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Inoffice - Communication tool for remote developers.

Hello fellow Indie Hackers,

I'm getting featured on betalist soon so I thought I show it to you guys for early feedback.

https://www.inoffice.chat

Context: Since the pandemic my company has been more relaxed about working from home. Although it's great but I miss the way you could just hop in to your colleague table to have a conversation either for business or leisure. So one of the key difference of Inoffice is that there is no "call" concept. If you see someone online you can just hop in and have a chat.

I'd appreciate any comments you guys have :) .

Thank You.

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    Hey valehelle,

    This is a cool idea. The ability to stop by someone's desk when you want to "discuss something real quick" or when you're bored is definitely missed. I think I saw another app like during the early days of the pandemic, when people people seemed to be creating one new video conference app each day. Essentially the difference with Slack is that you're skipping the call request and the call starts immediately? For teams that already use Slack, the added value might not be big enough. I wonder if the ability to join current calls could be added as a Slack app?

    Aside from that, I haven't actually joined, but looking at your screenshots, I would suggest sorting contacts by who's available first (maybe you already do that) and also color coding. Green means available. Busy and offline are essentially the same for this purpose, so they could just be greyed out.

    Grammar police: "Whether your working from home or office" => "Whether you're working from home or office".

    Cheers,
    Ben

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      Hey thanks for the feedback!
      I was inspired by another product that focus more on hosting online events so maybe that is the one.

      I actually have a team that are using both Inoffice as well as Slack. When I asked why they are using both is because Slack is too expensive for them and they needed a group call and Inoffice is the simplest one that is free. I'm not sure whether this is a positive or a negative :P .

      Thanks for the grammar correction.

      I'm still working on the title. Not really sure if it conveys the product and problem correctly.

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        You should check the products listed on this page: https://www.producthunt.com/search?q=video chat remote
        And maybe keep digging through PH. This has become a very crowded market very fast so having a clear differentiator (and tech that "just works") is more important than ever.

        People liking your product because it's free definitely sounds like an issue if you ever want to make money out of it. What else are the teams currently using your product saying?

        How about something like this for the title?: "Collaborate with your teammates as if they were in the same room"

        EDIT: this got me thinking. One of the problems that underlies your solution is that people are craving more "real" human interactions. What could you do to solve that need better? For instance, one of the issues of video conferencing is eye tracking. In real life we look at each other's eyes while talking. But it's not possible on video because of the camera positioning compared to the screen. Is there any sort of software trick that could solve that?
        Furthermore, a problem I've heard regarding remote work is creativity. It's harder to brain storm and do anything creative over video. You can't share a whiteboard, walk around the room, things like that.
        A last problem I've heard is when some people are meeting IRL and some are over video. The remote people often feel like they're second-grade citizens.
        Hope you find this inspiring :)

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          How about something like this for the title?
          I'm thinking of putting the value that you get when using Inoffice instead of what Inoffice is.

          ** What else are the teams currently using your product saying?**
          Mainly that it is easy to use. Funny things is my main goal is to encourage small chats but turns out some of them are use for business related talks.

          Thanks for the link and suggestion. It seems like you are more excited than I am :P .

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