Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

Makes sense! We're also looking for other markets to expand into so that's really helpful.

"Have you expanded beyond your cofounders?"

We haven't, although we do have other team members with Portals, I don't think it would be effective for our use case. Most of the conversations are semi-private, so we use the device like we were sharing an office more than having a meeting.

As a team, we use Slack for Chat, Zoom for Meetings and screen sharing, and Slack for one on one video chat. We use slack for quick conversations because its fast to deploy, and you can keep your hands on your keyboard (or mouse).

Oddly, we hop on Zoom all the time for screen sharing but continue to just use the Portal for AV.

"Also, how do you guys handle knowing when you can talk to the other person?"

That's have been easy. If I want to talk to Tom, I just look at him. If he's in a meeting, I can almost always tell. We keep each other muted unless we're going to talk. You can tell from the eyes, or headset, etc. pretty quickly.

For the shared office use case, in particular, it's excellent.

Any way you slice it, I'm glad to see more people in this space, as it can only lead to better things for remote workers. Good luck!

For the sake of my mental health I hope it succeeds. My mental health has been in severe jeopardy just being in a room talking to coworkers just during specific topic-oriented meetings.

I sincerely wish you luck on this. I suspect I won't be using this, but that's more of an issue of workflow, as opposed to a judgement of the device. I don't like being interrupted while I work. I don't run Slack continuously, like many do. Also I'm a hired gun. I don't have a constant gig, and 90% of my work is alone.

I think a device approach is reasonable. People like a device. They tend to not like a bunch of devices, which is why smartphones became so popular. But since this is something that would basically be a desk accessory, it might work.

One thing to be careful of, though, is that C-suite folks will often project their workflows onto their employees. What I see particularly hard-hit, is respect for "The Flow." This is that "magic productivity sauce" that comes from uninterrupted working time. Managers and executives have very little of this, but it is vital -vital- for engineers and creatives (I was a manager for a very long time, and the most valuable thing I did, was act as a buffer between sources of interruption, and my team).

Nowadays, the absolute worst thing that can happen, is I get a phone call or messaging interruption, while I'm chasing down a bug, or learning a new technique. It makes me blow my top. I tend to be rather abrupt, when answering those calls. Especially since the vast majority are robocalls, and I plonk them immediately (even that little interruption is painful).

I'd say that maybe having some published "best practices" to accompany it, might help. Maybe a blog -vlog?- that is accessible from these devices, could be nice.

Of course, it goes without saying that responsiveness (less than 500ms latency) and frictionless infrastructure is also vital for everyone, but I assume that is already there.

This is hands down the worst startup idea in the history of the world. I would flat out leave at a company who introduced this or not start there in the first place.