Congrats on the launch - seems like a neat product. A few questions: 1) It seems like you iterated on a bunch of ideas that landed in this - what were some interesting features that the team was really interested in that you ended up killing? 2) What were the most non-intuitive hard technical challenges? 3) Have you successfully ended up having someone give up on Slack to use this?
Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
21–30 of 114 posts
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#22What's the story around getting into YC in 2019 and then launching in '24? I'm guessing there were some interesting pivots along the way ...
You are right. We came in letting hosts open experience stores in Airbnbs (try on an Oculus at a hosts home). Difficult to attribute our sales so we moved on.
COVID hit and we had the itch to look at the browser in a different light. Building a browser seemed intimidating...but it was quarantine. Long story short, built a few different ideas and here we are :)
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#23Congrats on the launch!! Collaborative browsing is something I've been looking for a few use cases of mine. Excited to try it out.
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#24Is there a listing of what data is sent back to your servers and how that data is stored/handled?
I work in a secure environment. I like the idea of this app, but leakage is a huge factor for my teams.
That aside, I've already downloaded a copy and plan to try it out in a non-secure environment. The concepts here look like a great idea. GL and thanks!
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#25The feature for sending messaging and posting comments to a tab is some pretty clever and creative UX. Seriously next level future stuff and congrats for just coming up with the concept. I like that it's all timeline based. For my use case, we currently use Front email thread and then link to a Shared Dropbox where we post everything (including links to like a Google Doc or webpage). I think having chronological book…
Great idea for creating some specific videos for engineers, designers, etc.
Browsers are interesting since they can do almost anything but "you can do anything you want!" is intimidating for many new users.
We've given e-mail thought and it's certainly a door we are considering as we keep on building. Has anyone built a browser without thinking about an email client? :P
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#26Is there a Linux version?
Not yet, in the pipeline. Depending on your distro (Ubuntu and Fedora) have users through Wine.
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#27I can see why managers would love this, social pressure around doing work and working faster.
I can't say we haven't heard that. Surprisingly, it's usually more of a TL or most Senior Eng who seems to like those presence features. A lot less cat herding across apps for them.
We have less traction with PMs. Most of the feedback from them implies they like being bombarded with Slack notifications even if they say they don't.
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#28What's the story around getting into YC in 2019 and then launching in '24? I'm guessing there were some interesting pivots along the way ...
You can actually check out all the material from the pivots inside the app. There's a walkthrough in the Getting Started space when you first set up.
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#29Looks very interesting. The chat feature almost looks like a good slack alternative.
I can imagine this being useful to organization where your chats and your work are in the same window.
Re: Launch HN: Muddy (YC S19) – Multiplayer browser for getting work done
#30Congrats on the launch - seems like a neat product. A few questions: 1) It seems like you iterated on a bunch of ideas that landed in this - what were some interesting features that the team was really interested in that you ended up killing? 2) What were the most non-intuitive hard technical challenges? 3) Have you successfully ended up having someone give up on Slack to use this?
1. Spatial canvas based browser (we called it Sail). Had people who loved it but their team refused to learn it. Spatial tools are just incredibly niche and difficult to get started (besides Google Maps).
2. Auto updating across Mac and Windows (in 2024!!). Google Omaha is hard to setup, Sparkle is jank on Windows. Throw in binary delta support and it's an oof.
3. Our team builds Muddy on Muddy and ditched Slack when product got stable. Few other beta users and their companies as well. Slack is super sticky and has some terrific workflows, but more "quality" conversations today happen natively in apps and almost all apps have commenting functionality. Just easier to talk next to the context. So a lot of Slack convo's become "where is X" and we think Muddy will stop the need for those questions all-together.