9 ms·

Show HN: Walkie-talkie for teams

43 points by talksik 4y ago

Hey team, I'm Arjun! Builder at flowy.live. So - it's quite simple. It's a walkie-talkie with a way to play back the last 24 hours. A new medium of communication for active teams. We have released for Mac and Windows. Any feedback or thoughts would mean the world to us! Open to a feedback session? https://calendly.com/arjun-flowy/onboarding https://calendly.com/arjun-flowy/onboarding Appreciate all of you, Arjun Patel arjun@flowy.live

throwaway81523 4y ago
Before: There are 14 standards...
- talksik 4y ago
  Fair point :) We think the philosophy that flowy is built on is the only reason it will beat other standards that we have just lived with: We live in a distracted world. We used to shuffle paper, now we shuffle 20+ apps merely trying to say a few words to each other. On the product side, we focus on how we can make this more like a natural human conversation. This results in reduced cognitive load and easier conversational flow.
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andrewfromx 4y ago
this is great. Like working at dispatch with a CB radio. Old school cool work habits.
- talksik 4y ago
  thanks andrewfromx! Trying our hardest to keep it super simple and dumb, with a little twist.
  - andrewfromx 4y ago
    Sure I posted to https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1270yes/flowylive_walkietalkie_for_developers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1270yes/flowyl... as well but I’m afraid the comments were mostly negative.
    - talksik 4y ago
      Ahh it's okay, appreciate it! This is all great feedback in either improving product or messaging.
dry_soup 4y ago
"Badass developers" is barely less trite than "rockstar ninja developers"
- flockonus 4y ago
  > Your core people a push of a button away. What a nightmare, it's impossible to not see this being a top down app made by some dated management style.
  - danielvaughn 4y ago
    Eh, if it's my actual core team, like the devs I work with on a day-to-day, then it sounds cool. We haven't yet managed to replace that sense of free flowing adhocness that comes with being in an office together.
    - flockonus 4y ago
      We've been using Gather, it's not the same for sure but it's quite cool to emulate the sense of spatial togetherness & adds some fun elements.
    - talksik 4y ago
      Yep I think we fail to articulate this well in the site. Flowy is a place for you and your core team (typically 3-8 people that are absolutely critical). The 20% of folks that you spend 80% of your time with, to focus and execute with.
- dang 4y ago
  Ok, we've replaced their asses with "teams" in the title above.
  - talksik 4y ago
    Appreciate it!
- Waterluvian 4y ago
ArchOversight 4y ago
> you will remember what someone said and how they said it more clearly than written text. No, no I will absolutely not, and with no easy search when my ADHD finally reminds me that I forgot something and need to find the communication and a written record that I can then use to work off, this would not work for the team I am on.
- deleted 4y ago
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- zamnos 4y ago
  If that's what ails you, and attempts to develop rigorous logging habits have failed (seriously, I have to obsessively calendar the shit out of everything or else it doesn't exist and it won't get done. and I don't always manage to do that) you might try http://rewind.app http://rewind.app if you're on apple silicon.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    Is this the right link? Appears to be a concert recording or group even recording app.
    - zamnos 4y ago
      good catch! too late to edit. The one I'm thinking of is at https://rewind.ai https://rewind.ai
- talksik 4y ago
  We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap. Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion. Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so"
habitue 4y ago
Does this have transcription? Adding whisper onto it to transcribe what was said would probably help with the "what did we agree on again?" problems
- talksik 4y ago
  Great point! Right on the dot! We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap as this is a common objection. (audiobook vs. book argument) Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion. Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so" Me personally? When it comes to going back in a conversation, I prefer sitting back and listening at 2x speed about complex topics so that I can look across the room and think instead of staring at my screen reading essays.
ReactiveJelly 4y ago
> with a way to play back the last 24 hours Oh, like a cockpit voice recorder. That sounds way more useful than just a walkie-talkie. (Most of my team is in-person already) Being able to permalink into a real-life conversation would be neat. A walkie-talkie alone wouldn't help me much because I'm in-person most of the time, and I'm picky about writing down anything that's said aloud. tbh I still probably wouldn't want to use it. I hate the sound of my own voice, even more than the average person.
- talksik 4y ago
  Yep it's been hard to find messaging to describe it. We start with walkie-talkie so it's understandable from the getgo. We used to do "Real-time voice commz for teams" but it didn't click for people. Thanks for the feedback! We are thinking through composing audio clips instead of just broadcasting immediately. From there, can imagine a world where we undo send. All to reduce anxiety and enable more free-flowing conversation. However, it may have the opposite effect, which is why we want to keep it simple for now. Appreciate this regardless! Especially the analogy!
prmoustache 4y ago
So basically it is whatsapp/telegram/signal
moltar 4y ago
Just a big nope from me. There’s no way I’m going to let anyone interrupt my focus. I usually resurface every few hours to check in with the team. But otherwise I keep all devices away, all chat apps closed.
- talksik 4y ago
  Yep I think we fail to articulate this well in the site. Flowy is a place for you and your core team (typically 3-8 people that are absolutely critical). The 20% of folks that you spend 80% of your time with, to focus and execute with. You choose who you hear. No notifications for anything else. No global presence as that would bring back the "always-on" feeling of slack.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Hey, well done on getting this shipped! It would be cool if I could walkie-talkie this response over to you! I watched two of the videos. The first video was about the problems that you typically have in a team and I think he hit the nail on the head there. It is frustrating with all the github emails and jira emails and slack notifications from 100 channels. I was really hoping you had solved this or at least partially. When I watched the second Jira I saw the product. I would describe it as potentially better than Slack but hard to be sure without using it. But I didn’t see how it solves the problems? Don’t I still have many channels, conversations etc. to track. And all the emails are still there! Async voice chat may be great but I feel it is a leap of faith for me. You see the problem is where you have a company that is already on teams and slack, that product is embedded deeply across the org so at best if I try yours I will still need to keep slack going because the sales guys won’t switch (vice versa the sales guys use some cool communication tools but still need to run slack). It might be different in small startups that could drop and switch in a decision made when chatting at the bar after work or whatever. I guess in short I didn’t see the killer feature. But… I am not an “early adopter” persona. I might get it once you are wildly successful. What would be interesting and compelling would be say a YC startup that switched to it write a case study. The motivating problems you mentioned are good ones to solve and I am keen to see them solved. I think the solution is a mix of software and management culture change and business skills training (efficient meetings etc.) and probably for 2023, some AI!
- talksik 4y ago
  Great points, thanks for these! Would you see AI summaries and say, AI search for a conversation last month, as a killer feature? Live transcription? See the moonshot ideas we have in the "business" plan: https://flowy.live/pricing https://flowy.live/pricing
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    For me it would be simply an AI bot, you can ask something like "Who mentioned about the logging bug in production 2 months ago?" and quickly get the answers you need. Fairly prosaic but would be useful.
fishtoaster 4y ago
It took me a while to figure out what, exactly, this is. The front page mostly talks about benefits rather than features and the demo page (/demo) does not contain a demo - just a few minutes of more pitching. You need to continue on to the /how-it-works page to see what the product actually does: https://www.flowy.live/how-it-works https://www.flowy.live/how-it-works To save people a click, it's a pretty polished-looking tool that that allows always-on voice chat amongst a small team. It's a bit better than it sounds: you can opt in to specific channels, there's a nice system for playing back audio you missed or previously heard, and there's a priority system for channels. It'd be absolutely ruinous for productivity to use every day, but I could see using it during a hackathon or during incident response as a way to increase communication bandwidth temporarily.
- zamnos 4y ago
  > nice system for playing back audio you missed For something that's in a similar space as this (seriously, async meetings are pretty great), http://loom.com http://loom.com is pretty great. (don't work there, not even a paying customer, but even then it's transformed the way I work.)
  - fishtoaster 4y ago
    Interesting - I'm a medium user of Loom, but I've not used it for anything like async meetings. I just use it for sharing quick product demos or walkthroughs of a section of UI. You're using it to replace meetings in some way?
    - zamnos 4y ago
      Loom's lowered friction to making a screen share video is great. It supplants an email or a slack message or a voice memo when what really needs to be communicated is me clicking something on my screen. But while I'm holding this loom-shaped hammer, the weekly status meeting is now this async thing where everyone makes a video to report their status and then we can all watch each other's report asynchronously instead of everybody having to be in the same virtual room at the same time. That's all, nothing earth-shattering, I don't think.
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teeray 4y ago
I think this is something I would schedule to use, which is probably the opposite of the intent here. The worst thing is when a team member reaches out ad-hoc and says “oh hey, do you all have a few minutes to look at X?” The answer is likely “no” for most parts of the day. I have a calendar—book time on it and I will probably accept it. If it’s not on there, it doesn’t exist and I am working on other stuff.
- idlephysicist 4y ago
  As someone who struggles with context switching _and_ who likes to help people out and unstick them, I really feel that you're saying. I need to become more like you in that respect. I think scheduling a time to talk and using this tool for the convo, is not inherently bad. That said though, at that point just use a Slack Huddle or Teams.
  - talksik 4y ago
    We have found that if flowy is used for you and your core team, and only your core team, then it's a place where you remove the death by thousand cuts, trying to get to someone (pinging to go to a huddle, scheduling for a sync meeting) you already know is your core teammate. Thoughts?
- talksik 4y ago
  That's a great point! We have found this for more formal teams at big companies where things move slow. The standard is "email me back by end of week, schedule something this week or next." Hyperactive teams need their main people (3-8 core people, and everyone has a different set of core people) to be a push of a button away. And this changes from week to week depending on the project and priorities. Mind if I ask, are you on a team which tends towards longer sprint cycles and more waterfall, slower product development? Maybe your company values quality and stability instead of speed?
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TobyTheDog123 4y ago
$22/user/mo? And the mobile app isn't even included in that? Nope, I don't believe this is priced anywhere near reality. It's an interesting concept, but in no way shape or form is a voice-only chat app worth that cost, regardless of philosophy or aesthetics or feature-set. At that price point hiring developers to hack together something with Mux would be less expensive. I truly do not understand how it's justified.
- neom 4y ago
  By comparison, our mission critical payroll processing software is $40/mo plus $6/mo per person.
- talksik 4y ago
  Great point! We are thinking of switching to usage based for startups at the start. A metering system so that you only pay based on what your team uses for that month in terms of our infrastructure costs, which should be minimal I hope. Thoughts?
ricardobeat 4y ago
Seems like a nice concept, but the website is way too confusing. The app itself is titled 'talksik' (toxic?) instead of Flowy. The animation in the home page, along with the low contrast, is too quick - can barely see what it's about. The demo page has a talking head video instead of the app demo. The home page should really show a few static screenshots of the app, highlight the core functionality and use cases. And explain it's an audio app. Currently it's mostly marketing fluff, which is not exactly the best way to reach the target audience of developers.
- talksik 4y ago
  Thank you so much for this feedback! We have discovered the same, there is no clear view of the features other than the videos. We will be adding in a clearer display of features just like this Apple airpods page: https://www.apple.com/airpods-3rd-generation/ https://www.apple.com/airpods-3rd-generation/ That is a great point about "marketing fluff". Really appreciate this!
ricktdotorg 4y ago
this kind of always-on cross-desk chat is of course rife/everywhere/ubiquitous on the trading/brokerage side of banks. i suppose it fits their fast-changing/hectic day rather than the more-focused (?) engineer trades? in my first unix tech support job at a big US bank, some bond trader would yell at us over the squawk box that they needed a new keyboard (because they'd just smashed it with the heavy handsets on their dealerbox/trading turret). no jira back then!
- shapefrog 4y ago
  The phone handsets were/are beautifully indestructible and are weighted perfectly for use as an improvised hammer.
Terretta 4y ago
There was an earlier iteration of "remotion" that was drop in break out always on video with optional audio vs. music per 'space' (main room, library, chatty room, pairing spaces, etc.). Lived in a custom widget with space bubbles top middle screen or side middle screen. It was very cool. There's been a pivot to live coding: https://remotion.com/ https://remotion.com/ I liked the hanging out thing.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  Didn't knew that one. Attended a mixed onsite/online hackathon yesterday on teams and it was really difficult to follow/interact. That tool would have been very handy. Thanks.
- aejae 4y ago
  Cofounder of Remotion here. Thanks for the mention! We actually still have the drop-in rooms. The pivot if you're curious is because very few teams adopted the rooms just for hanging out. Instead people ended up doing work in them, like pair coding. So we decided to keep the rooms, but focus all our feature development and marketing on the collaborative features.
jacknews 4y ago
'Conversations happening in 20+ different apps.' Surely that's now 'Conversations happening in 21+ different apps.'?
- prmoustache 4y ago
  Yeah that thing can only work as a new feature of an already existing app. What I miss more with modern conversation apps is a quake-terminal like UI. I personnally hate when my contacts use audios on instant messaging app as it makes things so much harder to search, prevent me from checking out messages while already on a call, etc.
idlephysicist 4y ago
This looks pretty cool. This is no small feat. I'm not actually sure if the product _and_ company are named flowy, or if the company is flowy and the product is named talksik (from the screen recording). Your post here doesn't clarify, but I will stick with flowy for this reply. Though I think that you'll have some difficulties in getting sales (who knows I might be totally incorrect). I say that for a couple of reasons: 1. I think with only 24 hours of history it is somewhat limited, let's say I work in Boston, what about the Friday afternoon message that my Seattle colleague sends me as I'm finishing up, I'll want to replay it on Monday morning but it won't be there. A save for later function would be helpful. 2. Let's imagine I am a potential investor, I ask you "what does flowy have to offer if Slack implements a voice message feature?" What is your answer? From your website I honestly don't know, sure it's not Slack, so there are no Slack channels with hundreds of people and that one person who hits @here, and at some companies Slack is like a social media network without the moderation or block button. But Slack offers a lot, a rich ecosystem of plugins / bots for one. 3. Slack (and Teams et al.) offer a written history (leaving aside the caveat of the edit button for the moment), if I forget the specifics of what my colleague and I agreed on last week I can go back to Slack and read the message thread, if we use flowy that history is gone without transcribing the message. One place that I can see this tool being somewhat useful is as a secondary mode of communication between a handful of engineers. Numerous times a week I consider uninstalling Slack from my work laptop, but that would leave my close colleagues high and dry. flowy _could_ be a useful tool in combatting that. Though given that a company is already paying for Slack / Teams etc. they would rightfully be hesitant to purchase a subscription to flowy. I am glad to see that you have screen-sharing included already because that is so integral to so many peoples workflows.
- talksik 4y ago
  Thank you! We really appreciate the cheers! These are great points. talksik was just the line/display name of the user. We should clarify. 1. That's a great point. We have been juggling this recently. The pros of keeping it ephemeral is that people don't try to be so formal, and allow free-flowing conversation. And also most things resolve in a day, and if something is urgent, they will reach out again. However, the weekend case is interesting. There is an additional anxiety if things stay for longer, however, we are considering allowing you to play back missed/unplayed clips older than 24 hours just like Snapchat. 2. This is what I would say: It's a new medium that closely mimics natural human conversation as opposed to the death by thousand cuts of any text based messaging platform. It's 2023, humans shouldn't type. We know that most people only have a 3-8 coworkers that are important and spend 80% of their time. They will use Slack for occasional social media-like usecase, but it's too noisy and flowy wins by doing less and being a place for focused execution. In addition, Slack is all about being a knowledge base (as their acroynm), and they would have to cut everything and change their mission to get to the essense of human conversation that flowy is obsessed about. Regardless, we beleive the market is huge and there is a cult of people who are dying for a "less is more" approach. Slack and Zoom and Loom are all due for this approach to team and human communication. 3. Great point again! We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap as this is a common objection. (audiobook vs. book argument) Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion. Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so" Me personally? I prefer sitting back and listening at 2x speed about complex topics so that I can look across the room and think instead of staring at my screen reading essays. Sorry for the long response! You're points have been really helpful. Your last point is spot on! Flowy is only for you and your core team. We need to articulate that more clearly as it seems to be assumed that it's a Slack alternative from the getgo (although for startups, it may very well be with a email + flowy combination).
m1117 4y ago
Ooo this is fun! Maybe applying some voice effects would be cool, like if I can make my colleagues sound like Tolkien characters.
- talksik 4y ago
  That would be cool! Thanks for the positive feedback, really appreciate it!
redhale 4y ago
> Today: Conversations happening in 20 different apps. > With Flowy: Conversations happening in 21 different apps. I honestly don't understand how this would be different than using slack (perhaps with text-to-speech). The marginal added benefit of async voice (as opposed to text) chat just doesn't seem that compelling (and in many ways seems significantly worse, like the inability to search). Certainly not enough to add another comms tool to the pile. But maybe I'm missing something.
- talksik 4y ago
  Great point! Common objection, as the audiobook vs book argument. We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap as this is a common objection. (audiobook vs. book argument) Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion. Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so" Me personally? I prefer sitting back and listening at 2x speed about complex topics so that I can look across the room and think instead of staring at my screen reading essays.
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petervitachi 4y ago
Guys struggling to think of some use cases for this app/prod, do y’all grace the friction points they’re selling??
looy45 4y ago
Cool product, I could see it being very useful for small teams.
- talksik 4y ago
  Thank you! Every team is a small team, even within a big company, but you are right, small teams in international countries who need to move fast is the lowest hanging fruit at this point in time.
hpmaharaja 4y ago
My thoughts in a few words: Flowy provides an outlet for intentful communication amongst team members that mimics office-like talking culture! After downloading the application, I am getting more accustomed to this unconventional tool in interacting with my peers. I could see how the nature of such a product could grow into something more powerful that can address multiple comms-based problems across multiple teams! Much of the vision is in the demo; however, I strongly suggest to download the application and utilize it amongst a core group of people that you communicate with! I'm also experimenting with the viability of using this for teams working in my startup, and so far, initial sentiment is positive!
- talksik 4y ago
  Awesome to hear about your experience! More things coming for teams like yours.
shapefrog 4y ago
This reminds me quite a bit of the trading turret phone system used in trading rooms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_turret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_turret - Sorry I dont have much more to offer at this point.
k12sosse 4y ago
I always thought walkie-talkie for teams [1] was walkie-talkie for teams. 1: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-teams-walkie-talkie-25bdc3d5-bbb2-41b7-89bf-650fae0c8e0c https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-...
- talksik 4y ago
  This is hilarious. Yep they do have that feature, but that's less of an opinionated one like flowy. Flowy takes concepts from ephemeral human conversation and reducing cognitive load from apps like Snapchat and Instastories.
hammyhavoc 4y ago
Arathorn, when you inevitably read this, I want to be able to do similar via Matrix protocol in Element. Your friend, Hammy
- Arathorn 4y ago
  you already can - walkie talkie mode in call.element.io
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    Mindblowingly cool. Jesus.

43 points by talksik 4y ago

throwaway81523 4y ago

Before: There are 14 standards...

talksik 4y ago
Fair point :) We think the philosophy that flowy is built on is the only reason it will beat other standards that we have just lived with: We live in a distracted world. We used to shuffle paper, now we shuffle 20+ apps merely trying to say a few words to each other. On the product side, we focus on how we can make this more like a natural human conversation. This results in reduced cognitive load and easier conversational flow.

deleted 4y ago

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andrewfromx 4y ago

this is great. Like working at dispatch with a CB radio. Old school cool work habits.

talksik 4y ago
thanks andrewfromx! Trying our hardest to keep it super simple and dumb, with a little twist.
- andrewfromx 4y ago
  Sure I posted to https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1270yes/flowylive_walkietalkie_for_developers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1270yes/flowyl... as well but I’m afraid the comments were mostly negative.
  - talksik 4y ago
    Ahh it's okay, appreciate it! This is all great feedback in either improving product or messaging.

dry_soup 4y ago

"Badass developers" is barely less trite than "rockstar ninja developers"

flockonus 4y ago
> Your core people a push of a button away. What a nightmare, it's impossible to not see this being a top down app made by some dated management style.
- danielvaughn 4y ago
  Eh, if it's my actual core team, like the devs I work with on a day-to-day, then it sounds cool. We haven't yet managed to replace that sense of free flowing adhocness that comes with being in an office together.
  - flockonus 4y ago
    We've been using Gather, it's not the same for sure but it's quite cool to emulate the sense of spatial togetherness & adds some fun elements.
  - talksik 4y ago
    Yep I think we fail to articulate this well in the site. Flowy is a place for you and your core team (typically 3-8 people that are absolutely critical). The 20% of folks that you spend 80% of your time with, to focus and execute with.
dang 4y ago
Ok, we've replaced their asses with "teams" in the title above.
- talksik 4y ago
  Appreciate it!
Waterluvian 4y ago

ArchOversight 4y ago

> you will remember what someone said and how they said it more clearly than written text. No, no I will absolutely not, and with no easy search when my ADHD finally reminds me that I forgot something and need to find the communication and a written record that I can then use to work off, this would not work for the team I am on.

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zamnos 4y ago
If that's what ails you, and attempts to develop rigorous logging habits have failed (seriously, I have to obsessively calendar the shit out of everything or else it doesn't exist and it won't get done. and I don't always manage to do that) you might try http://rewind.app http://rewind.app if you're on apple silicon.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Is this the right link? Appears to be a concert recording or group even recording app.
  - zamnos 4y ago
    good catch! too late to edit. The one I'm thinking of is at https://rewind.ai https://rewind.ai
talksik 4y ago
We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap. Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion. Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so"

habitue 4y ago

Does this have transcription? Adding whisper onto it to transcribe what was said would probably help with the "what did we agree on again?" problems

talksik 4y ago
Great point! Right on the dot! We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap as this is a common objection. (audiobook vs. book argument) Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion. Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so" Me personally? When it comes to going back in a conversation, I prefer sitting back and listening at 2x speed about complex topics so that I can look across the room and think instead of staring at my screen reading essays.

ReactiveJelly 4y ago

> with a way to play back the last 24 hours Oh, like a cockpit voice recorder. That sounds way more useful than just a walkie-talkie. (Most of my team is in-person already) Being able to permalink into a real-life conversation would be neat. A walkie-talkie alone wouldn't help me much because I'm in-person most of the time, and I'm picky about writing down anything that's said aloud. tbh I still probably wouldn't want to use it. I hate the sound of my own voice, even more than the average person.

talksik 4y ago
Yep it's been hard to find messaging to describe it. We start with walkie-talkie so it's understandable from the getgo. We used to do "Real-time voice commz for teams" but it didn't click for people. Thanks for the feedback! We are thinking through composing audio clips instead of just broadcasting immediately. From there, can imagine a world where we undo send. All to reduce anxiety and enable more free-flowing conversation. However, it may have the opposite effect, which is why we want to keep it simple for now. Appreciate this regardless! Especially the analogy!

prmoustache 4y ago

So basically it is whatsapp/telegram/signal

moltar 4y ago

Just a big nope from me. There’s no way I’m going to let anyone interrupt my focus. I usually resurface every few hours to check in with the team. But otherwise I keep all devices away, all chat apps closed.

talksik 4y ago
Yep I think we fail to articulate this well in the site. Flowy is a place for you and your core team (typically 3-8 people that are absolutely critical). The 20% of folks that you spend 80% of your time with, to focus and execute with. You choose who you hear. No notifications for anything else. No global presence as that would bring back the "always-on" feeling of slack.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Hey, well done on getting this shipped! It would be cool if I could walkie-talkie this response over to you! I watched two of the videos. The first video was about the problems that you typically have in a team and I think he hit the nail on the head there. It is frustrating with all the github emails and jira emails and slack notifications from 100 channels. I was really hoping you had solved this or at least partially. When I watched the second Jira I saw the product. I would describe it as potentially better than Slack but hard to be sure without using it. But I didn’t see how it solves the problems? Don’t I still have many channels, conversations etc. to track. And all the emails are still there! Async voice chat may be great but I feel it is a leap of faith for me. You see the problem is where you have a company that is already on teams and slack, that product is embedded deeply across the org so at best if I try yours I will still need to keep slack going because the sales guys won’t switch (vice versa the sales guys use some cool communication tools but still need to run slack). It might be different in small startups that could drop and switch in a decision made when chatting at the bar after work or whatever. I guess in short I didn’t see the killer feature. But… I am not an “early adopter” persona. I might get it once you are wildly successful. What would be interesting and compelling would be say a YC startup that switched to it write a case study. The motivating problems you mentioned are good ones to solve and I am keen to see them solved. I think the solution is a mix of software and management culture change and business skills training (efficient meetings etc.) and probably for 2023, some AI!

talksik 4y ago
Great points, thanks for these! Would you see AI summaries and say, AI search for a conversation last month, as a killer feature? Live transcription? See the moonshot ideas we have in the "business" plan: https://flowy.live/pricing https://flowy.live/pricing
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  For me it would be simply an AI bot, you can ask something like "Who mentioned about the logging bug in production 2 months ago?" and quickly get the answers you need. Fairly prosaic but would be useful.

fishtoaster 4y ago

It took me a while to figure out what, exactly, this is. The front page mostly talks about benefits rather than features and the demo page (/demo) does not contain a demo - just a few minutes of more pitching. You need to continue on to the /how-it-works page to see what the product actually does: https://www.flowy.live/how-it-works https://www.flowy.live/how-it-works To save people a click, it's a pretty polished-looking tool that that allows always-on voice chat amongst a small team. It's a bit better than it sounds: you can opt in to specific channels, there's a nice system for playing back audio you missed or previously heard, and there's a priority system for channels. It'd be absolutely ruinous for productivity to use every day, but I could see using it during a hackathon or during incident response as a way to increase communication bandwidth temporarily.

zamnos 4y ago
> nice system for playing back audio you missed For something that's in a similar space as this (seriously, async meetings are pretty great), http://loom.com http://loom.com is pretty great. (don't work there, not even a paying customer, but even then it's transformed the way I work.)
- fishtoaster 4y ago
  Interesting - I'm a medium user of Loom, but I've not used it for anything like async meetings. I just use it for sharing quick product demos or walkthroughs of a section of UI. You're using it to replace meetings in some way?
  - zamnos 4y ago
    Loom's lowered friction to making a screen share video is great. It supplants an email or a slack message or a voice memo when what really needs to be communicated is me clicking something on my screen. But while I'm holding this loom-shaped hammer, the weekly status meeting is now this async thing where everyone makes a video to report their status and then we can all watch each other's report asynchronously instead of everybody having to be in the same virtual room at the same time. That's all, nothing earth-shattering, I don't think.

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teeray 4y ago

I think this is something I would schedule to use, which is probably the opposite of the intent here. The worst thing is when a team member reaches out ad-hoc and says “oh hey, do you all have a few minutes to look at X?” The answer is likely “no” for most parts of the day. I have a calendar—book time on it and I will probably accept it. If it’s not on there, it doesn’t exist and I am working on other stuff.

idlephysicist 4y ago
As someone who struggles with context switching _and_ who likes to help people out and unstick them, I really feel that you're saying. I need to become more like you in that respect. I think scheduling a time to talk and using this tool for the convo, is not inherently bad. That said though, at that point just use a Slack Huddle or Teams.
- talksik 4y ago
  We have found that if flowy is used for you and your core team, and only your core team, then it's a place where you remove the death by thousand cuts, trying to get to someone (pinging to go to a huddle, scheduling for a sync meeting) you already know is your core teammate. Thoughts?
talksik 4y ago
That's a great point! We have found this for more formal teams at big companies where things move slow. The standard is "email me back by end of week, schedule something this week or next." Hyperactive teams need their main people (3-8 core people, and everyone has a different set of core people) to be a push of a button away. And this changes from week to week depending on the project and priorities. Mind if I ask, are you on a team which tends towards longer sprint cycles and more waterfall, slower product development? Maybe your company values quality and stability instead of speed?

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TobyTheDog123 4y ago

$22/user/mo? And the mobile app isn't even included in that? Nope, I don't believe this is priced anywhere near reality. It's an interesting concept, but in no way shape or form is a voice-only chat app worth that cost, regardless of philosophy or aesthetics or feature-set. At that price point hiring developers to hack together something with Mux would be less expensive. I truly do not understand how it's justified.

neom 4y ago
By comparison, our mission critical payroll processing software is $40/mo plus $6/mo per person.
talksik 4y ago
Great point! We are thinking of switching to usage based for startups at the start. A metering system so that you only pay based on what your team uses for that month in terms of our infrastructure costs, which should be minimal I hope. Thoughts?

ricardobeat 4y ago

Seems like a nice concept, but the website is way too confusing. The app itself is titled 'talksik' (toxic?) instead of Flowy. The animation in the home page, along with the low contrast, is too quick - can barely see what it's about. The demo page has a talking head video instead of the app demo. The home page should really show a few static screenshots of the app, highlight the core functionality and use cases. And explain it's an audio app. Currently it's mostly marketing fluff, which is not exactly the best way to reach the target audience of developers.

talksik 4y ago
Thank you so much for this feedback! We have discovered the same, there is no clear view of the features other than the videos. We will be adding in a clearer display of features just like this Apple airpods page: https://www.apple.com/airpods-3rd-generation/ https://www.apple.com/airpods-3rd-generation/ That is a great point about "marketing fluff". Really appreciate this!

ricktdotorg 4y ago

this kind of always-on cross-desk chat is of course rife/everywhere/ubiquitous on the trading/brokerage side of banks. i suppose it fits their fast-changing/hectic day rather than the more-focused (?) engineer trades? in my first unix tech support job at a big US bank, some bond trader would yell at us over the squawk box that they needed a new keyboard (because they'd just smashed it with the heavy handsets on their dealerbox/trading turret). no jira back then!

shapefrog 4y ago
The phone handsets were/are beautifully indestructible and are weighted perfectly for use as an improvised hammer.

Terretta 4y ago

There was an earlier iteration of "remotion" that was drop in break out always on video with optional audio vs. music per 'space' (main room, library, chatty room, pairing spaces, etc.). Lived in a custom widget with space bubbles top middle screen or side middle screen. It was very cool. There's been a pivot to live coding: https://remotion.com/ https://remotion.com/ I liked the hanging out thing.

prmoustache 4y ago
Didn't knew that one. Attended a mixed onsite/online hackathon yesterday on teams and it was really difficult to follow/interact. That tool would have been very handy. Thanks.
aejae 4y ago
Cofounder of Remotion here. Thanks for the mention! We actually still have the drop-in rooms. The pivot if you're curious is because very few teams adopted the rooms just for hanging out. Instead people ended up doing work in them, like pair coding. So we decided to keep the rooms, but focus all our feature development and marketing on the collaborative features.

jacknews 4y ago

'Conversations happening in 20+ different apps.' Surely that's now 'Conversations happening in 21+ different apps.'?

prmoustache 4y ago
Yeah that thing can only work as a new feature of an already existing app. What I miss more with modern conversation apps is a quake-terminal like UI. I personnally hate when my contacts use audios on instant messaging app as it makes things so much harder to search, prevent me from checking out messages while already on a call, etc.

idlephysicist 4y ago

This looks pretty cool. This is no small feat. I'm not actually sure if the product _and_ company are named flowy, or if the company is flowy and the product is named talksik (from the screen recording). Your post here doesn't clarify, but I will stick with flowy for this reply. Though I think that you'll have some difficulties in getting sales (who knows I might be totally incorrect). I say that for a couple of reasons: 1. I think with only 24 hours of history it is somewhat limited, let's say I work in Boston, what about the Friday afternoon message that my Seattle colleague sends me as I'm finishing up, I'll want to replay it on Monday morning but it won't be there. A save for later function would be helpful. 2. Let's imagine I am a potential investor, I ask you "what does flowy have to offer if Slack implements a voice message feature?" What is your answer? From your website I honestly don't know, sure it's not Slack, so there are no Slack channels with hundreds of people and that one person who hits @here, and at some companies Slack is like a social media network without the moderation or block button. But Slack offers a lot, a rich ecosystem of plugins / bots for one. 3. Slack (and Teams et al.) offer a written history (leaving aside the caveat of the edit button for the moment), if I forget the specifics of what my colleague and I agreed on last week I can go back to Slack and read the message thread, if we use flowy that history is gone without transcribing the message. One place that I can see this tool being somewhat useful is as a secondary mode of communication between a handful of engineers. Numerous times a week I consider uninstalling Slack from my work laptop, but that would leave my close colleagues high and dry. flowy _could_ be a useful tool in combatting that. Though given that a company is already paying for Slack / Teams etc. they would rightfully be hesitant to purchase a subscription to flowy. I am glad to see that you have screen-sharing included already because that is so integral to so many peoples workflows.

talksik 4y ago
Thank you! We really appreciate the cheers! These are great points. talksik was just the line/display name of the user. We should clarify. 1. That's a great point. We have been juggling this recently. The pros of keeping it ephemeral is that people don't try to be so formal, and allow free-flowing conversation. And also most things resolve in a day, and if something is urgent, they will reach out again. However, the weekend case is interesting. There is an additional anxiety if things stay for longer, however, we are considering allowing you to play back missed/unplayed clips older than 24 hours just like Snapchat. 2. This is what I would say: It's a new medium that closely mimics natural human conversation as opposed to the death by thousand cuts of any text based messaging platform. It's 2023, humans shouldn't type. We know that most people only have a 3-8 coworkers that are important and spend 80% of their time. They will use Slack for occasional social media-like usecase, but it's too noisy and flowy wins by doing less and being a place for focused execution. In addition, Slack is all about being a knowledge base (as their acroynm), and they would have to cut everything and change their mission to get to the essense of human conversation that flowy is obsessed about. Regardless, we beleive the market is huge and there is a cult of people who are dying for a "less is more" approach. Slack and Zoom and Loom are all due for this approach to team and human communication. 3. Great point again! We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap as this is a common objection. (audiobook vs. book argument) Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion. Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so" Me personally? I prefer sitting back and listening at 2x speed about complex topics so that I can look across the room and think instead of staring at my screen reading essays. Sorry for the long response! You're points have been really helpful. Your last point is spot on! Flowy is only for you and your core team. We need to articulate that more clearly as it seems to be assumed that it's a Slack alternative from the getgo (although for startups, it may very well be with a email + flowy combination).

m1117 4y ago

Ooo this is fun! Maybe applying some voice effects would be cool, like if I can make my colleagues sound like Tolkien characters.

talksik 4y ago
That would be cool! Thanks for the positive feedback, really appreciate it!

redhale 4y ago

> Today: Conversations happening in 20 different apps. > With Flowy: Conversations happening in 21 different apps. I honestly don't understand how this would be different than using slack (perhaps with text-to-speech). The marginal added benefit of async voice (as opposed to text) chat just doesn't seem that compelling (and in many ways seems significantly worse, like the inability to search). Certainly not enough to add another comms tool to the pile. But maybe I'm missing something.

talksik 4y ago
Great point! Common objection, as the audiobook vs book argument. We have live transcription and power search on the roadmap as this is a common objection. (audiobook vs. book argument) Speech to text is pretty good these days, and it's 2023, we shouldn't be typing to talk in our opinion. Search: "Play (or let me read) what Johnny told me about databases last month or so" Me personally? I prefer sitting back and listening at 2x speed about complex topics so that I can look across the room and think instead of staring at my screen reading essays.

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petervitachi 4y ago

Guys struggling to think of some use cases for this app/prod, do y’all grace the friction points they’re selling??

looy45 4y ago

Cool product, I could see it being very useful for small teams.

talksik 4y ago
Thank you! Every team is a small team, even within a big company, but you are right, small teams in international countries who need to move fast is the lowest hanging fruit at this point in time.

hpmaharaja 4y ago

My thoughts in a few words: Flowy provides an outlet for intentful communication amongst team members that mimics office-like talking culture! After downloading the application, I am getting more accustomed to this unconventional tool in interacting with my peers. I could see how the nature of such a product could grow into something more powerful that can address multiple comms-based problems across multiple teams! Much of the vision is in the demo; however, I strongly suggest to download the application and utilize it amongst a core group of people that you communicate with! I'm also experimenting with the viability of using this for teams working in my startup, and so far, initial sentiment is positive!

talksik 4y ago
Awesome to hear about your experience! More things coming for teams like yours.

shapefrog 4y ago

This reminds me quite a bit of the trading turret phone system used in trading rooms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_turret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_turret - Sorry I dont have much more to offer at this point.

k12sosse 4y ago

I always thought walkie-talkie for teams [1] was walkie-talkie for teams. 1: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-teams-walkie-talkie-25bdc3d5-bbb2-41b7-89bf-650fae0c8e0c https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-...

talksik 4y ago
This is hilarious. Yep they do have that feature, but that's less of an opinionated one like flowy. Flowy takes concepts from ephemeral human conversation and reducing cognitive load from apps like Snapchat and Instastories.

hammyhavoc 4y ago

Arathorn, when you inevitably read this, I want to be able to do similar via Matrix protocol in Element. Your friend, Hammy

Arathorn 4y ago
you already can - walkie talkie mode in call.element.io
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Mindblowingly cool. Jesus.