Online Accountability is Broken
Out of curiosity, how many people actually read and follow other people's Daily Stand-Ups? Not trying to say it's not useful, I just don't think other people are reading them.
I feel like there's a gap in online tools for accountability and learning together. There are so many tools that allow you to share your progress, your to-do list, and your goals. There are not many tools out there that make you want to learn, listen, and share with others.
I think online accountability works best when you have a group of 2-5 people who meet once a week or bi-monthly. Each week, you share ideas, strategy, progress, and goals related to each others business.
Finding those groups and facilitating those discussions can be hard, but if you have one, it makes a world of a difference.
Also, I think there's room for someone to facilitate this and make it into a business. You'd need to facilitate groups, schedule meetings, and help organize things. For an MVP, a software tool isn't even needed. This is something that I would pay for myself.
Thoughts on this?
IH specific:
@csallen recommended the current, streamlined format. While I can't say that I'm a fan, I do recognize that the lower barrier to entry enables, theoretically, more participation.
What we've lost, however, are meaningful engagements.
General:
Daily check-ins are critical*. That doesn't mean standups couldn't be further enhanced by weekly or bi-monthly meetings. But the check-ins are the meat and potatoes. By checking your daily task against your monthly goal/story/epic/etc, you ensure you're working on the right things. You acknowledge your accomplishments from the day prior, no matter how small. And you set expectations for the day.
We've several IH who have attempted to make a business of it. But the one's most successful, sell to communities/teams that already exist. It's damn near impossible to find folks with the same aspirations, with the same level of discipline/commitment, with the same need for accountability at the same time. (Hence why communities such as Indie Hackers are incredibly valuable.) What's more, people's engagement waxes and wanes, so the ability to get in fresh blood consistently is also important. (Another reason why IH is so important!)
*This is not to say that one can't be successful without daily check ins. But if one is seeking online accountability, I've found, and not just in this context, that daily engagement is key.
I think it's safe to say the streamlined lower-barrier-to-entry approach hasn't really led to any sustained growth of the daily standup posts beyond what they were in the past.
I wonder how much accountability can really be achieved without a consistent audience. For example, a person may feel accountable to their boss, but would they feel the same if they had a new boss every day, or would they stop caring?
It might be interesting to play with the idea of assigned accountability buddies… someone that you don't simply report to, but who actually can see the progress you've made since your last report. 🤔
As you said, engagement waxes and wanes, but I also wonder if being accountable to a specific and consistent person (or set of people) over time might lead to higher retention and stronger habit format.
Just some thoughts…
Can't speak for everyone, but I much preferred the old format.
It got better replies and as such participating in the daily standup gave you more the idea of being part of a tightly nit group of people.
I completely agree with you.
To be clear, I do believe that the current format is helpful. But I also think that there's a market/need for people who do want a consistent person or group to be held accountable to.
100 agree with the daily checkins. We engrain this with members at https://jointhepack.co every day.
I've been sharing a weekly progress update every Thursday for the past 4 months. I doubt that many people read those updates, but here's the thing: I don't care!
Simply writing and sharing my updates publicly makes me feel accountable to myself. Not only that, it also helps me reflect on my progress and consolidate my thoughts. So, I think it's worth it, even if nobody reads them.
More to your point about small accountability groups, I actually tried to do a very similar thing for freeCodeCamp students, starting in 2018. The offer was that for a one-time payment of $10, I'd set up a Slack community, put students into groups of 4-6 based on their timezone/availability, and help them set up weekly checkin calls.
That sort of worked, but there were a couple of key problems:
Eventually I felt that I didn't have a repeatable strategy for turning that into a business, so I pivoted into what you see now at xebel.co.
That's not to say it can't be done though. In fact, in the context of starting/running a business, that's exactly what MastermindJam is about.
Yeah, we noticed the same! Back in 2016, I actually created https://jointhepack.co as a way of solving my own problem around this. 4-5 years on, we've been able to charge $350+ per person per quarter, and have repeat members returning around 60% of the time.
We definitely observed that the right number for accountability groups was been 4-8. So what we did with each cohort was divide everyone up into "packlets" of similar sizes.
Each week during our packlet hot-seats, we would come together at the beginning as a larger group via Zoom, do what we call a "grounding session", say hello to one another, and then break off into our packlet hot-seats. This evolved as a result of what you said. The large group accountability helped remind the smaller groups to stay accountable.
There's also a bit of nuance in ensuring that you choose good leads, and form good teams. We put a lot more effort into this versus just putting random people together.
The more people paid, the more accountability they felt. If people are seeking accountability to begin with, "skin in the game" is a must. Self-motivated people don't necessarily need the external accountability. Financial incentives are just one component, but the culture we've built (which might be more of the soft side to successful accountability groups) helps reduce the drop-outs. We use daily updates as a way to preempt any potential drop-outs as well. That, or the members let their teams know ahead of time if they can't make a call (the respect part).
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As a result of everything we observed in The Pack over the years, we eventually decided to build https://hona.io, which won 1st place judge's choice at a pitching competition in front of Tim Draper. We're currently on the hunt for others who are passionate about productivity, community, and accountability as we are!
Hey Merott, I'd love to pick your brain as to why it was hard for ppl to get on a call at the same time and why they were dropping out?
Was it just not a good fit for those ppl so they didn't value it?
I think that members weren't just committed enough. Perhaps a one-time $10 payment was too cheap? I'm sure if they'd paid more, and paid every month, they'd be more committed. But, money alone is never enough as a motivator.
Was there any major aspect/characteristic (from what you could tell) that separated the people who dropped out vs the ones that tried to stay on longer?
I felt the ones that stayed were motivated on their own, and didn't need me.
That's one of the reasons I didn't know how I could improve the product. It just felt out of my hands.
I do read everyones standup posts and check out what they are doing. I think this is more of a personal commitment platform. Having a group of people committed to strategizing about your project would be nice, but it requires a lot of time and thought when most on here are trying to put everything into their own projects. That being said, I think there probably is some place out there for product consultancy on the web.