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Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

#21

Post by ourcat »

jeffwhitlock wrote: post #20
ourcat wrote: post #19

I founded and built a company based on a threaded, asynchronous multimedia forum system about 12 years ago. It supported any type of content that was 'V.I.T.A.L' : Video, Images, Text, Audio and Links. (I sadly had to resign from it, after getting royally screwed over by the 'investor relations guys' who were on the 'pump and dump' of our OTA stock, after we went public via a reverse merger.) I have been thinking of…

Dang, sounds like an unfortunate experience. Now is a good time to do it! Happy to compare notes.

The whole last year has definitely been 'the right time' for something like it again. And especially across timezones.

These days, I would probably only offer it as a white-label/SaaS model rather than an 'open' social network. Possibly something private/invite-only.

The past few years have made me think that I'm extremely glad to have not been involved at all with it any more. I'd had some extremely lucrative offers from political parties for them to use one of its features, which I'm glad I turned down. The effect it would have had on the incumbent beta-testers at that stage would have been catastrophic.

I would also stick to 'organic growth' rather than outside investors, who could absolutely destroy your vision for the product, for their own ends, without a care in the world for the users and community. Lesson learned the hard way.

Re: Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

#23

Post by dang »

lvass wrote: post #15

28 occurrences of "we" in original text plus 14 from your other posts, barely 2 hours in. In a world of 7 billion people, why are you so important that I should read all of that?

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

#24

Post by jeffwhitlock »

pm wrote: post #22

You've come to the same conclusions I have about video that I'm using for my next startup (and YC application), though we're using it for a different purpose. We floated the same name as well, so I'm glad we didn't pick it!

That's a funny coincidence. Excited to see what you build! Let me know if I can help.

Re: Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

#25

Post by pm »

jeffwhitlock wrote: post #24
pm wrote: post #22

You've come to the same conclusions I have about video that I'm using for my next startup (and YC application), though we're using it for a different purpose. We floated the same name as well, so I'm glad we didn't pick it!

That's a funny coincidence. Excited to see what you build! Let me know if I can help.

Sure thing. E-mail is in my profile (you don't have one in yours).

Re: Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

#26

Post by lvass »

dang wrote: post #23
lvass wrote: post #15

28 occurrences of "we" in original text plus 14 from your other posts, barely 2 hours in. In a world of 7 billion people, why are you so important that I should read all of that?

" Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm sorry if I sounded dismissive, I was just impressed by the way the text sounded to Me, as I read it, and figured people might be interested in the data that I collected as I thought made said text sound weird to Me. I have no idea why My comments would not be considered a good critical comment to you the same way I think it looks like to Me. Get My point?

(I never meant to be shallowly dismissive but rather provide good criticism and lament if it sounded otherwise)

Re: Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

#28

Post by jeffwhitlock »

alexandargyurov wrote: post #27

Why have I seen 2 other companies doing the same thing just in the past week? https://www.verbz.ai/ ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26265024 ) https://www.woice.me/ ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26340042 )

It’s definitely a timely idea with the remote work zeitgeist. I saw those launches and wish them the best.

That said, we’re much more focused on video and screen recording, whereas these are focused on voice.

Re: Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams

#29

Post by ngould »

> We hope to ultimately build a Slack/Teams alternative designed for rich, asynchronous human interactions that encourage deep work.

All I can say is keep going. I've been feeling the absence of this for a while, and have taken to making occasional videos on Loom to supplement live meetings and Slack messages. But it's a disjointed experience, and Loom is not trying to be a collaboration tool at all. It would be great to have a solution that does the whole thing end-to-end, with a focus on being more async-friendly than Slack.

By the way, I downloaded the PingPong app, and it seems great. Are you selling subscriptions, or just putting the free version out there for now?

P.S. If you haven't read this article on Figma's growth strategy, I'd take a look. There are some parallels with what you're doing -- i.e. SaaS, collaboration-focused, and attempting to dislodge incumbents with a similar list of features, but less focus on collaboration pain points. https://kwokchain.com/2020/06/19/why-figma-wins/

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