the same room. To these teams, it's not a distraction but critical for getting their job done.

Thanks for the feedback, we're still really early so this datapoint is really helpful.

Sidekick works really well for teams that need to be always communicating real-time. This isn't all remote teams, but the subset that needs this is underserved and we're trying to help with Sidekick.

From our experience, the best collaboration doesn't happen during planned meetings. It happens during spontaneous conversations and that's what we're trying to bring back.

We totally agree that for a portion of the remote workforce, asynchronous communication is actually preferable. Sidekick probably isn't for them.

The teams that love Sidekick actually need to feel like they're in the same room to get the job done. They actually want to be on the call at the same time because that's how they can be effective. These are teams like cofounders or operations teams.

Thanks so much! Yes, we totally understand we're not going after all remote workers but there's a large set of people like you we want to help.

Yes you can plug in headphones and a mic. Just so I understand, are you worried about bothering the other people in your home?

Really appreciate that you like the idea! Let me know if you have any other questions, would be happy to chat through them.

Totally agree that there's a huge privacy risk if it were abused by employers.

The teams that use Sidekick want to feel like they're in the same room with an always-on video -- it's actually the most effective way to get their jobs done.

We spoke to many teams that tried jerry-rigging an always-on zoom on an iPad. It was really hard to get people in the room at the same time.

We built Sidekick to maximize the chances that you're not alone in the room. I talk more about some of the features in the original post!