Flow

This is around when we started to retain some users on a day to day. This milestone was vindication that our idea and product was providing people a valuable tool in managing their browser. If we continued to satisfy our current users, we could include pricing soon.

We built a mailing list of friends and acquaintances who were interested in trying out what we had to offer. These were folks that struggled with managing their browser and were willing to try our product. Building this mailing list was valuable in launching to a wider network than immediate friends.

We built and launched a Chrome extension that lives in our customers' new tab page. The version of Flow at this point would remind you to "wind-down" at the end of the workday by saving relevant tabs and journaling any important notes. We built this version with no backend. It was a fully frontend application built in React.js.

Some of the technical improvements we wanted to make for a 10x better video-calling experience were dependent on hardware specifications that weren't widely adopted yet. We went back to the whiteboard a couple times to identify other problems our friends and family faced. We finally landed on work-life balance which had been upended because of COVID-19 and remote work. A lot of people spend significant time within their browser. This seemed to be a great place to build tools for people to "wind-down" at the end of the day and enjoy the mental space from work they desperately needed.

As the pandemic and lockdowns started into full swing, we spoke to our friends and saw how existing video-calling solutions fell short of truly connecting with more than one person. People speak over each other and it's difficult to have side conversations.