Launch HN: Gather.Town (YC S19) – Spatial video chat for remote teams

Hey HN!

I'm Phillip, cofounder of Gather https://gather.town/?ref=hn. We are a video-chat platform that creates virtual spaces for offices, conferences, events, and social. You walk around on a 2D map, and see / hear the people near you.

We started more a year and a half ago, on telepresence for your closest friends and family. We explored all sorts of technologies like custom wristwatches, tablet apps, tele-operated robots, and VR. We were in the middle of one of our VR experiments when COVID hit, and we decided to switch focuses on the pressing needs of people today.

We had an idea for how people could gather better online, generally. Some of you may have seen our HN post launching Online Town half a year ago, and since then, we've hosted 1000+ paid spaces across conferences, offices, weddings, parties, magic conventions, universities, and much more!

Many "real-life" interactions translate easily into Gather. For large gatherings, people will split off into separate groups to talk, and walk between the conversations by just moving their avatar around. For remote teams, you can walk up to a coworker's desk to ask them a quick question, or notice a group of people congregating at the water cooler and go join them.

(Our own team works out of a Gather office--most of our team has actually never met each other in person)

What's unique about us is how much you can customize your own space. Our tools let you design any layout or style that you want, so many of our users replicate their real life offices and community spaces. We also have embedded objects you can put in your space. For example, you can work at a whiteboard, watch Youtube/Twitch videos together, or play games with other people in your space.

Right now, we're offering one month trials for office spaces, as well as setting up custom office layouts for teams, for free!

Come check it out and meet us in the space we made for HN: https://gather.town/?ref=hn ! We'd love to hear your feedback.

I tried this out a few months ago and enjoyed using it. I love the idea of bringing the experience of in-person interactions to an online platform. I hope we'll be seeing more of this in the future.

So great to see Gather on HN! I've been following Cyrus, Philip, and Kumail for a while, and been really impressed by their work.

I've tried Gather and a few of the other competitors out there - out of all of them Gather nails the UX the most. It's pretty simple, but it's also powerful. Most of the other competitors in this space have thrown together a sloppy "business" platform, but Gather just feels much more accessible, friendly, and easy to use.

> (Our own team works out of a Gather office--most of our team has actually never met each other in person)

Yikes. As someone who's worked remotely for over a decade, I can't imagine starting a company with people I've never had a beer with.

I see that GopherCon is using your service this year. This should be fun. Best wishes.