Subscribe
Sign in
Undesk 0.1 — A virtual office for max productivity
Undesk combines a collaborative virtual office & a private productivity tracker. Try Undesk with your team. They'll come for the office energy. They'll stay for the personal productivity.
218
Replies
Best
Yamato Kaneko
Maker
📌
Hello Product Hunt👋 I'm Yamato, building Undesk from Tokyo together with @sho_yasuda_undesk.
When we launched Undesk Beta 6 months ago, we were nervous. Undesk is being built by just the two of us, and we weren't sure if it was PH-ready. But the community has been amazing and we have learned a lot from your feedback.
One of the unexpected reactions from our beta users (this is my favorite part of the product discovery process😎) was the amount of feature requests for our productivity tracker. While they spend all day in the virtual office for ad-hoc voice chats and meetings, they come back to the dashboard several times a day to see their own time usage. Some users continue to use Undesk even when they are alone in the office, just to keep track of their activity.
We have found that this feature becomes a strong incentive for teams to come back to the virtual office every day. So today, we are introducing the Productivity Score.
It is like Oura Ring for work. Just sit down and do your work as usual. Undesk will automatically track and score your productivity. Rest assured, this data is a personal life log just for you and will not be shared with anyone🔒 We are not building a micromanagement monitoring tool. We're building a collaborative space to help you improve focus quality.
We're just scratching the surface of the future of work, but we'd love your support. Dive in, explore your productivity potential, and let us know how we can make Undesk even better. We still have a waiting list, but anyone who signs up via PH today will get access before anyone else. Visit undesk.space and join us as we pioneer the next wave of remote work!
P.S. This is what my productivity looks like preparing for this PH launch👇
Report
Share
Maker
@sho_yasuda_undesk @mohini_shewale Thank you for your comment! Yes, we will continue to listen to our users and iterate as we always do!
Maker
@sho_yasuda_undesk @oumaima_acharki Thank you for your support! Will do our best!
Maker
@sho_yasuda_undesk @prof_magician Thanks for your question!
Prototyped and tested for 6 months. Kinda decided the direction.
Developed for 6 months. Launched Beta. Learned a lot.
Developed for 6 months. Launching today!
Maker
@sho_yasuda_undesk @louisa_gendelle This launch is indeed a great milestone for us! Thank you very much!
Maker
@sentry_co If you're a 100% async remote team, like the famous GitLab, you probably don't need this product. But most teams can't keep up with documentation, are tired of endless slack messages, and overall speed is dropping. And they end up thinking, "Maybe we should go back to the office. We want to change that. We think working remotely can be better and should remain an option for many teams.
That is a great question! Thanks for your comment!
@yamatokaneko Remote vs Local is a big conundrum. You get more focus from remote, but your employee may start to drift their attention and god for bid have multiple remote gigs 😅. What are some of the positive effects you see teams get with your products? I assume you have been beta testing this with a few teams over the last year or so?
Maker
@sentry_co I see 2 kinds of interesting positive effects.
1. The team basically lives there all day. All internal conversations happen in Undesk. It basically replaces Zoom and Calendar. Short ad hoc conversations instead of 30 minute scheduled meetings.
2. Some teams keep logging in with almost no conversation. They come to surround themselves with other avatars in action to feel like they are working side by side. They come to log their work habits to improve their productivity.
Fewer teams are like #2, but they have strong retention. That's why we've revamped the Productivity Tracker features in this release.
Virtual offices are near and dear to my heart, since I previously built Tandem I'm intrigued by the combination of a virtual office that can lower friction to talk with a productivity score...which can create incentives to be in focus mode and not talk. Do you find these are at odds?
Maker
@rajiv_ayyangar Wow Rajiv! You are like the father of the virtual office! We got a lot of inspiration from Tandem! Thanks for your comment!
And you are so right. We actually debated this internally and were kind of afraid to release it first. But it turned out that adding Productivity Score didn't change user behavior that much.
Some people always wear Airpods in the office, no matter what. Some people always say, "Talk to me anytime." With or without the productivity score, they didn't really change (at least not yet).
But since we can detect whether a user is in a flow state or not, we can probably show others that "it's not a good time to talk to me." In this way, we could reduce the incentive to go DnD while indicating the best time to talk.
Super interested in hearing more of your thoughts 😄
@yamatokaneko that's a really cool thing to learn! Detecting flow state was something we talked about but never seriously prototyped. 🙌
Maker
@rajiv_ayyangar We're still in the very early stages, but it's working really well so far😀
Launching soon!
@yamatokaneko Congrats on the launch (a little late to the party I know) But it looks like the team crushed it without any support from my side haha!
I am checking out the product now. Love the UI and I love the idea behind it as well.
Quick question - what size if team do you find this to be most effective with? I presume it would work for all sizes but what would the optimal use case look like?
Maker
@dzaitzow Having observed about 100 teams through user testing, I would say 10-30 is the perfect size. With lots of people in action, you can feel the energy of the office as soon as you open the window.
But interestingly, there are a lot of solo users who use Undesk just for the productivity tracker.
We are just a team of two. But there is no way we could have done this launch without Undesk.
So I really want to recommend it to teams of all sizes!
Launching soon!
@yamatokaneko Love it - I appreciate that answer VS the party line of (It is amazing for teams of all sizes) - of course I presume it WOULD be amazing for teams of all sizes - but it's nice to know where you see it being most effective.
Congrats on the launch Undesk team! Combining virtual co-working space and productivity tracking sounds wonderful!
I got the question, which is answered in the first question of the FAQ section:)
What kind of productivity data is available for the managers? How do your alpha users use the data to improve productivity?
Maker
@atsuhiro_teshima As you've already noticed, activity data is private. Managers don't have access to anyone else's data. The data is for your own personal use only.
Alpha users started noticing things like
- Too much context switching resulted in a low score despite working long hours today.
- I didn't know I spent so much time on Slack. I thought I was on VS Code a lot more.
- It's great to see that my time on Figma has increased over time.
It's just the beginning. But these insights can become a trigger to change work habits :)
By the way, my launch day was the non-stop non-flow state, unproductive long hours... super frequent context switching between Product Hunt, LinkedIn, X was definitely not productive😅
Wow Yamato! It's impressive how you face productivity for remote teams. It looks awesome mate. Really congrats on this launch!
Maker
@german_merlo1 Thank you! We've put a lot of effort into designing this product to meet the needs of remote teams, so hearing your positive feedback means a lot to us!
Much needed. What's the unique sauce that will keep you floated? I have observed that many such products have not faired well beyond certain initial traction. I hope you have backed your launch with a solid growth plan.
Undesk looks like a curious and fun way to track personal productivity 🪀 I'm very interested to see how this tool develops, especially for agencies. Congrats on the launch! 🥂
Maker
@olive_haus Agencies tend to have multiple projects going on. The team tends to work on completely different things. As a result, there can be a lack of a sense of side-by-side collaboration.
Undesk is carefully designed to improve the experience of working in single player mode. Even when you are quietly focused on your deadline, you can see other avatars in action and active applications changing. It's a completely different experience than just seeing Slack's green dot 🟢
Congrats on a launch, @yamatokaneko ! 🚀
Amazing tool for remote teams to sync faster and always know on what your teammates are working on to stay aligned – and it all feels like a game. Plus, cool tracking feature to checkup the productivity.
Keep rocking.
Maker
@anliamets Thank you! Feel free to explore further and let us know your thoughts 🎸
Love the concept. I can imagine having an integration into Slack or similar. So when you go to the channel to chat, you could be visually located in a room, and the chat messages that happen there get visualized in the room. Just thinking out loud.
Maker
@jsteneros Linking your avatar presence to Slack channels sounds interesting.
Huddle icons do something similar, but with a stronger visual effect.
There might be too many rooms, but we could dynamically change the arrangement, etc.
Congrats on the launch Yamato! It's a great tool to track productivity of remote teams. Will definitely try it out.
Maker
@ashimanski We can't wait for you to try it out. If you have any feedback or suggestions along the way, we'd love to hear them!
this is reaaaaally epic! You just gained a user! I have to test this with my team! It will feel less lonely when we all work from different countries! Congrats on the launch! 🏆
Maker
@matej_cabadaj Undesk can definitely help reduce loneliness and speed things up. We could not prepare for this launch without it! Look forward to your feedback!
I love the direction toward team productivity! 🙌 I've been following Undesk for some time and testing it out. Love the product, trust the team - congrats on the launch! 🥳
Maker
@maxkorpinen Thanks Max! Personal productivity tracking has worked very well so far to keep the team coming back to the virtual office. The more time the team stays there, the more communication happens. Thanks for your support from the beginning!
Love the comparison to Oura ring, but for work. Excited to try it out and experience the dashboard view on my own -- kind of like you say in your maker comment,
> Some users continue to use Undesk even when they are alone in the office, just to keep track of their activity.
Congrats on the launch Yamato!
Maker
@cara_jacqueline Yes, we love to see users like that. If you're not using it with your company, you can invite your friends and use it as a co-working space, etc. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
How does Undesk determine and calculate the Productivity Score? Are there specific metrics or algorithms in place, or is it personalized based on individual work patterns? Can't wait to explore this innovative approach to remote work productivity! @yamatokaneko Congratulations on the launch!
Maker
@tornike_tsiramua1 Thanks for the great question! It's based on specific metrics and algorithms.
I used this explanation in another thread, but I want to rephrase it here😋
We calculate the score in 3 steps.
1. We first categorize each whitelisted app into Deep work (development, design, documentation, etc) and Shallow work (messaging, calendar, meetings, etc).
2. If you actively use Deep work apps for a certain threshold of time, you enter Flow state.
3. When you are in Flow state, you earn Productivity Score more efficiently.
There is much more, but these are the fundamentals. We've spent a lot of time dogfooding internally and with beta users. The score we've calculated is pretty close to how we felt about our self-assessed quality of focus.
But we are still in the early stages and want to add more factors to make it more accurate. We look forward to your feedback!
Looks great! It's refreshing to see an app that enhances human interactions ranked #1. Congrats on the launch 🎉👏
Maker
@niklasbuchfink Haha, sometimes non-AI apps can get the #1 spot, right?🤣 Workin' on it🔥
Lovely user interface. I signed up for my team and we all love it. We begin our day with Undesk before checking our emails.
The statuses and the desk are clean, the nudge, the calls, the rooms are a great add on. Good going Undesk. Cheering for you :)
Maker
@prathima_d Thank you for your feedback! We are glad to hear that opening Undesk has become part of your daily routine ☕
Hey @yamatokaneko Undesk 0.1 is a game-changer for remote work! The blend of collaborative and private productivity spaces is brilliant and will definitely come on handy while working with my hybrid team at Kniru
Have you considered integrating more personalized productivity insights? It could help users fine-tune their work habits even further
Maker
@aayush_kniru We are trying to make it as automatic as possible to reduce the complexity and to make it easy for everyone to continue to use it. But yes, we are definitely open for customizations. Do you have any specific settings in mind?
love this, our team is fully remote so this would be helpful to keeping everyone accountable to still executing in a timely manner!
Maker
@nicholas_shao Thank you! We understand the importance of accountability when working remotely. We can't wait to see how Undesk improves your team's productivity!