Launch HN: Flow Club (YC S21) – Virtual co-working space for focused work

jasonkester 2021-08-18 16:39:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

For me, the big advantage of working from home is that I can do my thing without fear of distraction. I check my mail and Slack in the morning, then close them both and know that nothing can sidetrack me the rest of the day.

This seems like the opposite of that. It seems to want to point a camera at me all day long and interrupt for 10 minutes of standup meetings (with strangers) every hour. I can't get my head around why that'd be something you'd want.

I guess maybe if you weren't the self-motivated type (and kinda got thrown into remote work against your will, and are thus struggling), maybe this would help. But if you thrive in a remote environment and have a bunch of things to do, I can't imagine it would do anything but slow you down.

hn_throwaway_99 2021-08-18 18:15:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I check my mail and Slack in the morning, then close them both and know that nothing can sidetrack me the rest of the day.

It's great if you can have that luxury, but it's not always possible. A lot of us have some level of constant "on call" duty where we can't just be unreachable the whole day.

The problem for me is that it is definitely possible for me to be unreachable for 1-2 hour chunks, but often times when I "get out of flow" it's difficult for me to get back it. I could see something like Flow Club benefitting me.

nathias 2021-08-19 07:47:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

reachable does not mean being on camera all the time

hn_throwaway_99 2021-08-19 14:29:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This comment makes no sense. Something like Flow Club, when I'm on camera, is specifically for when I don't want to be interrupted by my colleagues.

rickyyean 2021-08-18 16:52:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I like how disciplined you are with only checking messages in the morning. It's just three of us here at Flow Club so I can't really do that yet. One day...

I think motivation is messier than just self-motivated vs not self-motivated. Could depend on the task you're tackling, time of day, other things in life that happened that day. Work is so personal and so varied. I'd say Flow Club members are very self-motivated, some are wildly successful by conventional standards, and yet there are still moments where Flow Club is a reliable environment to fall back on or to pick themselves up just a little.

tedmiston 2021-08-19 00:43:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I check my mail and Slack in the morning, then close them both and know that nothing can sidetrack me the rest of the day.

I get a few dozen pings in Slack per day, many of which need quick responses. It would be awesome to be able to only look at Slack once or twice per day but I'd keep too many engineers blocked / waiting if I did that.

j1elo 2021-08-19 00:49:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

How do you help your coworkers when they need a hand? It's a rethorical question, of course.

I don't see much advantage of having work colleages if it turns out they are just available for half an hour every morning and then they will dissappear for the rest of the day. Say someone needs me to guide them find some file or some method that I wrote and I'm the best one to answer that question, should they just wait for 4, 6 hours, or even until the next day, just to have me getting to know that my help would be welcome?

I see most value in working with other people precisely in the ability to work _with_ other people. Maybe not interrupting people constantly for silly questions, but definitely either not having to almost feel like if we had to ask for an appointment with the doctor.

gexla 2021-08-19 03:28:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> It seems to want to point a camera at me all day long and interrupt for 10 minutes of standup meetings (with strangers) every hour. I can't get my head around why that'd be something you'd want.

I suspect that you wouldn't want it, and yet, there are loads of people willing to sign up for a service like this. I have seen similar services which seem to get users and charge a hefty monthly.

Personally, I have been doing this so long that text feels normal for me. I think the key for me has been to work with people who are able to shoot across a lot of information without the need to say much. For most of the people I work with, I can sort of read their mind. For a small number of others, text becomes a chore. The occasional chores are a reminder that not everyone feels at home working from home. Maybe this sort of service could be useful for them.

jon-wood 2021-08-19 10:47:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I’ll second people needing to be able to write succinctly for things like Slack to work. There’s a strong divide in my job between engineers, who will dive straight in with a bunch of detail on what they need help with, and non-engineers who will just say “Hi, how are you?” and then wait to be promoted as to what it is they need.

alixanderwang 2021-08-18 16:07:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Congrats on the launch! I have perhaps an unconventional feature request for this: broadcast which apps/domains my window was focused on.

To me, I feel so little additional accountability just because there's a backgrounded meeting. I scroll Twitter in large meetings already.

But if there's other people who would see a report that I was on Twitter/HN/Reddit for 10 mins of the flow session, I would not let myself do that.

> It’s harder to slack off / goof around when there is structure, community norms, and a clear leader.

People had this in an office, but I bet your monitor screen being visible to everyone around you in the office is more of a forcing function to not goof off than all of those other things combined.

The data broadcasted that I have in mind is something like what RescueTime might collect (https://twitter.com/jarredsumner/status/1426962249332125701/...). Obviously difficult to navigate privacy issues around a feature like that, but I don't think impossible (e.g. I'd trust a collector agent if it were open source).

Anyway, that's just me personally. Good luck!

thaumaturgy 2021-08-18 23:40:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

FWIW this is relatively straightforward to do in Linux, at least as a quick hack. I used this for the bones of a fully automated time tracker, because I suck at counting hours.

Anyway, here are a couple of magic incantations:

    xprop -id $(xprop -root -f _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW 0x " \$0\\n" _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | awk "{print \$2}") WM_NAME
    xprop -id $(xprop -root -f _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW 0x " \$0\\n" _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | awk "{print \$2}") WM_CLASS

These divulge the application name and window name of your frontmost window each time they're called.

There's also the xprintidle command (may need to be installed). With these three pieces together, you can create a little background daemon that monitors what you're up to at any given moment.

dtran 2021-08-19 00:05:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

A little jealous that you don't have to touch AppleScript to achieve this effect. Didn't know about xprop in Linux, so thanks for teaching me something today!

robby1066 2021-08-18 21:45:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You might want to check out RescueTime's slack integration. It can sort of do what you're asking for. You can configure it to update your Slack status with whatever category of app you're spending time in.

Unless they've changed something in the last year since I used it.

https://www.rescuetime.com/integrations/slack

rickyyean 2021-08-18 16:16:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You'd be happy to learn that it's not so unconventional a request among Flow Club members. Everyone comes to Flow Club primarily to get work done, so people want the software to find ways to keep them even more accountable. We want to offer more "intense" experiences like that for sure.

cnaut 2021-08-18 16:19:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I love this idea! I have used Flow Club a lot and this would keep me even more accountable.

option_greek 2021-08-18 18:09:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm curious, if you are distracted and end up browsing what not, won't your tasks suffer? And won't that be noticeable in jira/other metrics?

puszczyk 2021-08-18 20:12:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Not the OP, but I think lot of us get distracted often. The tasks are rarely 8 hours exact, and I bet its not easy to notice that a task took say a 10% hit.

Also this post from Joel Spolsky [0]

> When I had a summer internship at Microsoft, a fellow intern told me he was actually only going into work from 12 to 5 every day. Five hours, minus lunch, and his team loved him because he still managed to get a lot more done than average. I’ve found the same thing to be true.

For me personally, the biggest issue from distractions are not these extra hours that may accumulate over time, but rather a loss of momentum.

When I feel productive I can churn tasks quickly one after the other, even the ones I "dread" -- documentations, docs, posts. OTOH when I start getting distracted its hard to be back to productive even on something I usually enjoy (coding, investigating some tricky problem).

[0]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/

eterpstra 2021-08-18 20:20:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Big +1 for this. Or maybe some sort of integration with RescueTime (not sure how, but why not)

dtran 2021-08-18 15:34:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

David from Flow Club here— I'll be hosting a few Hacker News-only sessions today and tomorrow. I remember attending a HN meetup in Palo Alto back when I was an undergrad back in 2009 and it was super cool to hear what people were working on—not just the high-level pitch, but literally what they were debugging that day. That's been my favorite part of Flow Club as well.

I've been a big fan of pomodoro and time-blocking, but for a long time was convinced that it didn't work well for coding until I experimented a bit. Wrote up some of my thoughts here: https://www.flow.club/blog/makers-schedule-2021 Would love to hear if any of y'all try to time block for writing code and will be around to answer any questions!

dgnemo 2021-08-19 02:10:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Congrats on the launch! really like the concept. I actually worked on a company where the entire team was working on the rhythm (focus/pause/focus...) of a shared pomodoro timer (a physical one!). It was super productive. Now that we all work remotely your concept is very intriguing. I wonder if you could remove some requirements (camera, introductions, slot booking) and still have accountability benefits from having other people sharing your focus time.

Nevertheless, cool idea! wish you the best!

codingdave 2021-08-18 15:40:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Either you can’t get any work done from the constant Slack pings, excessive emails and agenda-less Zoom meetings, or...

So the premise upon which your business is based is that many organizations have a bad remote work culture. To be fair, many (most) do. But I'm curious what you envision as more organizations learn how to properly work in a remote environment? Because this feels like it is adding meetings around my work, not even with my co-workers, and with a time limit on when I need to stop flow. It all feels quite odd to be honest.

But the problem you are trying to solve is real. It seems like it would be effective to push this more towards a coaching service for organizations struggling to define their remote culture vs. ongoing flow meetings.

xcambar 2021-08-18 15:53:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thinking that the majority of organizations will ever have a decent remote culture is, in my opinion, nothing but wishful thinking.

Of course, a huge number of companies will append "work from home" to their job descriptions, but for non other reason than to avoid to lag behind others.

Yes, that's a bit harsh and the reality may be that in fact, most companies will think they have a remote culture for one reason or the other, but will lack the... well... culture, to support it.

If you think I'm being pessimistic, think about agile. Certainly you can name companies that do agile properly (good for you, please share names :), but most companies claim to be agile only because anything else is a blocker to hire these days.

rickyyean 2021-08-18 16:08:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Working in limited timed sprints could feel odd if you're not used to pomodoro, and it could be difficult for certain tasks. David shared his experiment in the other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28222665

We have worked with several employers to bring Flow Club to their employees to help create opportunities for deep work, but the problem is bigger than that. From Cal Newport's New Yorker article last year (https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-rise...): "The knowledge sector’s insistence that productivity is a personal issue seems to have created a so-called “tragedy of the commons” scenario, in which individuals making reasonable decisions for themselves insure a negative group outcome. An office worker’s life is dramatically easier, in the moment, if she can send messages that demand immediate responses from her colleagues, or disseminate requests and tasks to others in an ad-hoc manner. But the cumulative effect of such constant, unstructured communication is cognitively harmful: on the receiving end, the deluge of information and demands makes work unmanageable. There’s little that any one individual can do to fix the problem."

codingdave 2021-08-18 16:49:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've found that individuals absolutely can change organizational behavior. Setting teams norms is a simple first step that establishes what the expectations on response times truly are for various communication channels. It takes 15 minutes in a team meeting, and almost instantly improves team culture. All it takes is one leader to put that discussion on an agenda, and the entire team can relax and let message piles up while they get work done, because everyone has a shared understanding of how the team has chosen to operate.

This isn't just theory - My company was downright sad when the pandemic started when it came to remote culture. But a handful of us stepped up, made suggestions and recommendations, and things have improved greatly. At this point, we have established communication guidelines that are shared with the company, and mostly followed.

The tragedy comes when everybody believes that one person cannot make a difference, so nobody tries.

fooblat 2021-08-18 15:55:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

My gut reaction to this is hell no. I absolutely do not want a camera on me while I'm trying to concentrate and get work done. I also don't do well in open offices with my back to the room.

Maybe I'm just old but I need some privacy to be really focused, creative, and productive. Feeling like I'm being watched just kills my focus.

dtran 2021-08-18 16:00:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks for checking it out! I don't think that it's because "[you're] just old"— it's definitely a matter of personal preference, and we know this style of working isn't for everyone.

Re: open offices, that's a good point— I actually think open offices are distracting if people are walking around behind you or chatting in the background. But if everyone else is also hard at work (and therefore not really watching), I definitely feel a small lift from that ambiance/energy.

coding123 2021-08-18 18:16:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What I find so interesting about this is that it's NOT your co-workers. Which is actually really intriguing. I wouldn't be able to participate in this right now due to my living situation, but I love the idea.

One problem with trying to get co-workers to do this is that it's probably hard to find people that would want to. So instead open it up to a global pool of people and you're much more likely to easily find 9 that want to sit and work.

Long time ago I rented a co-working space for $99 / month and working amongst strangers is oddly powerfully motivating.

dtran 2021-08-18 18:36:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We definitely see parallels with co-working spaces. How did that co-working space work for you? Do you work out of any coffee shops or other places like that now (if that's possible given restrictions where you live)?

Pre-pandemic, I would often sit at a Starbucks before going into the office to knock out one specific task since I always knew as soon as I got to the office, I'd usually have to sync up with a coworker on something. Again, I know everyone has their own preferences, but something about the energy/ambiance of a coffee shop has always helped me get focused much more than a library or completely silent corner. One issue with co-working spaces is that sometimes it's not clearly delineated when people are trying to get focused work done vs. chat, and we felt the same pain with unstructured co-working Zooms that we did at the beginning of the pandemic.

orky56 2021-08-18 16:26:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I really love this idea. I see a lot of similarities to fitness with the idea of organizing regiments to sprints/pomodoro for generating flow. It seems like the current iteration is a conservative and accessible akin to a Planet Fitness approach, light on the pressure and celebratory of wins. I would be very interested in a Peloton approach that is focused on keeping the pace high and pushing me further. In my world, I need less discipline for vision work and more for tedious activities.

dtran 2021-08-18 16:43:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks orky56! I'm an avid runner and can't stop seeing similarities between fitness/training and work (and specifically startups). Wrote about some of them here: https://www.flow.club/blog/how-to-work-like-elite-athletes-t...

> In my world, I need less discipline for vision work and more for tedious activities.

That's definitely a big use case for Flow Club—getting to inbox zero or writing an email that you've been dreading.

Re: increasing the intensity, we do have some 90-minute and 120-minute sessions, which are super challenging for me even after hundreds of Flow Club sessions and years of using pomodoros. There's also some interesting ideas in this thread that my co-founder responded to re: ways to increase the intensity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28223257

qnsi 2021-08-18 15:36:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I actually like the idea. One small thing, I wish you added pricing on your homepage.

And one of the reasons I am not 100% excited about it, is I can kinda see it being helpful, but I think there is no real accountability (I can imagine pathological procrastinator might lie that their session went well, when in reality they browsed FB).

Any ideas how to fix it? I guess showing proof of work might be too intrusive for some, but maybe 10% of flow session could be in accountability mode (so the user selects accountability/no accountability)? Then I guess faking real work might make people decide fuck it it's too much work, I am going to do a real thing and make them really productive.

dtran 2021-08-18 16:28:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks for checking it out and the kind words re: the idea qnsi.

>I think there is no real accountability (I can imagine pathological procrastinator might lie that their session went well, when in reality they browsed FB).

That's a good point— a "pathological procrastinator" could definitely do that, but they'd mostly just be cheating themselves since they're not here to pretend to work for their boss. To your point though, some users have requested a way to share their screen for extra accountability, and we've even had a couple members do this with virtual cameras. At the end of the day though, we're building a community that celebrates the process and gradual progress made by time-blocking and goal-setting to do our best work, so if someone feels this way, I think the community can help them. To bring in another perspective, I'm an avid runner, and occasional cheating (course-cutting during races or faking Strava data) does happen within that community, but besides the shame of getting caught, if you're running every week with a community, cheaters will either self-select out of the community, or hopefully see the emptiness that comes with achievements they didn't earn.

jon-wood 2021-08-19 10:51:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

These people feel like they’re working in an entirely different world to the one I’m in. If I were to share my screen while working with a bunch of strangers that would be considered gross misconduct, and result in my immediate termination for distributing confidential material.

archibaldJ 2021-08-18 16:44:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Just saw the intro video on youtube; this reminds me a lot of the weekly video sessions during startup school;

One question: how do you optimize for quality time during the 5min intro to set the enter-the-flow mood/vibe? do you mute a person’s mic after 1 min (eg to prevent some people from accidentally becoming mildly annoying for talking too long?)

[edit: elaboration]

rickyyean 2021-08-18 17:13:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We haven't had to do that. Each session has a host who facilitates and there are regulars who help reinforce the norm.

I led a Startup School cohort a few years ago when I was in-between projects. Yes, kind of like that in terms of the kind of people you'll get to meet in Flow Club, but the primary purpose of sharing in Flow Club is not to learn from each other but to prime yourself into focus.

Invictus0 2021-08-18 16:06:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I use Focusmate and it works great, but I don't love that there is no community and I feel that people on the platform basically just "use" each other as productivity implements. I'd love to try this to feel out how the community aspect would work.

rickyyean 2021-08-18 16:21:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks. Yes, the "club" part is a huge part of what we're doing. I'm honestly really glad you get it.

58x14 2021-08-18 18:26:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Discovered this while procrastinating here on HN. Too ironic not to sign up!

kirubakaran 2021-08-18 19:23:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Hacker News, the source of and solution to all your productivity problems.

eterpstra 2021-08-18 20:21:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ha! Same :)

ceilingcorner 2021-08-19 09:45:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

While I think this is a reasonably good idea to opt-into and maybe even something I would sign up for, I am worried that something like this will become mandatory by BigCos.

I can already see it: teams work under surveillance in shifts with a 5 minute break every hour. Companies clawing themselves into the home, with no way to avoid it. Terrifying.

An off switch or other way to preserve privacy would help address this.

kmod 2021-08-18 19:02:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've been a user of Flow Club for a while now and I highly recommend it even though that's probably not in my personal interest. I often find that I am >2x as productive during these hours, which I find remarkable, and sometimes it gets me to crank out something I would have otherwise procrastinated. I find it great as well for adding structure to my unstructured work schedule (I work for myself). The combination of forced intention setting with light external accountability is really powerful.

jonbishop 2021-08-18 19:55:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've done 4 Flow Club sessions and have really enjoyed it.

I get the folks saying they'd be distracted and I thought the camera would throw me off (and you can turn it off if you want), but I got used to it right away and have been pretty productive during my sessions.

I'm working solo from home, so having others there has been energizing.

The people in my sessions seem to most commonly use Flow Club to get through work that they don't want to do or something they've been putting off.

joalavedra 2021-08-19 12:14:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Congratulations on the Launch! How is it different from Focusmate? I've using Focus and it's being great :) Thanks

MaurizioPz 2021-08-19 07:53:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There's a similar approach in the less wrong study hall, target is usually students, buy may be useful for some https://complice.co/room/lesswrong/interstitial

thebouv 2021-08-18 21:34:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Hmm, I guess I don't really get the concept. I still don't know how this stops constant interruption from emails, Zooms, and messaging pings.

If the block on my calendar for this is supposed to help stop people contacting me -- well, it doesn't stop them now.

I'm glad this seems to work for some people though.

raman162 2021-08-18 18:10:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I just finished a session for the first time and enjoyed it. I will definitely try this out again in the future

superamit 2021-08-18 18:26:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Been to a few Flow Club sessions so far and liked it enough to subscribe. The social motivation is real and I dig the attitude Ricky et al are bringing to this.

Would definitely recommend this to anyone that finds themselves pushing certain to-dos forward from one day to the next.

eterpstra 2021-08-18 19:50:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Wow. As irony would have it, during a procrastinatory fit today, I wandered onto HN for the first time in weeks. Saw this, and it seems like it's exactly what I've been looking for lately! I've been intensely struggling with staying productive at my new startup - to the point where I'm looking to hire someone to basically look over my shoulder (via video) to keep me on task. Seriously, I'm interviewing someone tomorrow for this. The fact that there's a company devoted to this is astounding (it's not just me!). Can't wait until my invite is accepted so I can try this out!

version_five 2021-08-18 21:52:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Serious question, how does it work demographic wise. I'm in my 40s and picture it being awkward for everyone to be the old guy in a room of 25 year olds (also a factor why I don't do yoga anymore). I wouldn't be surprised if there are women who are nervous about being the only girl in a room full if guys. At the same time, I don't think I'd want to sign up for a demographic specific version. Is this something you expect will sort itself out naturally?

Cyberdog 2021-08-18 22:02:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm disturbingly close to my 40s myself and I'm a bit worried by your comment. I'd imagine that any novelty that the young'uns would have to you or me wandering into a yoga class/room full of programmers would wear off quickly when we just do our thing like everyone else and fail to fall on our faces or do anything else to draw negative attention to ourselves. I'm far from a social butterfly, but I've yet to feel any particular awkwardness (more than normal, anyway) due to my age when joining social or work events which I have been invited to.

I'm sorry if this comes off as a bit brusque, but maybe this is a self-confidence thing on your part.

rickyyean 2021-08-19 00:58:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Many members are in your age group and older and I'd just say that we've been described as an "introvert-friendly" social network. Reason being that the focus of the sharing is mostly about priming yourself to do the work, and while you can pick up cues about other people from the video and the work they bring to Flow Club, that's secondary. Our hosts also do a good job putting the focus on the work.

ahel 2021-08-18 18:16:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't see the added value compared to virtual-study-hall that uni runs https://www.ucalgary.ca/live-uc-ucalgary-site/sites/default/... and random strangers on different free website/platforms.

smalter 2021-08-18 16:21:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

big fan of flow club here. happy to answer any questions from the user perspective.

bartvk 2021-08-18 20:39:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

How many session do you do per day? Is it for powering through particularly hard work? Do you enjoy the company, or is it more of a discipline thing?

pj_mukh 2021-08-18 23:04:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I’ve been using caveaday for a couple of months with middling results (I think because there’s too many people there now). Excited to try this out!

puszczyk 2021-08-18 19:52:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Any chance to release another batch of invites? I think I've just missed mine :) the page says "invalid invite code" after I've filled in the email and password...

shafyy 2021-08-19 08:27:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I started getting anxiety when reading your post... Are there really people who 1) want to work this way and 2) are more productive working this way?

andyxor 2021-08-18 17:28:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I like it! may be add an option for users to group themselves by the type of work, i.e. coders with coders, writers with writers, let them optionally choose the kind of co-workers they want (or default to a random mix of strangers in "cofeeshop" mode)

and also let users work together on shared tasks, such as leetcode prep, school homework, startup or open-source project, or anything which requires collaboration.

Also you could provide "virtual PM" as a service to tech companies to manage their sprints.

dtran 2021-08-18 17:53:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks Andyxor! We have a weekly writing session that my co-founder hosts and I'm going to host a couple of coding-specific sessions soon. Even more specific tasks like leetcode/interview prep would be super interesting. One of our members hosts a weekly reading session—during busy weeks, that's basically the only time I'll make progress on a book, so that's been delightful.

andyxor 2021-08-18 18:00:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

also I think there is great B2B opportunity is providing PM as a service in post-COVID world.

Now tech companies hire a legion of PMs with no particular domain or tech skills just to repeat the same standup/sprint routine on daily/weekly basis. If a vendor comes in with consistent and cost-effective way to administer remote-first virtual sprints I believe businesses would pay for it. Your "hosts" are the real asset.

dsiroker 2021-08-18 15:42:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I just tried this yesterday and I was very impressed! I didn’t expect it, but there was something magical about setting goals for the hour, seeing the faces of six strangers on mute, and a timer ticking down. It drove focus and accountability.

Great job, Ricky, David, and Minjeong!

dtran 2021-08-18 15:57:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks so much for trying it out and for the kind words Dan!

> setting goals for the hour, seeing the faces of six strangers on mute, and a timer ticking down. It drove focus and accountability.

Goal-setting is so powerful and yet so difficult— clarity of goals + setting the right level of challenge for the time period are two of the key characteristics of flow state (as defined by the great Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). Re: "seeing the faces of six strangers", we think that this experience becomes more powerful as you come back to Flow Club over time—you'll do sessions with some of the same hosts and a mix of new faces, acquaintances, and friends, both from outside Flow Club as well as ones that you make in Flow Club.

slingnow 2021-08-18 18:00:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This looks like a dystopian future wrapped in slick packaging.

As I understand it, this service involves voluntarily putting myself in front of a security camera, and then being forced to interact with people irrelevant to my task on a regular basis.

How exactly is this "designed to get me into flow quickly" ?

throwawayswede 2021-08-18 16:07:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Don't mean to pick on this product specifically (it does look polished), but in general, does anyone else think this whole idea of opening a video camera and microphone (even if muted) for long sessions while people work on different things is kind of dystopian and sad? It makes sense when you're looking and working on the same thing, maybe even if it's like a shared desktop where each is working on a separate part of the same document for example, but each working on their own unrelated thing and still get on this? I know remote work is becoming more and more of a thing now, but it's usually the whole idea is to be: 1) async, 2) less distracted, and not revert back to another version of "office". I get pretty creepy vibes from this idea. Maybe I'm out of touch and/or old, but I can't ever see myself wanting to "virtually hang out" with coworkers or strangers with an always-on camera, verges on creepy imo. I can only imagine something like this with some family members.

ngokevin 2021-08-18 18:43:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've been using it and it's more wholesome than as you describe. It's not long sessions (50 minutes, pre-booked), and there's actually not much "hanging out", just focus time. I've been using it to boost my productivity for the last month as a solo founder

throwawayswede 2021-08-19 07:29:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The "not much hanging out, just focus time" is precisely the part I think is dystopian and personifies a sad future. The whole idea could be an episode of Blackmirror tbh.

I'm not arguing against some finding it useful, I'm sure some (like yourself) do, I don't know how sustainable that is though, or what it means about our society as we move forward, but in my opinion it's ominous.

2021-08-18 23:51:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

DanielBaum 2021-08-18 17:55:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I joined last week but have already been in 2 Flow Clubs and really loved it! It's a great forcing function to actually get work done and not procrastinate!

dekervin 2021-08-18 16:36:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If there is a YC member here, would be interesting to know why Flow Club got in and not for example other startups like https://www.focusmate.com/ which in my mind deserve all the credit for the first really good implementation of the concept. Extra points if you remember other applicants with the same concept that didn't get in ! ( Btw, applicants, if you reading this, I would love to hear from you !!! )

reilly3000 2021-08-18 17:14:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Not YC here, but it usually comes down to team, traction, and timing. Given the immense amount of applicants they screen, its unrealistic that they would be able to assess the traction of all of each startup’s competition. Timing-wise, a 2019 application for virtual coworking would have theoretically done poorly in its batch relative to a 2021 company in the same space. Also, solo-founder companies just aren’t as attractive to investors. There is no backup in a flameout or hit-by-bus scenario, and may signal that the founder “doesn’t play well with others”. YC is now offering a co-founder matching service to attempt to mitigate this issue.

breck 2021-08-18 18:49:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I am just an alum, and have no insight into YC's thoughts, and I don't even know if FocusMate applied (I assume by your question they did). I would also add, that I'd hope they'd apply again, as I have a strong pro-YC bias. But I find this is an interesting question, both for the general pattern, and also because I am interested in productivity boosters and did end up paying for Flow Club but haven't yet tried FocusMate.

1) There's a Francis Darwin quote that is relevant "In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs." I hope to explore that idea in an essay someday, for now I'll just share the quote. I am not trying to make a prediction here. Getting into YC is not convincing the world. No one has done that yet in this market. I know some of the people involved in Focus Mate and absolutely think they could be the #1 player, but assuming a big market is there it's certainly game on and who was first is a rounding error and the rest comes down to execution. It's a wide open field.

2) I did YC with AirBnb and at the time CouchSurfing.org was indeed a decently known thing in some circles. For every YC investment I'm sure you can find multiple "really good implementation of the concept".

3) This is still very much early innings in this space. As an investment, it's very hard to predict whether Flow Club or FocusMate or one of the other 8 will be the big unicorn (if any). A lot of it will come down to the founders. Even if there does turn out to be a huge market, some may take an early exit (Facebook v. MySpace, for example). As an entrepreneur I generally opt for the small earlier exit, but as an angel investor I try to avoid investing in people like me (both to hedge and b/c of power laws of returns).

4) A friend had brought me to SoulCycle once and so I totally get the "Peloton for Work" angle. So that's what led me to give Flow Club a shot. And I have found it very productive a couple of times per month. The coach and music have been great. For me the FocusMate style was intriguing, but it was just slightly below the threshold where I would give it a shot. Could those be 2 different markets with one being 100x bigger than the other? I have no idea but seems small things like that could actually make a big difference.

dekervin 2021-08-19 16:07:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Interesting set of answers. I will jump to the most interesting one.

2) It's easier to think of Airbnb as a good idea now, but back then the idea that you could even make a business out of it was mind blowing. A lot of concepts that subsequents startups borrowed where introduced on a big stage by Airbnb. How you attacked 2-sided consumer markets. How you monetised it, .how a better UX than craigslist translated to a great, business,... And even YC back then was still a novel thing.

If you compare to the FlowClub-FocusMate situation. FocusMate had a good insight about the market, guts to go for it, good implementation, ingenuous BeachHead. They surely wheren't first to think about it but they delivered at a time when a lot of developpers fumbled around. And They were Genuine.

Which brings me back to my curiosity around FlowClub YC pitch. Do they have a particular insight about the market, or are they confident in their ability to outraise FocusMate ?

In 4) Could those be 2 different markets with one being 100x bigger than the other? I have no idea but seems small things like that could actually make a big difference. , I guess It's true and it it's woth a shot from the entrepreneur side. But from my armchair, while doing some amateur quaterbacking, it feels weird to see the incubator with the most cachet pick the not genuine product. As if YC had backed studivz after Facebook came ( it's easy to say in hindsight of course ).

immy 2021-08-18 17:04:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

[I’m not YC] For one they are YC alums. Also the “Peloton for your brain” angle means there’s motivation in the value proposition, and a group aspect. Whereas FocusMate comes across like pairing two souls to be a little better off together. There’s a slew of other group coworking things but they haven’t launched yet.

dekervin 2021-08-19 16:15:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

For one they are YC alums. Now that I read your answer after reading the others, it honestly makes more sense this way. Especially if some people where on the fence.

stakkur 2021-08-18 20:15:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ugh.