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A startup called Lounge wants to reinvent work for the entirely remote era where tools like Slack, Zoom, and Teams have failed to help companies create culture and build relationships between employees who have never met before. met in person – and now, it seems, never will be. Instead of offering message boards and profiles that reduce a user’s identity to a photo and short bio, Lounge’s richer profiles aim to communicate more about the person, such as their time zone, weather. , the location, the team and its participation in corporate events – like stages or meditation challenge. It also offers tools that let employees get to know and connect on a more personal level, like audio chat and photo sharing.
The idea for Lounge came from co-founders Alex Kwon, CEO, and Jason Jardim, CTO, who had previously worked together at Life360. During the pandemic, the two had developed a family to-do list type app while working remotely. While this project was scrapped, the co-founders learned a lot about remote working – and its pitfalls – during this time.
Kwon had never worked remotely before, he said, and found the experience lacking.
“Doing a once-a-day stand-up on a Zoom call and then chatting here and there an hour late on Slack was just too lonely for me,” he explains.
He said it lacked the same magical spark you get from having real conversations with coworkers, which can often lead to new ideas as well. This type of in-person collaboration is one of the main reasons many companies want their staff back in the office, whether or not there is a pandemic.
But Kwon believes that in person isn’t the only way to introduce camaraderie into a team and develop a company’s culture.
“People have been [forming] online relationships since the origin of the Internet, ”he says. “People meet in games and get married online in World of Warcraft. And the majority of my friends have now met their loved ones on dating apps. And where do they start? In line.”
So if friendship and love can happen online, says Kwon, so can work-related camaraderie.
Image credits: Salon
The co-founders started experimenting with ways to feel more connected, including at one point a 24/7 Zoom call so they could just chat as they inspired. But it seemed too intrusive and the kids would often interrupt. Always-on audio had a similar problem. This ultimately led to the development of a simple app that allowed them to quickly connect via audio chats with just a tap, yet still respect everyone’s privacy.
The success of this app in solving their own remote work problems caused them to abandon their to-do list startup idea and work on Lounge instead.
Today, Lounge presents employees as visualizations of virtual offices grouped by teams, projects or even by hobbies or interests. That way, it’s easy to see who is working on what, the same way business org charts would work. But offices offer a more personalized experience. The visualizations reflect the person’s time zone and even their weather, including small windows that let you see if it’s night or day, for example. You’ll also see the person’s profile photo and other data, like the actions they took during a company-wide challenge.
Image credits: Salon
In addition to the employee desks, Lounge also introduces the concepts of multi-person “rooms”. Unlike Slack channels that focus only on topics or projects, rooms can be designed to serve almost any purpose. They can even represent a virtual version of what in traditional offices would have been physical space. You can join rooms for town hall meetings or whiteboard sessions or even spend time virtually with other teammates in a public room like the company cafeteria, for example.
The rooms can be locked or unlocked. If you’re headlong on a project, you don’t have to respond to your visitors – you can lock the room instead. Visitors can then leave a private DM by typing in the chat, just like you would with Slack. But if a room is open, you can click to chat with the coworker synchronously via audio. It’s the virtual version of going to someone’s office and saying hello, except now you’re using an online tool to do it. The other person will hear your greeting, then wake up to answer and have an audio conversation.
“Think of it as a combination of Zoom calls and Slack,” says Kwon.
Image credits: Salon
Lounge is also working on a photo sharing feature, inspired by Kwon’s first startup, Oneminute, which allows people to take and share random photos that would then appear on their virtual desktop for a while and in other places. in the app. The idea here is to give people an idea of what you’re doing or to share something more personal, like a photo of your dog or a weekend hobby. It’s something employees are already doing in Slack channels today. But now they can contribute to a continuous stream of shared photos that could help new hires learn more about their teammates and find reasons to start chatting with them.
The startup has been in private beta with some clients since April, but has hundreds of signups on its waiting list. So far, it has targeted smaller teams of less than 20 employees. Today, Lounge is launching into an open beta, prioritizing apps for Mac, web, and iOS.
Lounge has raised $ 1.2 million in funding from investors including Unusual Ventures, Hustle Fund, Translink, Unpopular Ventures and other angel investors.
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