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It's designed from the ground up for async collaboration and focus (you collaborate on decisions like you might an issue, rather than interruptive chat discussi

by j4yav 5y ago

It's designed from the ground up for async collaboration and focus (you collaborate on decisions like you might an issue, rather than interruptive chat discussions or worse, meetings.) It's based on how I saw collab work at a unicorn I worked at that was doing remote work well pre-pandemic, and that I've seen replicated elsewhere. However, it feels very foreign to people who haven't experienced that. What I've seen is you don't really "get" it until you try it, and getting people to try it is really hard. I suspect there's some correct way I can talk about it that helps people see the value more quickly, but I haven't figured it out yet.

mdorazio 5y ago
> It's designed from the ground up for async collaboration and focus (you collaborate on decisions like you might an issue, rather than interruptive chat discussions or worse, meetings.) This doesn’t really tell me anything. Can you provide a real-world example of how it would work on a project? Is there a ~10 second video or gif of it in action? Or even more basic, what specifically made you angry enough with existing tools that you felt the need to create this? What did you want to do that you couldn’t? (And please avoid the term async in your explanation - it will help you be clearer).
- _teyd 5y ago
  The app has a list of topics that anyone can add to. Each topic has a due date so you know when it is wrapping up, and they also have an explicit context and outcome; the topic creator sets the context, and the outcome is the bit that everyone collaborates on by editing together/using the discussion thread. Once the topic is done and a decision made, you lock the topic, saving the context, decision, and the discussion thread for later reference. It's better than Slack because it lets you engage with discussions more mindfully and across time zones, rather than as they come up in easy to miss and fragmented threads, and ensures that the decision is self-documenting when it's done. It's also better than something like Notion, an Issue, or Google Doc because it has better embedded conversation threads, and comes with the structure for separating context and decision. Everything else we tried was too free form, this brought just enough structure to get everyone on the same page and make decisions/discuss topics without getting in the way, while having some consistency to finding them and how the conversations were structured. Does this help? There is a video up at https://asyncgo.com https://asyncgo.com, but it suffers from how hard it has been to figure out how to talk about the app clearly.
  - pigcat 5y ago
    Sounds cool. Where can I find it? Edit: I see you added a link! It _is_ cool. Great idea, I like the name too. I can see this being very useful and will give it a try the next time I need an outcome.
    - j4yav 5y ago
      Added a link above to the current site/video that I have. If you have any feedback (even if you don't use it) I'd love to hear from you, my email is in my bio here. Edit: Much appreciated!
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    Ok cool. So if I had to sum it up elevator pitch style based on what you’ve provided so far, I would call it a collaborative project management tool that uses threaded discussions for deliverables and decision making. Is your target and experience to replace existing PM tools like kanban boards or work alongside them?
    - j4yav 5y ago
      To work along side them, we are really just thinking about the collaborative decision making bit. We do have document editing built-in (WYSIWYG markdown editing), but issue trackers for example, backlogs, kanbans would still be in place for _doing_ work. I can imagine replacing Slack, for the right team. We are a small team, but internally we use our own app (all the time) plus Google Chat (rarely, for quick pings).
  - zffr 5y ago
    Some feedback: - From the website it is not clear how users use your product. The only screenshot is on an iPad. Does that mean your product is a mobile app? The video shows a website. Does that mean your product can be used as both a website and an app, or just a website? Your website should make it clear how your users can access your product. - You mention in the video that there's a chrome extension, but this is not mentioned on the website. Most users will not even watch your video unless they are sufficiently interested from what they read on your website. If there are other integrations your support you should mention them as well. - In your video you claim that using AsyncGo has allowed you to avoid having _any_ work meetings, but I'm not convinced from the video that I could replicate this on my team. It would be interesting to hear details about the kind of work meetings you used to have, and how AsyncGo has replaced them. It would also be interesting to hear details about how other collaboration platforms fall short. Ex: why not use slack? - IMO the example in your video is too abstract and not relatable (at least for me). At work I don't think i have ever scheduled a meeting to discuss some internet article. Usually people just post a link in slack and start a discussion there. If there is some outcome, maybe we create a ticket in our bug tracker. I feel like it would be better if you used a more realistic example from your experience using AsyncGo. I would be interested to see the kind of comments people leave and how people tend to use features like search, up/down votes, labels, etc.
andruby 5y ago
Have you considered recording a video of you using it? Have a rough landing page. Add the video. Post a Show HN. How I would consider marketing it after that is through "content marketing". Ie: start a blog/insta/twitter/youtube channel where you post relevant stuff for people trying to solve or improve remote collaboration. You can show your solution, or talk about common problems you've seen, etc. Good luck! (I'm curious to see your solution!)
- j4yav 5y ago
  We have a video and landing page at https://AsyncGo.com https://AsyncGo.com, but the messaging isn’t super locked in yet. Curious for your feedback.
  - andruby 5y ago
    I would probably focus on "Remote decision making" as that seems to be the key thing setting you apart from other solutions (imo). At least, it is the key element that attracts my attention :)

by j4yav 5y ago

mdorazio 5y ago

> It's designed from the ground up for async collaboration and focus (you collaborate on decisions like you might an issue, rather than interruptive chat discussions or worse, meetings.) This doesn’t really tell me anything. Can you provide a real-world example of how it would work on a project? Is there a ~10 second video or gif of it in action? Or even more basic, what specifically made you angry enough with existing tools that you felt the need to create this? What did you want to do that you couldn’t? (And please avoid the term async in your explanation - it will help you be clearer).

_teyd 5y ago
The app has a list of topics that anyone can add to. Each topic has a due date so you know when it is wrapping up, and they also have an explicit context and outcome; the topic creator sets the context, and the outcome is the bit that everyone collaborates on by editing together/using the discussion thread. Once the topic is done and a decision made, you lock the topic, saving the context, decision, and the discussion thread for later reference. It's better than Slack because it lets you engage with discussions more mindfully and across time zones, rather than as they come up in easy to miss and fragmented threads, and ensures that the decision is self-documenting when it's done. It's also better than something like Notion, an Issue, or Google Doc because it has better embedded conversation threads, and comes with the structure for separating context and decision. Everything else we tried was too free form, this brought just enough structure to get everyone on the same page and make decisions/discuss topics without getting in the way, while having some consistency to finding them and how the conversations were structured. Does this help? There is a video up at https://asyncgo.com https://asyncgo.com, but it suffers from how hard it has been to figure out how to talk about the app clearly.
- pigcat 5y ago
  Sounds cool. Where can I find it? Edit: I see you added a link! It _is_ cool. Great idea, I like the name too. I can see this being very useful and will give it a try the next time I need an outcome.
  - j4yav 5y ago
    Added a link above to the current site/video that I have. If you have any feedback (even if you don't use it) I'd love to hear from you, my email is in my bio here. Edit: Much appreciated!
- mdorazio 5y ago
  Ok cool. So if I had to sum it up elevator pitch style based on what you’ve provided so far, I would call it a collaborative project management tool that uses threaded discussions for deliverables and decision making. Is your target and experience to replace existing PM tools like kanban boards or work alongside them?
  - j4yav 5y ago
    To work along side them, we are really just thinking about the collaborative decision making bit. We do have document editing built-in (WYSIWYG markdown editing), but issue trackers for example, backlogs, kanbans would still be in place for _doing_ work. I can imagine replacing Slack, for the right team. We are a small team, but internally we use our own app (all the time) plus Google Chat (rarely, for quick pings).
- zffr 5y ago
  Some feedback: - From the website it is not clear how users use your product. The only screenshot is on an iPad. Does that mean your product is a mobile app? The video shows a website. Does that mean your product can be used as both a website and an app, or just a website? Your website should make it clear how your users can access your product. - You mention in the video that there's a chrome extension, but this is not mentioned on the website. Most users will not even watch your video unless they are sufficiently interested from what they read on your website. If there are other integrations your support you should mention them as well. - In your video you claim that using AsyncGo has allowed you to avoid having _any_ work meetings, but I'm not convinced from the video that I could replicate this on my team. It would be interesting to hear details about the kind of work meetings you used to have, and how AsyncGo has replaced them. It would also be interesting to hear details about how other collaboration platforms fall short. Ex: why not use slack? - IMO the example in your video is too abstract and not relatable (at least for me). At work I don't think i have ever scheduled a meeting to discuss some internet article. Usually people just post a link in slack and start a discussion there. If there is some outcome, maybe we create a ticket in our bug tracker. I feel like it would be better if you used a more realistic example from your experience using AsyncGo. I would be interested to see the kind of comments people leave and how people tend to use features like search, up/down votes, labels, etc.

andruby 5y ago

Have you considered recording a video of you using it? Have a rough landing page. Add the video. Post a Show HN. How I would consider marketing it after that is through "content marketing". Ie: start a blog/insta/twitter/youtube channel where you post relevant stuff for people trying to solve or improve remote collaboration. You can show your solution, or talk about common problems you've seen, etc. Good luck! (I'm curious to see your solution!)

j4yav 5y ago
We have a video and landing page at https://AsyncGo.com https://AsyncGo.com, but the messaging isn’t super locked in yet. Curious for your feedback.
- andruby 5y ago
  I would probably focus on "Remote decision making" as that seems to be the key thing setting you apart from other solutions (imo). At least, it is the key element that attracts my attention :)