{"id":614,"date":"2019-10-01T19:22:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T16:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arc.dev\/employer-blog\/?p=614"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:28:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T04:28:49","slug":"remote-team-high-res-communications-justin-mitchell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arc.dev\/employer-blog\/remote-team-high-res-communications-justin-mitchell\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote Team \u201cHigh-Res\u201d Communications: Justin Mitchell of YAC Chat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Today on the show, we have Justin Mitchell. Justin is the founder and CEO of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yac.chat\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YAC Chat<\/a>, a voice collaboration tool for remote teams. He\u2019s also a founder of SoFriendly, a software development company based in Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re going to dive into how Justin got his first startup gig in high school, how YAC Chat got their traction via Product Hunt Maker\u2019s Festival, the importance of high-resolution communication in remote teams, and the role of voice in the future of remote work and everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a fun chat with Justin. Hope you\u2019ll enjoy it too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a review on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/outside-the-valley\/id1481937930?ign-mpt=uo%3D4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iTunes<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The podcast is also available on your favourite players:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/outside-the-valley\/id1481937930?ign-mpt=uo%3D4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iTunes<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL291dHNpZGUtdGhlLXZhbGxleQ%3D%3D&hl=en-TW\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Podcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/castro.fm\/podcast\/5a2c6978-e8e7-4f02-a47d-ca3474778329\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Castro<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/itunes1481937930\/outside-the-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Overcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5qzXgcHzieXIRtXglSmUE8?si=rMPobXZtQwSU0wQ3grTAxA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/podcast\/outside-the-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stitcher<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/outside-the-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Player.fm<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/podcasts\/Technology-Podcasts\/Outside-The-Valley-p1251704\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tune In<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Follow us on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/arcdotdev\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0to get updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Looking for top talent fast? See how <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\/\">Arc<\/a><em> can help you:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u26a1\ufe0f Find developers, designers, marketers, and more<br>\u26a1\ufe0f Freelance or full-time remote + fully vetted<\/em><em><br>\u26a1\ufe0f Save up to 80% with global hires<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\"><strong>Hire top talent with Arc risk-free \u2192<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"topics-also-covered-on-the-podcast-episode%3A\">Topics also covered on the podcast episode:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>01:28 \u2014 How Justin got his first startup gig in high school<\/li><li>06:06 \u2014 What is YAC Chat?<\/li><li>07:46 \u2014 Why voice communications are better than written documents<\/li><li>12:44 \u2014 Using voice for async communication and clarity<\/li><li>26:33 \u2014 How YAC Chat launched via Product Hunt Maker\u2019s Festival<\/li><li>33:29 \u2014 Why Silicon Valley companies are doing themselves a disservice by not hiring outside the valley<\/li><li>37:04 \u2014 Why remote work can create a \u2018disconnect\u2019 between the CEO and CTO<\/li><li>41:12 \u2014 Why high-resolution communication is crucial for remote startups<\/li><li>45:23 \u2014 The role of voice in the future of remote work and other aspects of daily life.<\/li><li>48:50 \u2014 Using voice communication to increase accessibility<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"mentioned-resources%3A\">Mentioned resources:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/sofriendly.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SoFriendly<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/yac.chat\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YAC Chat<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/hotjar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hotjar<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/zapier.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Zapier<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/producthunt.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Product Hunt<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.producthunt.com\/stories\/the-400-000-tweet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The $400,000 Tweet<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mijustin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Justin Jackson<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.roche.com\/about\/priorities\/personalised_healthcare.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Roche Healthcare<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zoom.us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Zoom<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/makersweekly.io\/2019\/04\/justin-mitchell-yac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Makers Weekly episode with Justin Mitchell<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/earnestcapital.com\/request-for-startups-1-remote\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Request for Startups 1: Remote tools for remote teams<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tylertringas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tyler Tringas<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/twist.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Twist<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/doist.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Doist<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"full-transcript%3A\">Full transcript:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Hello, world. Welcome to the fourth episode of Outside the Valley, a podcast where we interview remote startup leaders, workers, remote work advocates, and companies who thrive outside of Silicon Valley. This is a podcast where remote companies share what works and what doesn\u2019t, so you can do it right. Outside the Valley is brought to you by Arc, the remote hiring platform that enables companies to hire remote software engineers and teams easily. I\u2019m your host, Jovian Gautama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today on the show we have Justin Mitchell, the founder and CEO of YAC Chat, a voice collaboration tool for remote teams. The YAC on YAC Chat is an acronym of Yelling Across Cubicles, YAC, which we\u2019ll talk about in this episode. Justin is also the founder of a software development company called SoFriendly, based in Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re going to dive into how Justin got his very first startup gig in high school, how YAC Chat got traction on Product Hunt\u2019s Makers Festival, the importance of high resolution communication in remote teams, the role of voice in the future of remote work and our every day life, and much more. I had a blast with Justin and I hope you enjoy this episode. Here we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So to kick things off, Justin, can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your company, starting with SoFriendly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Sure, yes. I\u2019ve been involved in startups for years now. I got hired in high school, in 11th grade actually, for my first startup. I got hired initially actually to do IT work for them and then didn\u2019t do any IT work. I immediately became a designer there. Overheard a conversation about them needing a UI design, I raised my hand and said, \u201cHey, I\u2019ve got a pirated version of Photoshop on my computer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0And boom, I became their UI designer, which is not typically how you kind of fall into that career. But from there, I kind of fell in love with that process of building out UIs. We bought me a license for Photoshop and the whole creative suite. I learned kind of on the job on the spot, which was really awesome. And from there, that company, I kind of popped around to a couple of different startups with that CEO. We built some products together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And when I was 19, I was fortunate enough to have my startup, my idea, my product actually come out as a startup. And we IPO\u2019d, which is crazy at 19, right? Like, what\u2019s the likelihood that your first try IPOs? So, from there, I took that exit opportunity with the startup and launched SoFriendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I learned a lot at that startup, especially just about how different companies kind of approach product development. And one of the things that I identified was especially a very engineering focused company. They\u2019re building things that they think are really cool, that they think is a great idea. But they haven\u2019t necessarily talked to their users. They\u2019re not asking their customers what they want, they\u2019re not user testing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, SoFriendly is this kind of call to action for startup founders to build things that are so friendly that their users just fall in love with them. So, the company exists and the agency as a whole started on this kind of call to action to say, look:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>If you\u2019re going to build something, build it beautiful, build it amazing. Talk to the users, put it in front of them, ask them questions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Do all this up front work instead of just launching something and then you finally get it in front of a user and they\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, we didn\u2019t ask for any of this. We don\u2019t want any of these features. These don\u2019t make sense to me. I would never use this product.\u201d Right? And then you just wasted all this time and money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, a lot of what we do as an agency is push back and say, \u201cAll right, so that\u2019s your idea. Let\u2019s validate it. Let\u2019s talk to your customers. Let\u2019s figure out what they want. Let\u2019s put it in front of them. Let\u2019s do some user testing.\u201d And you wouldn\u2019t believe the difference that it truly is in the marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think a lot of people would look at that and say, \u201cThat\u2019s obvious. Everyone should do that.\u201d But in agencies in particular, especially when you think about the offshore agencies that people typically go to, it\u2019s, \u201cSure, I\u2019ll take your money,\u201d right? Like, \u201cYou want to pay for this. I think it\u2019s a dumb idea, but I\u2019ll take your money, no worries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we really wanted to be different. And that was that idea that, \u201cHey, we might even say no to you.\u201d We might say, \u201cLook, we really don\u2019t think this is a good fit. We think you should go back to the drawing board a little bit. We\u2019re more than happy to help you.\u201d Right? And we even have specifically kind of geared towards low end packages where we\u2019ll say, \u201cLook, we\u2019re going to help you build this out before we actually build it out. We\u2019re going to help you build a plan and put together a requirement.\u201d So yeah, that kind of leads into everything we do and we build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what\u2019s cool about SoFriendly is a lot of times we will identify kind of a hole in the market and we\u2019ll fill it. So, we had a site called Syrup For Startups that was just discounts and deals for startups and entrepreneurs, you know? 50% of time tracking, 10% off your invoicing software, 20% off QuickBooks, just different things like that because we said, \u201cHey, it\u2019s really expensive starting a business. Let\u2019s do a discount site just for startups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, we launched that. And we started building out VR products and we saw that there was a need for good VR design tools. So, we build that called Draft XR, which is actually coming out soon for Adobe XD. So, there\u2019s all these different things that we do. And I know we\u2019re going to talk about it in a second, but that\u2019s where YAC came from, right? It\u2019s this I identified a problem. We talked to our customers, we saw this issue. And then we just built a solution for it, which is what we\u2019ve always liked about SoFriendly is it wasn\u2019t just an agency, it was always kind of this entrepreneurial design agency combo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. Yeah. Yeah, since you mentioned about YAC, which is actually the main reason that we have this interview because I really want to learn about YAC Chat, the tool, and how it enables remote teams to work better together. Hey, that\u2019s a good tagline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0So, for the listeners here, can you share a bit more about YAC Chat and what does it do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, sure. So, like I said, SoFriendly typically identifies a problem and then we build a solution for it. And what we saw especially in our agency clients was meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, right? Just tons and tons of meetings. And so, what we typically saw as an agency in our time is lots of waste time, lots of downtime, meaning we\u2019re not actually working. We\u2019re scheduling a meeting, we\u2019re in a meeting, we\u2019re going to our next meeting, we\u2019re getting off of a call. And the interruption in flow there is huge, especially for a designer or developer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, we wanted to do was not say, \u201cCut off meetings,\u201d because meetings and hearing someone\u2019s voice and talking to someone is so important, especially in a remote team. What we wanted to do was find a way to kind of have the best of both worlds, which was to say, \u201cYou should still communicate and we think it\u2019s very important to get on a phone call and actually talk something out.\u201d But at the same time, a 20 minute or even an hour long meeting is so disruptive to your day to day work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, we tried to find this balance between is there a way that we can have you talk to your teammates, talk to your clients, talk to your customers, whatever it might be, but it not actually interrupt your flow, but it not also cut down on that kind of personal connection. And so, that\u2019s sort of the genesis of YAC was this idea of, we need to keep you out of meetings. There\u2019s a time and a place for them. But we need to find a middle ground between Slack and a phone call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Right, yeah. That totally makes sense. But I\u2019ll be very honest with you, when I first came across YAC Chat, I actually couldn\u2019t think of a specific use case on how I personally would use it because in my mind, right, when you\u2019re working async, especially when you\u2019re working in distributed teams, you want to have written documents that you can always revisit, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, if I leave a voice message to my CEO, for example, in my mind, it\u2019s a risk that he or she will probably forget about it. Am I thinking about this wrongly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0No, so it\u2019s like a 50-50, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>So, what\u2019s interesting is right now we\u2019re talking about async is we\u2019re thinking, what\u2019s great about it is it\u2019s respecting each person\u2019s time. And what\u2019s awesome is that from an emotional perspective, I get my opportunity to speak. So, if I\u2019m upset and I need to say something, I get to say it when I need to say it. I don\u2019t have to wait for them to become available.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t have to ask them for a calendar invite. I just get to say it, which is really powerful in terms of allowing me to speak my voice and being able to feel like I was heard, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the flip side of that, the documentation side of it I think is almost like a completely different use case and we\u2019re building things out for that. So, let me cover kind of both sides of it. So, what we\u2019ve seen from a team building perspective is somebody gets upset. They go on a rant inside of Slack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What typically happens is the next time you come into work the next day, that\u2019s now just staring at you in the face, right? You just said a bunch of incredibly mean things. You were upset, you were angry, you were ranting, and all of your curse filled rants are now just in the Slack channel, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, it\u2019s kind of cemented there and it is void of emotion. It doesn\u2019t really tell the person how you really feel, they just know that you\u2019re upset and you\u2019re saying things that maybe you don\u2019t even mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>When you do it over voice, you\u2019re much more careful about the way that you say things, emotion comes through much better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, the person on the other end can truly understand, \u201cWow, this person\u2019s upset. They\u2019re not just being a dick right now. They\u2019re truly hurt and I need to hear them out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>So, that\u2019s kind of one side of it is the importance of voice in culture, team culture, team building, something that you miss out on when you have a physical office. You can walk over to that person and you can talk to them and say how they feel, right? When you have a remote team, that thing\u2019s just not there. And what typically happens is like, \u201cHey, can I call you?\u201d \u201cNo, I\u2019m busy right now.\u201d \u201cWell, what about in 30 minutes?\u201d \u201cSorry, I have another meeting,\u201d right?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, what we wanted to do was build a tool that allows you to immediately kind of get your voice out and be heard in that exact moment. And what\u2019s great is that on the other end, I can respond to it at my leisure whenever I have time, as needed, right? Sometimes it may not even require a voice response. I could say, \u201cHey, just so you know, I got your message. I\u2019ll write you an email up tonight when I\u2019ve cooled down,\u201d right? But the ability for me to be able to vocalize how I\u2019m feeling is super important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, to your point about documentation, that\u2019s where we\u2019re building in things for transcription, right? So, this idea that if I needed to save something, I could say, \u201cHey, send that to Slack,\u201d or, \u201cDownload that transcription,\u201d and then it\u2019s searchable and it\u2019s stored permanently. And that way, things aren\u2019t being missed, because one of the things that we see YAC as is kind of your replacement for Sticky Notes, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I know my wife, when she\u2019s at work, she works at Marriott. And what she typically does is she\u2019ll write up a sticky note for something she needs one of her team members to do. And she\u2019ll walk over and just stick it to their computer screen so that when they come back in from lunch, they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, okay, cool. That\u2019s a thing that I need to accomplish,\u201d right? And so, we\u2019re trying to replace that thing that again, you get in a physical office that you don\u2019t get in a remote team that essentially would just get lost in Slack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I know you mentioned before our call that a lot of people are saying that Slack is very noisy. I think there\u2019s a time and place for Slack. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re trying to replace Slack at all. But typically what does end up happening is some requests get sent, \u201cHey, I need you to take care of this.\u201d Then it just gets buried in all kinds of lines of text and all kinds of other conversations, or it was sent in a DM and then another conversation was started in a general chat. And it\u2019s like, \u201cI missed my DM,\u201d right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0And so, what we\u2019re trying to do is cut through all that noise and be like, \u201cOh, this is important. It\u2019s on YAC,\u201d right? Like, \u201cThis is a voice message that someone sent me. They took the time to actually record their voice. I should listen to this.\u201d And then, yeah, if it\u2019s something like a task that you need to do, we\u2019re building in functionality to actually snooze. So, you could snooze a YAC and have it come back to you in like an hour so that you can pay attention to it again, almost building it like a tasks list, voiced based tasking, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then the other way of course is send to Slack, boom. Click a button, it sends the transcription and the audio file. Now it\u2019s searchable and it\u2019s in your kind of team archive. So, does that clear it up for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And I can also see myself when I want to express something, if I need to say it out loud, it probably forces me to organize my thoughts a little bit more compared to just typing on Slack, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, what\u2019s interesting about that is we\u2019ve actually seen that be one of the biggest features that come out of YAC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Wow, okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s happened to myself. Actually, just literally the other day, I was on with one of our designers who\u2019s in Mississippi. And she said, \u201cHey, I really need to get on a call.\u201d And I said, \u201cHey, just use YAC. That\u2019s what it\u2019s for, right?\u201d We\u2019re even still training our own team members to try and think in terms of, \u201cLet\u2019s go async. We don\u2019t always have to get on a call,\u201d right? It\u2019s going to be a culture shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But she started using it and she\u2019s talking to me trying to explain this issue. And at the very end of the recording, she goes, \u201cYou know what? Never mind. I really just needed to talk it out. Sometimes I just need to hear myself speak the whole issue out, and then I can figure it out.\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cI already got it. No worries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0I can tell-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s that powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0I can totally see that. I probably want to say something, and then when I listen to myself again, hey, this sounds really stupid. I probably don\u2019t need to say this out loud, right? I sound really stupid. And probably I found a solution on that. So, yeah. I can see it. And I can also see the future where we don\u2019t \u2026 Like, and big companies like Hot Jar or Zapier, as far as I know, they have this SOPs on how to ask for things or how to write on Slack. I can see when it comes to voice, it\u2019s probably, \u201cOkay, when you want to say something, here\u2019s how you want to say it so that it\u2019s easy for the other party to digest.\u201d Okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, we\u2019re also adding this functionality of being able to YAC yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0YAC yourself. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0So that even if there\u2019s not a specific person that you need to say something to, you could record kind of a voice memo to yourself, snooze it if you wanted to listen to it later, or simply just record it for almost journaling purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>And again, it\u2019s the idea of once you vocalize a problem, you hear it out loud for the first time, your brain starts to process it in a different way. So, you have this opportunity to come at it from a different angle. You\u2019re hearing it kind of outside of yourself for the first time, so you can think about it as almost like a third party in a weird way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So, YAC has almost become this tool for just problem solving in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Right. That\u2019s kind of similar to \u2026 A popular writing tip is write like you talk, right? Write like you speak. So, it kind of also helps you to articulate things better. I want to get back, you mentioned that you guys built YAC because the problems that you see on your client side and for your own team\u2019s side. Is there any funny of weird anecdotes that make you guys think, \u201cGod, I wish we have this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest one is kind of what I said at the beginning is typically what we would see happen is a client would want a certain \u2026 let\u2019s say we have five tasks for them. Well, they\u2019d want five meetings for that day to go over all of those five projects, right? And the laughable thing for me was always like, when do you expect us to actually work, right? Are we supposed to do nine to five meetings, and then after 5:00 PM is when the real stuff gets done? It\u2019s like, no, this is our time that we\u2019re supposed to work. So, when do you expect the work to get done if we\u2019re on a call with you all the time? Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it\u2019s because I think a lot of companies \u2026 We\u2019ve already had to combat this enough. And I\u2019m sure that even in your own business you\u2019ve seen this where a company says like, \u201cHey, we need to hire a team, or we need to hire a dev or a designer. But we need them on site.\u201d And you\u2019re like, \u201cNo, no, that\u2019s the beauty of the internet is you can work remote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>But most companies are set up to expect and understand what an on site employee does and there\u2019s accountability for that. And I think what happened with remote work was that most companies said, \u201cFine, we\u2019ll do remote work. But now we need extra accountability. So, we need to know that you\u2019re working all the time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>And the way that that came out was, \u201cLet\u2019s just put everybody in meetings all day long. Let\u2019s constantly check in with them. Let\u2019s have a really active Slack chat,\u201d right? So, \u201cLet\u2019s constantly be talking because I don\u2019t know otherwise how to know if you\u2019re online.\u201d And the problem there is that\u2019s actually just distracting and incredibly non-productive, right?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So, what we wanted to do was build something that, again, it\u2019s laughable in my opinion, but most companies are saying, \u201cNo, no, no. I need constant communication.\u201d Okay, right. But I need three hours of uninterrupted work where no one bothers me. I can turn Slack off, right? And no one\u2019s interrupting me, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, we built a tool to kind of fix that, in my opinion hilarious setup, where clients hire somebody and then never give them enough time to actually work. So yeah, that\u2019s \u2026 What we\u2019ve seen typically is we get hired and they\u2019re like, \u201cWell, why isn\u2019t it done?\u201d And we\u2019re like, \u201cOh my god, man. We\u2019ve been a call with you for the last four hours. When was the work supposed to get done,\u201d right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. And that makes sense, especially when working with remote developers or remote freelancers, right? You want constant communication. But also other than the fact that you also want to have less meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ideally, if you are a freelancer, you have to report back to the clients, \u201cThis is what I did today.\u201d And I think there are some freelancers that prefer to say it instead of just writing. You\u2019ve been writing code for the whole day. I don\u2019t want to write another passage of reports or work reports to the client. I just want to say, \u201cHere. Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve done before. And if you have any questions, do let me know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And when you ship the transcription feature, it\u2019s probably like killing two birds in one stone. I can totally see that. Right. Cool. And I want to just move back a little bit to the event that started the journey for YAC Chat. So, you guys started the whole thing from the Product Hunt Maker\u2019s Festival last year, right? Last November?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, no. So, in November our product that launched at the Maker\u2019s Festival. It was the first one, so it was the first time they\u2019d ever done this. It\u2019s interesting to see kind of where it\u2019s gone since then and kind of the process. It was crazy. There was so much confusion and so much disorganization on that first one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the one thing that we saw immediately off the bat was remote tools was one of the categories. And so, I don\u2019t know what it was about that category that just sparked this. But as soon as I saw a category for remote work, I was like, \u201cI know exactly what I want to build. I know exactly what I want to build.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, over the course of Thanksgiving break, we actually build the very first version of YAC. And at that time, it actually was called Yelling Across Cubicles because the goal there was to, again, emulate that idea of like, \u201cHey, man. I need your help. Could you just come over to my desk for a second?\u201d Right? Which is something that you have in a physical office that you miss out on in remote work, you know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you are a remote worker, it\u2019s \u2026 I would say relatively difficult to get ahold of someone. And when you are getting ahold of someone, it\u2019s usually interrupting their flow. And so, what we wanted to do was try to emulate this idea of just kind of shouting across the cubicle row and saying, \u201cHey, dude, I have a question for you,\u201d right? And so, the first version of Yelling Across Cubicles, or YAC as it\u2019s now known was actually synchronous. So, it was realtime. It wasn\u2019t async. But what it was is you would click a button on someone\u2019s face and your voice just immediately came out of their speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, instead of calling and dialing and all of the stuff we\u2019ve gotten used to with the way that voice communication tools work today, there was no rooms, there was no dialing, it wasn\u2019t a call. It was just, I click a face, audio comes out of their speaker. And they can reply or they can not reply, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was almost like an intercom, if you want to think about it like that, like an old school, \u201cHey, Peggy, could you please come into my office really quickly?\u201d And again, it was to emulate that idea of maybe they\u2019re not at their desk, right? And you just yelled into a black hole. And it was this idea of emulating real life. And it\u2019s interesting how it didn\u2019t work out in terms of us shifting obviously over to async.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the reaction to the app as a whole was incredibly good. People love it. It\u2019s had tons of downloads. Obviously we ended up winning that category, which was really great. And I wouldn\u2019t say that I didn\u2019t expect it, but I certainly didn\u2019t expect the reaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People were \u2026 If you looked at the whole list of everyone\u2019s upcoming projects, we had massively more email signups than everybody else. It was like that \u2026 It took that hacker space kind of project and people reacted to it like a real product, right? They looked at it and went, \u201cOh, okay. I would use that. That seems like an actual thing instead of something somebody threw together over a weekend,\u201d which was literally what happened, right? We used a bunch of off the shelf technology like Talk Box and [crosstalk 00:22:06] and we just put something together really quickly and it worked and it was functional. And there was no signup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I know we talked about earlier about how being an agency, what that transition to a startup looks like. And one of the things that I think bleeds really heavily into the way that we build our products is for the hackathon in particular, we knew we only had a very limited amount of time to launch something, right? And we knew we just needed \u2026 One of the things that I always tell our customers is that the least amount of features that you have, like if you have actual less features, it gives them less opportunity as a customer to complain, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, your users have less to complain about if there are less features. And one of the things that we always do is say, if you\u2019ve got six features on your list, launch two of them and do 100% accuracy. Like, these are just the most solid features in the entire world, right? Because if those two features are just 100% solid, then their users don\u2019t have something to say about the other ones which may seem half baked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, at that time, we didn\u2019t have authentication. You couldn\u2019t log in on multiple machines under the same account. We didn\u2019t have usernames. You just got a randomly generated six digit code. So, all these things that were kind of like hacks just to get this thing out and ship it and to ship this product. And I know Justin Jackson, one of the things that he said that I think is really cool is, \u201cYou never learn if you don\u2019t ship,\u201d right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, it was this idea of like, I have this idea. Let\u2019s throw it out into the marketplace. Let\u2019s make it as scrappy as we can possibly do it and just see how people react to it. And people loved it. And what was interesting about that was the downloads that we got, you know? We had downloads from Roche Healthcare, which is like an enterprise healthcare company that I never in a million years would think would download a scrappy little hackathon project. I figured they\u2019re using Link Chat on their Windows ME machines. I don\u2019t know, that\u2019s just the perception that I have of an old school healthcare company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But no, they saw the promise of instant communication without all the extra crap that Skype and Slack and all these other tools give us. It was just pure unadulterated voice, boom. That\u2019s my coworker\u2019s voice. I just want to speak to them for a second, and never again, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, it\u2019s this idea of blips, in and out, really quick voice communication. So, we had really healthy downloads, lots of good signups. We eventually launched a website for it. Yeah, the original launch didn\u2019t even include a website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, no, we didn\u2019t even have a website for it. We just had a place that you could download. There was no screenshots or advertisements or anything like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0No landing page or anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0No. No. It was just like, here\u2019s the link to the actual product. So, people started signing up for the early access list because after we saw that kind of growth, immediate growth, what we did was we said, \u201cAll right. Let\u2019s invest some more time in this,\u201d right? Like, \u201cLet\u2019s polish it up a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We did a complete rebranding of the logo, complete rebranding of the UI. And none of that stuff was launched yet, but we were just kind of updating the existing app to make sure that it was stable for everybody. So, yeah. I mean, the hackathon is kind of what started it all. It was the poke that we needed to just say, \u201cHey, here\u2019s a subject line, write up a paper about it, right? I was like, \u201cOkay, I got it.\u201d I don\u2019t know, there was something about it that just immediately popped into my mind what I wanted to do. And we built it out. The reaction was really great. We saw all kinds of different industries using it. And yeah, that\u2019s kind of what kick started this whole thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Getting back into what you mentioned about how transitioning from agency startups is actually helping a lot in terms of your decision making, right? In terms of shipping. So, yeah, I definitely agree with you, I think for all startups, you\u2019ve got to ship fast. But I have my hypothesis that when you start up as a software development agency first, this mindset is more amplified because the \u2018ship fast mindset,\u2019 you have to transfer it to your clients, every new clients, \u201cOkay, do you really need these 10 features? No, you only need two.\u201d And then, a couple of weeks later, you do the same thing again. You say the same thing again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And getting back to your early beta users. So, you wrote a blog post on Product Hunt about the story of the launch of YAC Chat. And you wrote that early beta users for YAC included CVS, Bleacher Report, Hubspot, Mailchimp, Invision, CBS, and many more. How did they find you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0You know, I\u2019m going to be frank and say I have no idea. One of the things when I was talking, I did a couple of different interviews, and one of the things I\u2019ve always brought up is it\u2019s really cool to ride somebody else\u2019s success train, right? And Product Hunt obviously has a good healthy newsletter audience. They have lots of visits to the site on a daily basis. And that was audience metrics that we just didn\u2019t have to build, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, there\u2019s this kind of marketing hack in participating in an event like this because I don\u2019t have to worry about building an audience. I don\u2019t have to worry about building an email list. I didn\u2019t even have to worry about sending an email, right? Product Hunt took care of everything for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what\u2019s unique is most of Product Hunt\u2019s audience is immediately the audience that we\u2019re catering to anyway. They\u2019re a lot of remote workers, a lot of design and developers, a lot of product owners with smaller teams, right? You\u2019re not looking at \u2026 Even though we\u2019ve had people from Google download the app, your typical audience member on Product Hunt is not like a massive company like Google, it\u2019s a smaller product startup. And those are the people that we want to target with YAC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah. I mean, literally, we just kind of put this thing out. We\u2019ve never ran a paid ad. We\u2019ve never put paid ads out there. We did I\u2019m sure Tweets and a couple of posts on LinkedIn and stuff. But overall, it was a mention in the newsletter was huge. I think when the first makers festival newsletter was released, they kind of said, \u201cHey, voting has started. Here\u2019s a couple of our favorites.\u201d And Yelling Across Cubicles was listed, which was really cool. Obviously the guys at Product Hunt said, \u201cHey, we think this one has some promise.\u201d So, I think that was a big part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a medium post that was written about some of the top products that we were mentioned in. And then of course there was just the upcoming page and the voting page itself. And yeah, we just had literally at one point in time when this thing launched, we were getting an email signup per minute for three days. So, just constant, constant signups. And I\u2019m doing nothing, right? We were just sitting there enjoying free traffic. So yeah, I mean, advice to other startup founders is definitely to try and find something like that. It might not be Product Hunt. But it could also be another event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recently \u2026 We\u2019re talking on Zoom, right? But recently Zoom had some amazing news come out about them, where they basically installed a Trojan on everybody\u2019s computer, right? So again, that\u2019s an opportunity, maybe for us, but maybe for a voice or video chat app to say, \u201cHey, we\u2019re a video chat app that doesn\u2019t install Trojans on your computer,\u201d right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, riding kind of the train of an exiting event or another company that\u2019s already doing all this marketing is a huge way to get users. Yeah, it\u2019s interesting because we just haven\u2019t put money into marketing yet and we already have a very healthy user base of teams that have signed up on the early access list. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how we transition into just enjoying free traffic to actually having to pay for traffic. But yeah, it\u2019s been really awesome so far being able to just kind of utilize existing audiences and existing newsletters and not have to worry about trying to market it ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Great. I want to talk more about your team and how you guys are hiring. So, previously you were on a podcast called Makers Weekly, am I correct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0By the way, for listeners, if you want to learn more about the tech stacks for YAC Chat, go listen to the Makers Weekly episode with Justin. Justin just break down the whole technology using Electron, Talk Box, and I guess you guys used a bit of React on the development. So, worth listening. Go listen to that, after this podcast of course, don\u2019t run. So, yeah, one of the quotes that I pulled from there is you mentioned about \u2026 Sorry, actually let\u2019s just start, can you share more about your team structure now? How many core team members do you guys have now? And how many remote team members do you guys have?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. So, we started as just \u2026 There\u2019s three co-founders here, myself, Jordan, and Hunter. And Jordan had actually been working out of our Orlando office on the SoFriendly side of things for a number of years now. Hunter actually moved out to LA and had been working remotely for a little bit. So, he actually just recently came back to Florida. Inside of our Orlando office, we actually have one core team member that\u2019s here in the office every day. And then, everybody else is kind of a mix. Inside of the Orlando office here, we actually just have one designer that comes in every day. And then we have a mix of people that are kind of half remote, half in office, kind of come and go as they please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>One of the things that I always wanted to do as a founder, especially with the agency, was to not put pressure on people to have to come into the office because I do believe that I can successfully run a remote team and not have to force people to be in the office nine to five. That\u2019s just not the culture or the environment that I wanted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we do have people that just kind of show up. Actually, we used to do free food on Thursdays. So, everybody shows up on Thursday, right? But we do just have this mix of people that work from home say 75% of the time, even if they already live in Orlando. So, we still consider them part of our remote team. Outside of the team here in Orlando, we started out with a guy that was in Guatemala. He actually moved to Seattle. Then we had somebody in Cambodia, somebody in Mexico. We have a very large offshore development team in India as well. So, we\u2019ve got kind of people spread across the entire globe. Inside of our US team, we have somebody in Mississippi, somebody in New Jersey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>And what\u2019s great about that from a hiring perspective, and I talked about this on other podcasts in the past is this idea of not limiting yourself. What we\u2019ve found is that when you immediately as a company say, \u201cI have to hire somebody in this town, this city, this state,\u201d whatever it may be, not only are you limiting yourself to the people, but you\u2019re also really boxing yourself into a price bucket, right?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s not to say everyone go hire offshore because it\u2019s cheaper. It\u2019s to say that a digital nomad that\u2019s living in Mexico or that\u2019s living in Guatemala has a very different cost of living than somebody that lives in California, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think especially \u2026 It\u2019s interesting, you told me the title of the podcast at the beginning of this. But this idea that there\u2019s so many startups in the Valley. And when they\u2019re trying to hire<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I think they\u2019re doing themselves a disservice by trying to hire in the Valley. The cost of living in insane, right? It\u2019s so hard to build a team when everybody has to be making $70,000 a year just to literally survive, right?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, what\u2019s great about being able to run a remote team like that, it\u2019s not only being able to open yourself up to amazing skilled people that might not just be geographically located to you, but also being able to maybe hire a couple of extra people because the cost of living for those folks is very different. And so, you can offer very competitive salaries for wherever they might be at currently. And they\u2019re making great money and you\u2019re not losing a ton of money just because you have to have somebody in the office every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we typically look for people that are digital nomads that love to travel. And we can help with that lifestyle because I think part of that lifestyle is finding a company or a client, you know? If they\u2019re contractor or employee, but finding that relationship with a company that is totally okay with the fact that you might not work the same time zone as them, right? And being able to work around that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, for us, we feel great because we\u2019re able to enable that lifestyle that they want and we\u2019re relaxed and we\u2019re chill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>And as long as they get the work done, it doesn\u2019t really matter when they show up online, right? And the flip side of that is that I get to hire somebody that is exactly perfect for me. And I don\u2019t disqualify them just because they can\u2019t come into the office every day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we\u2019ve had really great luck just hiring on Reddit, actually. And it\u2019s not even \u2026 Right? Like, they have Reddit for hire, but it\u2019s not like an official hiring platform, right? There\u2019s no money and process and all that stuff. It\u2019s a community, right? And just being able to go to a community and say, \u201cHey, I\u2019m looking for somebody.\u201d And someone pops up and says, \u201cHey, I just finished some client work. I\u2019d love to work on this project,\u201d right? And being able to communicate and say, \u201cHey, what time zone are you? What hours could you work? What\u2019s your availability look like?\u201d Boom, add them to the team just like that, you know? No complicated interview process even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Exactly. I think the key of all this, like the beauty of hiring remotely is that even if you are a Silicon Valley startup, you can actually find people with the same level of intelligence, same level of development experience, and even soft skills and communication skills Outside the Valley TM. Outside the Valley, wherever they are, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because I think if you\u2019re a Silicon Valley startup, I assume you are great, right? You\u2019re a big company and you have these kind of international opportunities. And I think if you are an international talent, wherever you are, you\u2019re probably based in Asia or South America, you actually deserve to get these opportunities. Just because you\u2019re based in South America, doesn\u2019t mean that you need to have your opportunities limited by that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Right, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I mean, remote work opens up not only an opportunity for you as a company, but it\u2019s opening up an opportunity for the developer, the designer, or whatever the guy is that you\u2019re hiring. They now have an opportunity as a startup that maybe they didn\u2019t have before because of where they were born. And that\u2019s a ridiculous limitation for an amazing employee opportunity, right? Like, you don\u2019t want to limit someone\u2019s employment just because of where they might live.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0True. So, cool. So, I want to get back to your previous interview on the Makers Weekly podcast. There is this one quote that super fascinating for me. You mentioned that CEO and CTO not being in the same room can cause some kind of disconnection within the team. But when talking about creativity, it\u2019s much better when the teams are distributed. I have two questions about this. First one, how did you realize this? Is there any stories? And the second one, is the CEO and CTO disconnection thing something that can be improved using voice tools like YAC Chat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. There\u2019s many examples. I will try to give an example without blasting anyone in particular. At my startup that I mentioned at the start of the call, it was something that I saw very often where \u2026 And I don\u2019t necessarily know that even today with that quote that I would necessarily say that it\u2019s definitely in the same room. Let\u2019s go ahead and abstract that out to on the same page. One of the things that we obviously are building is a tool to help people to not be in the same room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the whole purpose of that statement is to say when there is a disconnect between the CEO and the CTO, someone who\u2019s leading the company and especially in a tech company like this where you\u2019re building a tech product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, at the end of the day, the product is the company. But you have someone that\u2019s leading the company and someone who\u2019s leading the product. And they might be going down two different paths. You end up at a very different spot than I think both parties thought they would end up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, what I typically saw in my last startup was a CTO who was amazing, incredibly smart, knew exactly what he was doing. But definitely had a different endgame than the CEO had. And that end goal being swapped and not at the same level caused a big chasm in the company, I think, in terms of the direction that it took, the way that it spent its money, the way that we released products, the products that we did release even, right? And it\u2019s funny because that still comes back to my original ask of, \u201cLook, if you\u2019re going to build something, it needs to be user centered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we typically saw was the CEO saying, \u201cHey, we need to ship product. We have to make money. Here\u2019s our roadmap, here\u2019s our milestones.\u201d And then a CTO that was saying, \u201cThis is a really cool feature. This is a really awesome patent. This is amazing technology. Let\u2019s put this technology in the product because it\u2019s impressive.\u201d And the CEO saying, \u201cDude, I just need you to sell something. We have to make money.\u201d Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, that issues of the CEO not being able to \u2026 I think the issue when I say not being in the same room is almost not even a communication thing. It\u2019s not that they\u2019re not communicating. It\u2019s that the CEO physically couldn\u2019t see what was being built, right? There was a disconnect between the product that was being built and the product that was being sold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it\u2019s the CEO\u2019s job to go off and get us funding and ensure the success of the company and keep pushing us forward. And if they can\u2019t monitor what\u2019s actually being built and they\u2019re not selling what\u2019s being built or the CTO is not building what\u2019s being sold, right? Then that disconnect is just going to lead to bad times at your company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, yeah, I definitely think that tools like YAC can fix that. One of the first features that we\u2019re going to be adding back into the app that actually got removed is screen sharing. And this idea that your communication can have context, right? And one of the things that actually got us one of our investors was this blog post written by Tyler [Tringas 00:41:00] talking about remote tools and remote communication. But one of the things that he said in there that I loved was high resolution communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this idea of if you\u2019re going to communicate, make it as high resolution as possible. Include a screenshot, include a screen share. Have a video of you doing whatever you\u2019re trying to explain. Slack just doesn\u2019t cut it sometimes. And email just doesn\u2019t cut it sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not to say that those communication methods shouldn\u2019t exist, but it\u2019s to say that, look:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>If you\u2019re going to try to communicate something, make sure that you\u2019re using as high resolution communication as possible so that the person on the other end has all the information they need, they understand the context, they can see what you\u2019re seeing and they can understand what you\u2019re saying.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think a lot of that bleeds into that CTO CEO discussion, which is if you\u2019re not going to be in the same room, you guys need to be communicating in a way that says, \u201cHere\u2019s what I\u2019m building. I\u2019m checking in. I\u2019m showing this to you. What are you selling?\u201d \u201cNo, here\u2019s what I\u2019m selling. Let\u2019s make sure that there\u2019s a match up of these two things, right? I\u2019ve told the investors we\u2019re building this.\u201d \u201cWell, that\u2019s not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was the other thing that we actually saw a lot of times was a CEO, especially one that\u2019s maybe non-technical a lot of times will tell the investors, \u201cYeah, yeah, this is what we\u2019re going to launch.\u201d And then the CTO\u2019s over there going, \u201cOh my god. Why did you tell them that? I can\u2019t build that. That technology won\u2019t exist for 10 years.\u201d Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, unless you\u2019re like a moonshot company and that\u2019s what you\u2019re working towards, having a mismatch on expectations on the technical side can really, really lead to a lot of problems. And we saw that happen a lot in that startup was the CEO appeasing an investor or answering a question maybe slightly different than it should have been answered. And us getting backed into a corner where now we have to build something that we definitely never planned to build. And I think communication and high resolution communication is the thing that\u2019s going to solve that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0So yeah. So, I can see the patterns here. Like you mentioned, early on in the interview, you mentioned about the communication between agencies or freelance developers with the clients. And now it\u2019s basically the same thing between CEOs, CTOs, and other stakeholders within the company. So, I guess basically for YAC Chat, the key is something like get people to be on the same page as soon as possible with less time. So, you don\u2019t need five or six meetings per week to get on the same page. Instead, you just send voice messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. I mean, the idea \u2026 And this is actually what\u2019s the first line in our pitch deck is frequent casual check-ins via voice. This idea of very small interactions just checking in. Like, \u201cHey man, could you give me an update on this project?\u201d Right? \u201cYeah, so I just pushed code, and it\u2019s ready to go live. I\u2019ll be testing it in the next five minutes.\u201d Boom, end of conversation, you know? Another two hours go by, \u201cHey, I just tested the code. It\u2019s good to go. I\u2019ve pushed it live. You can test it. And I dropped the link in your Slack,\u201d right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, it\u2019s this idea of using your voice again is going to create more meaningful relationships. It\u2019s also faster, we feel. A lot of times you overthink things when you\u2019re typing something out, trying to vocalize something over text and making sure you don\u2019t have typos, making sure it\u2019s formatted nicely and you don\u2019t look like an idiot to everybody in the group. It\u2019s just easier to just do it over voice sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0I honestly can see that. For example, if someone is asking for an update and he or she is using via voice, I\u2019d probably feel more obligated to reply to them, even if I haven\u2019t finished the thing. I\u2019d probably still feel obligated to at least tell them via voice. Like-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, a Slack message is much easier to ignore, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0When somebody took the time to actually send you a voice message, you\u2019re like, \u201cI should reply.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Like, voice, Slack message, and then emails. Emails are much easier to-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0So yeah, I want to end it with the big picture of the whole remote work scene. Recently, we have this kind of movement, I guess, of apps and products that help you to work asyncly. We have YAC Chat here, of course. And we have TWIST, which is developed by the Doist Team which created great products like the To Doist, and so on. So, in your opinion, what\u2019s next for async remote work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. I\u2019ll take that even one level higher, and I think that we\u2019re also in a resurgence right now of what I like to call passive entertainment or even passive learning. We see podcasts being very popular right now. A lot of people are switching over to audio books. It\u2019s this idea that you can do things \u2026 I mean, it comes down to efficiency, right? Like, I can read a book while I drive, which without an audio book was just previously something that you couldn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think that TWIST and all these other async tools, at the core, it\u2019s the same principle. It\u2019s this idea of you can work and still communicate, right? It\u2019s this idea of being able to do more than one thing at a time because we have tools that will allow us to be more productive. And so, a tool like YAC is not only there to say, \u201cHey, you can work asynchronously.\u201d But it\u2019s also there to say, you can listen to an update, you can speak an update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I actually a lot of times will be on a call with a client or a customer or even an interview, right? And a YAC will come in for me. And I will listen to it while I\u2019m on the call and reply just by simply muting my Zoom mic because I\u2019m able to actually communicate with that person just by sending them a quick YAC in the middle of an existing meeting, right? So, it\u2019s this idea of being able to multitask and do more than one thing at a time and it not being a distraction or taking you away from what you\u2019re working on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, for us, we see the future of remote work being this idea of you can work mobile, you can work from wherever, when whenever, right? And on top of that, you can consume updates, give your standup, communicate kind of passively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the things that I know that Hunter, one of my co-founders has been talking about is this idea that while he\u2019s in the car, he can just send YACs to people instead of texting and driving which is obviously terrible, right? He can just, \u201cHey, Siri,\u201d and send somebody a YAC. And that way, he doesn\u2019t have to get distracted. He can still communicate effectively. And yeah, it\u2019s this idea of being able to do things asynchronously and passively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, for the future of YAC, a lot of what we\u2019re thinking about is how you consume information. So, we\u2019ve just entered into this last Product Hunt Maker\u2019s Festival as well. We built something that we call YAC Bot. And it\u2019s this kind of chat bot riff, but with voice. We love our Alexas and our Google Homes, but they\u2019re relegated to hardware, and they\u2019re also loud for everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we have like an Alexa Echo Dot in the office over there actually. And everybody hates it because I\u2019ll ask for the weather or something, right? Because I need to know some information or when my next calendar meeting is. But it speaks it to everybody, right? It\u2019s not like a private thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, we\u2019re trying to take that concept and actually embed it inside of YAC. This idea of a very work focused, very asynchronous, passive learning and entertainment system. So, you could have a podcast inside of YAC one day maybe. Right now, we\u2019re adding really simple stuff, like the latest Tech Crunch article or the newest article from the Wall Street Journal, it gets read to you over audio. We\u2019re also thinking about accessibility, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>So, what\u2019s great about remote teams is that it enables somebody with disabilities to work on your team because they don\u2019t have to show up in an office, they don\u2019t have to work around existing office systems, they can work in their home where their home is set up for that disability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And what\u2019s awesome about that is with something like YAC, we can help vision impairment by maybe bringing them a little bit more into Slack than they could have been previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, imagine having a Slack message read out to you by the person who actually sent that, right? Their voice even. We\u2019re working with a couple of companies that are replicating voices using AI. So, this idea that now my Slack messages are read to me. Maybe even my email is being read to me. The top Product Hunt product of the day is being read to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, this idea that YAC is kind of this central repository for business and work and communication, but also just passive entertainment and consumption. And I think that that\u2019s a lot of where remote work is going is this idea that you can just be at a coffee shop and you could listen to the status updates for the day while you\u2019re working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>And the idea of remote work as a whole is this no boundaries. Like, time zones don\u2019t matter. Location doesn\u2019t matter. Language doesn\u2019t even matter anymore, right? We have all these tools that help people communicate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And I really want YAC to be at the forefront of that by providing additional tools on top of that layer to say, \u201cLook, we\u2019re going to enable you to work better, work more efficiently, communicate better, and communicate more efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, that\u2019s sort of where we see the landscape of remote work, and I think entertainment in general with this resurgence of podcasts and audiobooks and all these different ways that we\u2019re relearning how to consume information as our lives become busier and more chaotic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Justin, thank you so much for your time. And where can we find you online? And how can we try YAC Chat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. So, you can find me on Twitter. I\u2019m @JMitch, J-M-I-T-C-H. Yac.chat for our website. Right now, it\u2019s invite only, so you\u2019d have to either request an invite from somebody else that\u2019s already using it, or you just need to sign up on the website. We have kind of a two-step signup. So, if you do sign up, you\u2019ll eventually get an email with a referral code you can share to other people. We\u2019ll bump you up the wait list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there\u2019s also kind of a shortcut key, which is as soon as you sign up, there\u2019s a little link underneath the signup form that will allow you to fill out a full onboarding survey. And that requires some time. So, we understand that if someone\u2019s going to put in that effort, we should automatically bump them up that wait list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0That is super smart, actually. Great customer development \u2026 not trick. I hate the word trick. Great customer development process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, yac.chat and @JMitch, @yacchat on Twitter. Ask us questions, follow us. We\u2019re super involved in the remote work community. So, if there\u2019s a thing that bothers you that you think we could solve, hit us up. We\u2019d love to add it as a feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0Awesome, Justin. Thank you so much for your time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jovian:<\/strong>\u00a0And that\u2019s it for another episode of Outside The Valley brought to you by Arc. We created this podcast with the hope that with each episode you can learn something new from other remote startup people. So, if you have any feedback or suggestions, please don\u2019t hesitate to reach out to me at Jovian@arc.dev. It\u2019s J-O-V-I-A-N @ A-R-C.D-E-V. Or you can find us on Twitter @arcdotdev. See you next week with another episode of Outside The Valley and ciao.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>You can also try <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\/\">Arc<\/a><em>, your<\/em><em> shortcut to the world\u2019s best remote talent:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u26a1\ufe0f Access 450,000 top developers, designers, and marketers <br>\u26a1\ufe0f <em>Vetted and ready to interview<\/em><br>\u26a1\ufe0f Freelance or full-time<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\"><strong>Try Arc and hire top talent now \u2192<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What does &#8220;voice&#8221; have to do with remote work? YAC Chat founder Justin Mitchell shares his thoughts about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thought-leadership"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Remote Team \u201cHigh-Res\u201d Communications: Justin Mitchell of YAC Chat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What does &quot;voice&quot; have to do with remote work? 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