4 ms·

Show HN: I self learned to code and built a Slack app for team feedback - Kaapi

29 points by adityarao310 6y ago

Saajjain 6y ago
Great stuff! Signed up for my team.
prakharam 6y ago
Been using Kaapi for my team for the past few weeks. Great results so far! Highly recommended.
veermanhas 6y ago
Hey Aditya, Congratulations for the launch. Glad to see you here. Been using Kaapi for a two weeks and have already filled the feedback loop I wasn't able to do for some time. Dead simple to use and works better than calls. Would love to add custom questions as well.
- adityarao310 6y ago
  nice! Yeah we are going to add that ability soon hopefully
adityarao310 6y ago
Creator here. I have spent a decade in startups now. Almost always, the best teams had fantastic feedback culture & systems. So when I learned to code last year, I really wanted to build an app for this :) The Slack app checkins with your team once a week, and collects the answers for you in a simple format. You can even run daily standups! All within Slack. Had to do some interesting hacks to make a Slack UI - it even has a bar graph using Slack formatting tips :) We have a serverless stack (AWS Lambda) and Python on backend, and Aurora database with a Psql engine for autoscaling. I really believe that the answer to a good remote culture is surprisingly simple - listen to your people, and take action on the feedback. Trivia nights and Zoom parties come later. [1] [Our story of bootstrapping Kaap to $1000 MRR](https://www.kaapi.team/blog/hardcore-year-learning-to-code-bootstrapping-my-saas-to-1000-mrr https://www.kaapi.team/blog/hardcore-year-learning-to-code-b...) [2] [Why we went serverless from the beginning](https://www.kaapi.team/blog/this-is-why-we-went-server-less-and-you-should-probably-too https://www.kaapi.team/blog/this-is-why-we-went-server-less-...) [3] [Goal setting in remote teams](https://www.kaapi.team/blog/a-simple-idiot-proof-guide-to-goal-setting https://www.kaapi.team/blog/a-simple-idiot-proof-guide-to-go...) [4] Why everyone should code(https://www.kaapi.team/blog/everyone-should-learn-code https://www.kaapi.team/blog/everyone-should-learn-code)
- puranjay 6y ago
  Congrats on the launch! Curious about your coding journey. You mentioned that it took you 1.5 years of coding on weekends, but would you also share the courses/tools/communities you used?
travelco 6y ago
I see that you only have a Slack app - I am curious why did you start with that platform first?
- adityarao310 6y ago
  It was a good MVP to begin with. Slack abstracts away a lot of other head ache for us e.g. we dont have any frontend UI - we just give formatted JSON outputs to Slack API and they parse it for us!
gehani 6y ago
This is an incredible achievement. Been using for a few weeks, and it doesn't feel like the work of a newly minted developer. More power to you!
scoutt 6y ago
My mood would definitely drop if I have to answer questions about my mood while I am coding. I see this tool as more corporate-jerkery oriented instead of helping to be more productive. And I can't stop thinking this HN entry was kind of forged since the 3 out of 5 cheerful comments here were done by green created-1-hour ago users. But of course, I can be wrong.
- adityarao310 6y ago
  Fair point on the distraction bit, and I hate it too! Kaapi sends two notifications a week and if your Slack notifications are off, you wont get any notification from app too :) Maybe we have some improvement areas on this topic. Will think about it more! I do disagree on the corporate-jerkery bit. 100% of current users (454 active this week) work in tech startups. Most managers use us to get agenda points for their upcoming 1-on-1s.. On the last bit --> Yup, I sent my weekly newsletter a few minutes ago and did tell users to give us HN feedback on how we can do better! :)
  - scoutt 6y ago
    I think that to succeed in your business you should poll on management, because I think every developer on earth would roll eyes (and probably hate you) when proposed insistently* into participating on giving such feedback by some wanky manager. *should read: "participate or it will impact negatively in your performance review". > did tell users to give us HN feedback I am not an admin or police of this place, but be careful because it might be against the guidelines[0]. >> Can I ask people to upvote my submission? >> No... >> Can I ask people to comment on my submission? >> No.... [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
    - adityarao310 6y ago
      Ugh this certainly sucks. I disagree with the rule that you can’t ask for feedback on your product! But fair I guess, considering that it has lots of potentials of misuse. Will remember this next time. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction
elviz 6y ago
Hey, I produced a detailed feedback for your website (incl. video and breakdown). You can see it here: https://firstimpressions.link/result/kaapi-team https://firstimpressions.link/result/kaapi-team I hope this helps.
- adityarao310 6y ago
  Dang this is nice Elviz!

29 points by adityarao310 6y ago

Saajjain 6y ago

Great stuff! Signed up for my team.

prakharam 6y ago

Been using Kaapi for my team for the past few weeks. Great results so far! Highly recommended.

veermanhas 6y ago

Hey Aditya, Congratulations for the launch. Glad to see you here. Been using Kaapi for a two weeks and have already filled the feedback loop I wasn't able to do for some time. Dead simple to use and works better than calls. Would love to add custom questions as well.

adityarao310 6y ago
nice! Yeah we are going to add that ability soon hopefully

adityarao310 6y ago

Creator here. I have spent a decade in startups now. Almost always, the best teams had fantastic feedback culture & systems. So when I learned to code last year, I really wanted to build an app for this :) The Slack app checkins with your team once a week, and collects the answers for you in a simple format. You can even run daily standups! All within Slack. Had to do some interesting hacks to make a Slack UI - it even has a bar graph using Slack formatting tips :) We have a serverless stack (AWS Lambda) and Python on backend, and Aurora database with a Psql engine for autoscaling. I really believe that the answer to a good remote culture is surprisingly simple - listen to your people, and take action on the feedback. Trivia nights and Zoom parties come later. [1] [Our story of bootstrapping Kaap to $1000 MRR](https://www.kaapi.team/blog/hardcore-year-learning-to-code-bootstrapping-my-saas-to-1000-mrr https://www.kaapi.team/blog/hardcore-year-learning-to-code-b...) [2] [Why we went serverless from the beginning](https://www.kaapi.team/blog/this-is-why-we-went-server-less-and-you-should-probably-too https://www.kaapi.team/blog/this-is-why-we-went-server-less-...) [3] [Goal setting in remote teams](https://www.kaapi.team/blog/a-simple-idiot-proof-guide-to-goal-setting https://www.kaapi.team/blog/a-simple-idiot-proof-guide-to-go...) [4] Why everyone should code(https://www.kaapi.team/blog/everyone-should-learn-code https://www.kaapi.team/blog/everyone-should-learn-code)

puranjay 6y ago
Congrats on the launch! Curious about your coding journey. You mentioned that it took you 1.5 years of coding on weekends, but would you also share the courses/tools/communities you used?

travelco 6y ago

I see that you only have a Slack app - I am curious why did you start with that platform first?

adityarao310 6y ago
It was a good MVP to begin with. Slack abstracts away a lot of other head ache for us e.g. we dont have any frontend UI - we just give formatted JSON outputs to Slack API and they parse it for us!

gehani 6y ago

This is an incredible achievement. Been using for a few weeks, and it doesn't feel like the work of a newly minted developer. More power to you!

scoutt 6y ago

My mood would definitely drop if I have to answer questions about my mood while I am coding. I see this tool as more corporate-jerkery oriented instead of helping to be more productive. And I can't stop thinking this HN entry was kind of forged since the 3 out of 5 cheerful comments here were done by green created-1-hour ago users. But of course, I can be wrong.

adityarao310 6y ago
Fair point on the distraction bit, and I hate it too! Kaapi sends two notifications a week and if your Slack notifications are off, you wont get any notification from app too :) Maybe we have some improvement areas on this topic. Will think about it more! I do disagree on the corporate-jerkery bit. 100% of current users (454 active this week) work in tech startups. Most managers use us to get agenda points for their upcoming 1-on-1s.. On the last bit --> Yup, I sent my weekly newsletter a few minutes ago and did tell users to give us HN feedback on how we can do better! :)
- scoutt 6y ago
  I think that to succeed in your business you should poll on management, because I think every developer on earth would roll eyes (and probably hate you) when proposed insistently* into participating on giving such feedback by some wanky manager. *should read: "participate or it will impact negatively in your performance review". > did tell users to give us HN feedback I am not an admin or police of this place, but be careful because it might be against the guidelines[0]. >> Can I ask people to upvote my submission? >> No... >> Can I ask people to comment on my submission? >> No.... [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
  - adityarao310 6y ago
    Ugh this certainly sucks. I disagree with the rule that you can’t ask for feedback on your product! But fair I guess, considering that it has lots of potentials of misuse. Will remember this next time. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction

elviz 6y ago

Hey, I produced a detailed feedback for your website (incl. video and breakdown). You can see it here: https://firstimpressions.link/result/kaapi-team https://firstimpressions.link/result/kaapi-team I hope this helps.

adityarao310 6y ago
Dang this is nice Elviz!