This sounds incredible! I keep finding how much I miss these small interactions we take for granted when teams aren’t working the same place!

👋hi all! Dan here, one of the cofounders of Donut. In the past seven months since we all went unexpectedly remote, the number of organizations using Donut has doubled. We’ve also seen employees finding more and more creative ways to stay connected. However, we quickly discovered a paradox: while so many of us are feeling isolated, we’re also suffering from Zoom fatigue as we live our entire lives on constant video calls. The obvious solution to one problem only exacerbates the other. After speaking with customers about their challenges, we learned a few key lessons: 1) When working remotely it is most difficult to replicate the daily interactions we take for granted in an office, like saying hello in the morning, 2) There’s an upper limit to the amount of Zooms you can schedule in one day without losing it, and 3) Teams that are distributed across time zones need solutions for forming relationships asynchronously. Introducing Watercooler: @Donut’s newest solution aimed at recreating the serendipitous, random, and fun connections that we used to enjoy in the office IRL. How it works: Watercooler regularly posts topics right in Slack, to break the ice and start genuine conversations with thoughtful, silly, and/or timely topics that may even spark some light-hearted debate. The best part? It’s designed to welcome extroverts, introverst, and everyone in between, to create real connection across global time zones. We’ll be here so let us know if you have any questions, or if there’s anything else we can do to help – and don’t forget to take care of each other. 🙏 Also, if you’re a nonprofit, educational institution, or free Slack-based community, we have special plans for you. Reach out and we'll set you up.

Excited for this... a way to make our new work lives feel a little more like life-life. #proudinvestor

This is cool, I’ve been needing something like this!

We are huge fans of Donut at @gettroops ! Culture is such a big part of success for smaller companies and startups, and it's a lot harder to have it shine through in a remote setting. Donut helps us feel more connected across the company. Very excited for this product as an alternative to "Zoom happy hour" fatigue!

This is great! What an easy way to start the conversation for all types of people. Would love to try this!

Awesome new feature!! Can't wait to use it 😊

Yes, yes, and yes. As someone who’s now permanently remote (even “after corona” as we all have gotten used to saying) I miss office interactions that don’t circle around work topics. Building relationships is so important to a healthy, functional team. Very excited about this!

Such a great idea! Interactions like this are what I miss most about the office.

I just left a meeting about remote work policies and a key area where folks got stuck was employee engagement. This sounds like a great way to maintain and build personal relationships in a work environment where they are becoming strained.

We were part of the Watercooler Beta and my teams loved it. It kept people connecting and sparked so many interesting conversations, personally, I look forward to the question and taking a coffee break to read the full thread just to learn more about everyone.

This is the part of office life I so desperately miss the most! So excited to add this to our Donut repertoire at Bravely!

This is great! We were running into this problem on a previous team of how to recreate some more social interactions with our team rather than having everything be work focused and wanted something just like this. Love it!

I've missed even the TV show catchups what would happen while making coffee. Or overhearing them (and then decided to watch the show...)

What a great idea! I am about to start a new role at a new company, and something like Donut would make it so much easier for me to get to know my new colleagues.

This is such a unique and interesting idea, it really has been a struggle to keep my teammates engaged while working remotely and this seems like it would really help with that!

Great idea @danmanian - specifically the conversation starters...this is what has been missing in other attempts to do things like this.

This is such a creative way to bridge the gap between the old school office social dynamics and today’s huge emphasis on working remotely! I’m excited to try it out

Great concept. I can't tell you how many times I've messaged my coworkers in the last few months to say, "I JUST WANT TO CHIT CHAT!" As younger generations enter the workforce without that foundation of collegiality, and as we are increasingly working asynchronously (due to COVID or otherwise!) we need to find ways to build camaraderie.

We have been testing out Donut Watercooler in our organization for the past few weeks. The engagement has been wonderful and our employees really seem to look forward to when the random questions post! I also see us using this as an informal way to ask questions about business-related topics that we want to get feedback on. If your company is primarily virtual (who isn't these days!?) Watercooler is a must!