Great approach. If you trigger strong reactions, you are on the right path.
Remote working is about communication discipline - like in the army. Have a talk to tank-commander or someone else who relies on radio communication. I think this gives great insights.
Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
211–220 of 234 posts
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#212Is this easy to use even if you’re in a coworking space or want to work from somewhere unconventional or is it really designed for working out of your home office? I often like to work out of coffee shops, or down by the river and not pinned to my desk.
I don’t want to give a false or bad impression that I’m not available/working just because I’m not at my home office desk.
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#213For the sake of mental health and privacy, I hope this product crashes and burns.
We totally understand that this product isn't for everyone. Sidekick works best for teams that actually want to feel like they're in the same room with an always-on video. These are really fast-paced teams like cofounders or operations teams.
Sorry, but you do not understand that this product isn't for everyone. All it takes is one management loony to throw money at this and make employees own homes as their prisons.
How ever, unlike the parent comment I wish you would succeed and you will account for the visceral hatred from a lot of us to build a lot of privacy features into your product and not get tempted to turn this product into virtual peeping tom for micro managers.
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#214I’ve been working at a fully distributed company for 3 years and I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that none of my 700+ coworkers will ever use something like this. You may find some traction now with companies abruptly transitioning to remote work and not having a clue how to get work done without being in an office, but long term, I’m a sceptic. I can tell you, however, that I would absolutely consider…
I think the product you're looking for is facebook portal https://portal.facebook.com
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the worst for your personal productivity but are those interruptions an net gain for your team's productivity? Recognizing that inflection point is key to great teams.
If everyone get interrupted every now and then, how is it going to increase team productivity?
The person being interrupted presumably loses a little productivity, but the person doing the interrupting probably gains quite a lot compared to having to figure it out on their own or wait for an email response in a few hours.
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#216Why is everybody in here being such an asshole to this company? Has the HN culture seriously changed this much? Is the lockdown just pickling everybody's minds? They're trying something. If you don't like it, give constructive criticism, but this hostility is unhelpful and unwelcome. >Why is it a Samsung device? I worked on a startup which was a video chat project similar to this with a different target. We also used…
It's true, tech support is hard. Samsung, for example, does a terrible job supporting that tablet -- I bought 3 and only one survived a year. One of the others was held in their US repair facility for months while the warranty ran out and then they claimed the problem was no longer covered.
I'm no longer buying tablets or appliances from Samsung. Their TVs and monitors appear to be OK.
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#217The moderation of the negative comments on this post, for once, seems a bit overkill. I think what's missing here in the moderation is the visceral reaction that people have to such a product, (to the point where their feedback seems a bit unproductive), is as much part of the conversation here as the constructive criticism. The people who have a complete gut reaction against this don't want to enter the conversation…
It's just because it's text. If we could see the faces of some people while they mouthed off on their deranged rant, we'd all politely turn back to whatever better conversation we were having, and chuckle...It's just because the genre of "text" puts everyone on the same volume and medium/timbre/character (fading doesn't really alter this).
Crazy rants that would not get a word in edge wise ordinarily, get to take full spectrum bandwidth. Probably, just like this comment will seem to some people. You don't need much empathy, social acuity and awareness yo shout at the top of your ... fingertips on a forum. But to get the attention of a room of smart people in real life....you need a lot more skill. Text reduces everyone's utterances to the same medium background......it's sad. Sad that internet is 31 years old....but we don't have a richer way for people to talk toghether.
Funnily enough, maybe THIS startup, is doing something toward that.
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#218About 3 years ago we tried to roll our own version of this.
I would be a buyer for a 25 person team, but 25$/month is too steep. Maybe 3-5$?
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#219Isn’t the Sidekick name already taken for hardware devices?
Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams
#220Why is everybody in here being such an asshole to this company? Has the HN culture seriously changed this much? Is the lockdown just pickling everybody's minds? They're trying something. If you don't like it, give constructive criticism, but this hostility is unhelpful and unwelcome. >Why is it a Samsung device? I worked on a startup which was a video chat project similar to this with a different target. We also used…
It's true, tech support is hard. Samsung, for example, does a terrible job supporting that tablet -- I bought 3 and only one survived a year. One of the others was held in their US repair facility for months while the warranty ran out and then they claimed the problem was no longer covered. I'm no longer buying tablets or appliances from Samsung. Their TVs and monitors appear to be OK.
The Samsung G9 Odyssey monitor rollout is not going well at all. I want to give Samsung £1200 but they haven’t convinced me their process is controlled enough yet.
One of my friends designs chips for both Apple and Samsung. He said Samsung promised to provide proper specs after the Note battery issue, but they never did. Just went back to winging it after a while.