Sqwiggle helps remote teams collaborate and stay connected through text and video.
For many startups, remote team members are a familiar reality. While products like Skype and Google+ help teams connect across distances, even those have their short-comings. Meet Sqwiggle: a new platform that stays online all day to help remote teams stay connected.
“It’s a challenge working remotely and having consistent communication with each other,” co-founder Matt Boyd told Silicon Prairie News. “Whenever you disconnect, it’s a complete disconnect.”
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Boyd and fellow co-founder Eric Bieller hail from the same Missouri hometown, where Boyd has since returned and now works from. The two began discussing the challenges of remote teams, and soon met Buffer co-founder Tom Moor, who joined the Sqwiggle team soon after.
Boyd and his co-founders started developing Sqwiggle in February and within two weeks had a product in hand to release a private alpha. One of the first companies Sqwiggle tested its new product with was Lincoln-based startup Bulu Box.
“They instantly felt the awkwardness of it,” Boyd said. “So we started thinking, ‘Why is this awkward? Why not open Google+ Hangout and keep it going all day?’”
Boyd explained that the constant video stream almost inhibited effective conversation—people walk by, background noise becomes distracting, conversations become muddled.
“So we came up with this elegant solution of black and white still images for when you’re not chatting—to show a psychological disconnect—paired with full-color, HD video,” he said. “That kind of difference is illuminating, that kind of experience is a compelling connection.”
Now Sqwiggle users simply click on a co-worker’s darkened photo to be instantly connected via video so users are still able to tell if a co-worker has stepped away from their desk without the uncomfortable feeling of a constant stream. Sqwiggle launched its public alpha in April, and has since noticed that 95 percent of the conversations that take place on the platform are less than two minutes in length, a statistic Boyd attributes to the platform’s “watercooler similarities.”
“These are literally very short blast discussions,” Boyd he said. “That’s really difficult with products like Skype or Google Hangout where it’s more difficult to get everybody in one place.”
In August, Sqwiggle closed a $1.1 million round of seed funding, raising about 30 percent of that capital through AngelList‘s newly launched Syndicates feature. In fact, Sqwiggle was the progam’s pilot company because of what Boyd calls, a “right place, right time situation.”
A few days before Boyd and his fellow co-founders headed to San Francisco to meet with potential investors, he sent an email to AngelList founder and CEO Naval Ravikant on a whim. Much to his surprise, Ravikant not only responded to his email but also wanted to set up a meeting and see a demo of Sqwiggle’s product.
“I remember leaving that meeting thinking, ‘That was the most important meeting of my entire life,’” Boyd said.
For $9 per person, per month, remote co-workers can utilize Sqwiggle services to chat, communicate over video and even create separate workrooms for different teams within the company. Boyd says company size ranges from firms with two or three developers to startups to larger companies with hundreds of employees.
“We have some pretty major enterprise customers who have over 100 people in their company on Sqwiggle,” Boyd said. “It’s cool to have that sort of persistent connection with over 100 people throughout the day.”
Just as Sqwiggle’s co-founders remain truly remote—Boyd in Missouri, Moor in England and Bieller in California—the rest of its eight-person team is scattered across the country as well. As Sqwiggle continues to hire, Boyd says it’s unlikely they’ll take geographic location into consideration.
“Being remote is a large freedom,” he said. “We’re finding this raw talent, and for us the barrier of entry is lower. All-around remote working just promotes a lot of things we believe in as a company.”
Discover how Sqwiggle can help remote teams from members of its own team:
Credits: Photos courtesy of Sqwiggle. Video from YouTube.
