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SoapBox — A simple and beautiful app for 1:1s and team meetings 👏
Level up your management and your team when you use SoapBox to fuel your one-on-one and team meeting agendas. Managers and employees can collaborate on a shared agenda, take notes, summarize important decisions and add next steps in one central place.
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Thanks for posting this @robjama!
We made GoodTalk to help us have better 1 on 1 meetings. But, as we started getting more and more value out of it we figured this is something we should share. So we couldn't be more excited to be finally launching GoodTalk with all of you today.
We believe the single most important thing a manager can do is help increase the motivation of employees to do great work. 1 on 1s are ground zero for making this happen. I wrote more about how we got it all started here: https://medium.com/@i_am_brennan...
We're hungry for all of your thoughts and feedback!
@robjama FYI: That's one of the best intros I've read in awhile. Short & sweet, and I'm interested because of it.
@i_am_brennan I really love this concept. I can't tell you how many meetings I've sat through that just don't go anywhere. Lack of goals and objectives really squash the productivity. Looking forward to testing this out more. // @robjama
Oh, I also submitted it to BotList. Feel free to email me edits or additional media. seth@botlist.co https://botlist.co/bots/2282-goo...
@sethlouey Awesome Seth! Thanks so much. I think we'll be taking slightly different approach to goals in the future - making them helpful and engaging instead of boring fields to update ;)
Congrats on the launch, team! As Robleh mentioned, you became the #1 small business to work for in Canada - what advice do you have for those looking to define their company culture?
@darynakulya Awesome question! I wish it was as simple as just a few words, but I'll do my best. Hopefully the team will add anything important that I've missed.
1. Find great people that you want to work beside all day. Don't let anyone in - especially in the early days - unless it's a perfect fit.
2. Once you have a few people, then it's time to actually define the culture. It's easy to do this step too late. It's also easy to do a bad job of it. Our cofounder @warrentanner wrote a great post on how we actually did that: https://medium.com/be-like-a-sta... you can also download our handbook there.
3. Now that you have values, run your company by them. We make hiring/firing decisions on it. I use our values as a scorecard for tough decisions sometimes. No one is above them, not even you. Sometimes that's hard.
4. Finally, in software at least, your whole business leaves the office every day. If it doesn't show up on Monday then you've lost it all. Listen to their feedback, ideas, and problems. They're smart people. Listen to them. Be invested in your team and they'll stay invested in you. Sometimes that'll feel like another job. @warrentanner and @bryan_rusche created an amazing long term goal setting document that we use with each employee to help them grow at work (and in life). https://modernmanager.io/how-to-...
@darynakulya Brennen said much of it! Something specific is that its about the people. SoapBoxers are good humans - they help each other out, are open with their thoughts and are a super ton of fun.
It makes coming to work great and leaves me happier at the end of the day than when I arrive!
Great idea @i_am_brennan & the @SoapBoxHQ team! 1:1's are definitely a big deal for all types of companies. Love how this is being solved in a chatbot! Streamlining the 1:1 experience is a must! Excited to try out!
@johnkyeremeh Thanks John. We had some great inspiration from Obie!
Really interesting integration into a tool we're already using. What would be helpful for us is the addition of a peer review section - our 6 month reviews contain a "how are you" section, but also a "how do your colleagues rate you". Overall, very smooth and well worth a shot.
@andreasduess neat idea Andreas. Something we'll keep in mind as we grow
Thanks for all of the kind words everyone! I hope you guys enjoy GoodTalk, and get as much value out of it as we have already. Can't wait to hear your feedback!! 😃🚀
@i_am_brennan Team forms the core of any product to evolve into either success/failure. To taste the former, team needs to be collaborative through 1:1, 1:M communications.
At that level, this product is a beautiful comer for the startups essentially. Congrats Bren.
Looks great @grahammccarthy, @i_am_brennan, @warrentanner! Would love to try this out but we're using Hipchat.
Thanks @seanpetersdotca! Right now, GoodTalk is Slack Only. But... in a couple of months we may have a solution for you 😉!
Really cool idea guys. I've added it to our team slack account and I am looking forward to taking goodtalk for a spin today in preparation for my 1on1s tomorrow
@jjloic 🎉 awesome to hear! Would love to hear any and all feedback you have as you go through your meetings! Feel free to post it here or email me brennan@soapboxhq.com when you do it
I'm not surprised a product like GoodTalk came from @i_am_brennan and the team at Soapbox. They have been working for years on solving communication and feedback problems in large teams.
Congrats on the launch!
@mhashim thanks Mahmoud! Effective Communication gets tougher the bigger your teams get. Our approach is to tackle the centre of all teams, the manager/employee relationship. If we can create alignment and clear understanding for this level, there should be a ripple effect in creating alignment and clear understanding at the team, department and company level! Thanks for the support! 👍
Congrats to Soapbox team on launching this. Super thoughtful and needed product. Takes any awkwardness out of 1-on-1s and any additional structure added (especially in a thoughtful way like this) is so valuable for employees and managers alike. Kudos!
Thanks @arteeninla! It's amazing to hear how many people share this pain point! Look forward to hearing more from you after your next 1 on 1!
I got an early beta of the product from @grahammccarthy, and really enjoyed the simplicity of the setup and management of the tool. I look forward to seeing where it grows from here. Nice work, @grahammccarthy and @i_am_brennan!
@iandouglas736 thanks Ian! @i_am_brennan and I have already started to incorporate your early feedback!
Really excited to see the GoodTalk product launch! Our corporate innovation customers are gonna love it. Congrats @jess_at_soapbox & team!
Awesome to hear @marcusdaniels. It would be awesome to play with Highline Beta and your customers!
For some FAQs on the new tool, check out the bottom of the GoodTalk website or get in touch! https://soapboxhq.com/goodtalk/
Super excited to see this on PH! I've been following the Soapbox trajectory for quite a while and I'm excited to see their next step on their mission to make the workplace better for everyone. Super relevant to my organization as well, people are the greatest resource and not developing as people and employees is a huge mistake. Good luck @i_am_brennan and the SB team!
This is absolutely great. Will be adopting this into my business ASAP, especially as we continue to grow.
@jonathan_bega Woot woot!! Let us know if you need help setting up - although the bot is pretty friendly so he can do that for you :)
This is great! This is so helpful to keep a format of 1-1 and keep track of them instead of hundreds of google docs and papers.
@sqr_m yeah separate sets of notes leads to people not being on the same page. It's 2017. We can do this
I've learned a lot about leadership and investing in great employees from Brennan, Warren, Graham and the team at Soapbox. Their employees are constantly growing, learning, feeling challenged and loving what they do! I'm looking forward to seeing GoodTalk help businesses all over the world accomplish the same thing. Congratulations on the launch!
This is great! Seems like this product enhances the One on One experience by getting the quantitative elements down before and after the meeting, effectively creating relative talking points for these meetings, which ultimately increases their effectiveness . Nice!
@nilesh_pandey Thanks Nilesh - that's definitely the idea - we want to help managers get set up before/after the meeting so they can make the most of their time during the meeting.
Big fan of 1:1s but often fail at taking enough time to prepare and follow up. This looks fantastic. Well done Brennan and team.
@i_am_brennan I have a 1-to-1 on Friday this week so have used it for that. The immediate thing I noticed is that the suggestions repeat themselves quite a lot. Would be awesome if "try another" discarded the suggestion so it doesn't come round again.
Also, it wasn't clear that the Google Calendar sync required a recurring event, I was expecting to connect the questions to an existing one-off event in the calendar (we don't use recurring events because people's availabilities vary depending on deadlines, vacations and so on). Apart from that, some really helpful questions.
@marccrouch thanks Marc! Calendar integration is very "MVP"... We've made a few assumptions in there based on how we do things... But looking at fixing it up now that it's out. Appreciate this feedback and we'll do our best to account for you in the future
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