lukethomas
Joined 15 years ago
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1,501
Submissions
304
Member since
Nov 18
Founder @ Friday (https://www.friday.app). Building tools to create process to the way that you communicate at work.
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Comment · 4 years ago
I didn't want to fleece future investors or existing/future employees.
When running a startup, it's natural to have unknowns, and for the most part, that's okay and to be expected.
But if you discover a new reality on the ground and continue to tell a different story, you are lying. I didn't want to do that.
Comment · 4 years ago
We raised a total of $2.6m, so nothing too crazy in today's market.
Comment · 4 years ago
This was precisely our approach, but we built our own features for the "gaps" that we believed existed in the other products.
If an existing app was doing a decent job, we didn't want to compete with them. The issue is that we ended up arriving in this "dead-zone" where we didn't replace an existing tool and pull budget from an existing category of tooling.
Comment · 4 years ago
Absolutely. I will 100% keep this up and running and freely available for all. It may be on my own personal website though.
Comment · 4 years ago
I bootstrapped the company for years before raising. I raised because I felt that I had to go after the bigger vision, which required resources ($$).
In short, I wanted to accelerate the pace of learning, because if I didn't, I would always kick myself for not stepping on the gas pedal.
I don't regret my decision either TBH.
Comment · 4 years ago
Heck no. If we were profitable, I would have kept it up and running and reduced things to a skeleton crew.
Comment · 4 years ago
I knew we needed to build a suite of tooling, as our goal was to be a "hub" for the most important stuff at work. In retrospect, we built too much product.
If I start another company, I will spend all my time focused on solving a very big pain-point with a few simple product.
With Friday, I wanted to keep the product simple, but the people we talked to always were talking about the "yet another tool problem" - so there was a desire to consolidate. How I interpreted this was that we needed to build the "suite" vs. spending all our time on one feature.
I could go on and on about what I would do differently, but I'm thankful for the opportunity and have learned a lot that will (hopefully) make me more effective in the future :)
Comment · 4 years ago
I originally called it "Friday Feedback" - you will probably see a launch post ~6 years ago with a search for that :)
Comment · 4 years ago
I made the decision after a lot of reflection. We still had ~6 months of runway so I could have spent more time "pivoting" around.
The issue was that what I was hearing from prospects, customers, users signaled a bigger issue that could not be solved with a product tweak or two.
At the end of the day, I felt like the story I would need to tell a future investor (and new/existing employees) would increasingly become disconnected from the reality I was experiencing talking to customers/users.
I didn't feel at peace about it at all. I considered it to be a form of lying.
Comment · 4 years ago
I am considering it. I have a fiduciary duty to try to fetch a fair value for the assets, but if no one wants the codebase, I'd consider opening it up. Still TBD as I just announced this a couple days ago :)
Comment · 4 years ago
Hey, I'm the founder. We worked really hard to not position ourselves as a task management tool, but instead, a tool that integrates with existing systems.
Task management is extremely competitive and we didn't want to play in the space. With that being said, we viewed our job as an interface to "glue" the work together, no matter the source.
Comment · 4 years ago
Thank you. Just trying to do the right thing given the circumstances.
Comment · 4 years ago
Hey there, I'm the founder. Happy to answer any questions people have. This was a decision I didn't take lightly.
Comment · 5 years ago
Hi HN!
tl;dr - I wrote a 200 page user manual for team leaders and CEOs to navigate working from anywhere and open sourced it online for free: https://friday.app/anywhere
I'm Luke, the founder of Friday.app. 8 years ago, I first read Remote by 37 Signals and it's what caused me to start working remotely back in 2013. At the time, the book laid out a case that more organizations should offer remote work.
Over the years, I worked for a few different distributed companies in a variety of roles. I've seen what works and what doesn't. Now, I run a software company building async tools for distributed teams. I've also spent years digging through research on distributed teams, asynchronous communication, and more. Basically, it's been a huge area of focus for the past 8 years.
When the pandemic hit, people were CONSTANTLY asking me if I had any book recommendations. Unlike 2013, people didn't need to be convinced about the benefits of working from anywhere, which Remote did a great job covering. Now, they were looking for a playbook on how to implement this stuff in a way that tapped into the benefits of distributed work - primarily the flexibility.
I never imagined writing a book, it's not really my forte. But after seeing so many companies rollout terrible policies/practices that made working from anywhere worse than going into the office, I decided to throw my hat into the ring.
The book teaches high-level principles and then dives into specific practices and playbooks, like:
- How to go async-first
- What meeting should be an email? What email should be a meeting?
- How to hire people you haven't met
- How to quickly onboard new teammates
- How to feel connected & stay accountable
These are all questions I hear all the time. This book is heavily focused on shifting towards an async-first environment, because I believe this is the #1 transition an organization needs to do.
Anyways, the entire thing is available for free online. There's an audio version too and spent quite a bit creating illustrations for each of the chapters. If you want a hardcopy, I'm offering that at cost on Amazon (I make 1 penny for every book sold).
Here's direct links if you want to jump right in:
1. To Read: https://friday.app/anywhere
2. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sfH4lZlydvzoSkKKkhJTa?si=rvKP...
3. Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqnVBFm2Yol1H0dONrXa8LDoS...
4. Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Anywhere-Operating-System-business-an...
I hope this helps you all. I'm just tired of seeing people act like this is all brand-new, when in reality, there's a mountain of evidence and best practices that can save you a lot of headaches.