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    Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

    243 points aml183 | 12 comments | 15 Nov 24 19:17 UTC | HN request time: 2.432s | source | bottom

    We are a remote company. Everything is going well. No plans to be in person, but I’d say we can do a better job at communicating. Any tips or articles to read?
    1. screye ◴[15 Nov 24 20:18 UTC] No.42150474[source]▶
    If you're in similar time zones, try https://www.gather.town/ ?

    I've used it for remote conferences, and I like its 2D UI. Real sense of space there.

    replies(6): >>42150577 #>>42150588 #>>42150761 #>>42150915 #>>42150948 #>>42188468 #
    2. betamike ◴[15 Nov 24 20:27 UTC] No.42150577[source]▶
    This is what my last, 6 person, startup used, and it was really helpful. It lowered the barrier to having a quick discussion, since you could see if someone was at their "desk" or busy in a meeting.

    Also you can see if other teammates are having a discussion or co-working in a common area, which made for some ad-hoc co-working sessions.

    3. Atotalnoob ◴[15 Nov 24 20:27 UTC] No.42150588[source]▶
    This would be insanely disruptive to me and I think most of my team.

    There are much better ways to handle this like using gitlabs handbook.

    To me this is the equivalent of having to be on camera all day. Am I idle if my avatar hasn’t moved or interacted with something in game?

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    4. mh- ◴[15 Nov 24 20:36 UTC] No.42150697[source]▶
    > Oh god, please kill it with fire.

    > This is horrible.

    > This would be insanely disruptive to me and I think most of my team.

    > There are much better ways to handle this.

    Hi! You could probably turn this from a low-effort rant into a productive comment by removing the first 2 lines of your comment and expanding the last one into something informative.

    5. extr ◴[15 Nov 24 20:41 UTC] No.42150761[source]▶
    Gather is great. I think it lowers the barrier to chats just enough to make it more organic. In particular I find it's really great if you're having a 2-3 person conversation and realize someone else would be really valuable to add. You can just glance at their desk and see if they're available, "wave" to them, etc.
    6. morkalork ◴[15 Nov 24 20:55 UTC] No.42150915[source]▶
    I'm surprised at all the positive mentions of gather town. It just looked like a childish gimmick to me? I was tempted to log in and make some jokes about the pool being closed but I didn't want to out myself like that at work.
    7. cole_ ◴[15 Nov 24 20:57 UTC] No.42150948[source]▶
    When we tried it, gather.town set an awkward expectation that team members had to stand at their virtual desk, otherwise they weren't _actually_ online / working.
    replies(1): >>42153333 #
    8. screye ◴[16 Nov 24 01:24 UTC] No.42153333[source]▶
    That tracks. To me, gather.town is an attempt to replicate office dynamics in a remote setting. In an office, being AWOL is looked down upon. I can see how gather.town builds the same expectation.

    In my experience, this expectation gets set either way. Whether that be a green light on slack or having your video on for all calls.

    replies(1): >>42186306 #
    9. mh- ◴[16 Nov 24 17:47 UTC] No.42157723[source]▶
    Hi again. I agree, this isn't for everyone.

    But I have worked at very small startups where you're all in one room (talking 10-20 people) and it was a kind of "lightning in a bottle" environment that I've been trying to figure out how to recreate for years, especially now that I work remote.

    I think in a small, high-trust group like this it could be fun. Agree that once you get to a certain size this is almost guaranteed to be misused.

    (I'm not affiliated with the product or anything in this space, just someone who wishes there were better ways to approximate that vibe remotely when desired.)

    10. vundercind ◴[19 Nov 24 17:56 UTC] No.42186306{3}[source]▶
    I used a 3d-world collaborative environment in a remote company once, and the only effect I noticed was that it brought the awkward parts of the physical world into the digital world. Where do I position myself? Where do I "sit"? Should I "sit"? Is this the right room? What's the "physical" location I'm supposed to be in?

    It was like those flash/java-applet 3D navigation interfaces for websites that were semi-popular for a few years, way back: cute, but just made everything slower and harder.

    11. zeendo ◴[19 Nov 24 21:49 UTC] No.42188468[source]▶
    We've had great success with Gather. Organic conversations happen a _lot_ more often than when we only used Slack. We still keep Slack for async communication.

    We have a decent spread of people across the introvert-extrovert band and we don't set concrete expectations on camera on or spending time in common areas - but both are encouraged.

    I'm surprised how well it works. We've been using it for almost 2 years now, I think.

    Our company is about 15 people.

    12. zeendo ◴[19 Nov 24 21:54 UTC] No.42188505[source]▶
    Not everything is out to get you. Gather doesn't have any automatic idle detection.

    I doubt Gather would work well for a large company where there is less trust between individuals - maybe that's the scenario you're imaginging it in?

    It works well in our small company where trust is implied by being here and we have few concrete expectations. In practice it's no different than being signed in to Slack.

    You have the option to mark yourself as away or to passively lock your desk area so people have to knock to come in but this status isn't apparent unless someone comes by.