Launch HN: Slingshow (YC W20) – Easily build custom virtual events and webinars

Glad you like it! The attendee experience can be seen in all those block images we have throughout landing page. It is a little confusing since I imagine you were expecting another video.

Watched your "build an event" demo and at the end it seemed like you were going to show us an attendee experience demo but I couldn't find it.

Very curious. Product seems slick on the build side.

Hey this is my bad and I should have been more clear in the video. I was actually just referring to the product screenshots in the Blocks section below. Also feel free to make an account to check it out.

Thank you! I'm actually super excited about use cases like that. Your examples reminded me of a startup that recently hosted an internal event called "Sales Armageddon" where they had teams in different rooms competing on how many inbound leads they could call and schedule a demo. There was a lot more to it including training but it was like a sales game!

Also, we currently don't have a video of the attendee experience, but you can scroll to the Blocks section to see screenshots. Feel free to create an account to check it out also!

That's a great question. Slingshow handles this pretty well. We have lots of customers in similar situations like the one you mentioned who use the product regularly. However, we have to do a better job of explaining this. We're working on having different ways to restrict the event upfront & giving you the option to remove the "registration page." However, you can still use it right now without your team having to register.

Currently, at the event start time, the Slingshow event page becomes the actual event, and attendees can enter using Google, Linkedin, or email even if they didn't register. There's no unique link that you only get when you register. It's all just one link, and the registration is essentially just an email capture + reminder email. There are many advantages of doing it this way (and some disadvantages), including being a good catch-all for internal and external use cases.

As far as you're concerned, your flow would be very similar to a Zoom call or Google Hangout. Just create the event, set the start time, email it out, or put it in Slack, and at the time of the event, your members/staff can enter the event. No registration is required.

However, you may still have concerns around members sharing the event, and that's what we're working on fixing next, for example, domain restriction, manually admitting people etc. But it's the same issue you'd face with using Zoom or Google Hangout as a link even with a password is still a shareable link. We recommend for now having the waiting room open and admitting people one by one (it's super quick in Slingshow with Cmd+K) or importing a list of emails as "pre-approved."

I hope this wasn't too confusing. If you'd like to give Slingshow a shot and still have questions, I'd be more than happy to jump on a quick call with you or send a short Loom to make this more concrete. Please feel free to create an account and message us on the Intercom, and we'll walk you through it. We have more work to do in this area to make it more intuitive, but we've think a lot about these different "entrance flows," so thanks for asking this question.