Thread by @dominiconorton

How I developed a project that teams from Fortune 500 companies use.

A thread:

/1

Mind my own business on social media until I find something interesting. This time it was @Pinterest employee Makeathon. I was researching hackathon related events for my podcast @hackathonent

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I assumed there was a problem:

Remote teams struggle to find activities to engage.

This assumption was also triggered by my experience as an architecture student and what I thought the built environment meant for team dynamics.

How do teams stay close when remote

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Love it or hate it WeWorks thing was experience. What does this mean for remote teams working in their house or coffee shop and not a coworking space or regional office. I did some research...

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One of countless stats I found that basically says employees are not engaged at work. This means teams are not engaged. This also means the team relationships are shaky.

Now imagine being at home, how disconnected you are from your colleagues.

I set to change that

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Because this is a project and not a business or VC investable venture I didn’t worry about monetisation or scalability. This is important to note because depending on your end goal your beginning will differ

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I also researched who is providing solutions in the virtual team activity space already. I found a many great companies.

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I thought about a team leader and the little time they have searching how I searched for activities on Google is inconvenient. (I typed “Virtual Team Activities”).

Was there an easier way?

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I came across blogs that listed activities in one place. This is a lot of better! but I still wanted a more robust search. Filter by cost, duration maybe rating and type

I couldn’t find anything that made the experience more convenient

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I decided it wouldn’t be hard to curate these lists and and a filtering and sorting feature and of-course I went and used no code using @webflow and @airtable

There can’t be any bugs if you don’t write an code

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Never used Airtable before but through @NocodeHQ I found a video by Automate All The Things to build a job board using Webflow and Airtable and followed but adapted for my use case.

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Airtable stores the data. I had to manually input this data tbh there wasn’t a crazy amount but could use @fiverr to pay somebody for the low to do it.

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I use Webflow to display the data. Embed the Airtable base by copying and pasting HTML. It does 1 thing and 1 thing really well. Allows you to search online team bonding activities for your remote team.

That’s it. That’s the product.

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I asked my friends to test it with their teams. This was good for feedback but also helped me get some cred

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I came up with a random name last. Took 5 minutes. First thing that came to my head. Mize. Didn’t know what it meant. It’s means when somebody ignores you often. Thought that’s a cool oxymoron with the product. Sorry if you hate it lol

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I then thought about how I describe what it is more and how to condense to a couple of words...wait for it...

An marketplace for online team building activities

Might work, might not. Doesn’t stop me moving forward.

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In my latest episode of @hackathonent @rohangilkes suggested to build an audience at the same time as product. That sticks with me. I built this so fast didn’t have time to before it was finished.

Still thinking of ways to get companies to use at scale. It’s free and fun

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Maybe I do the raw and email every startup between 1-50 employees and suggest a free tool for them.

Marketing isn’t my thing

Any tips?

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Oh I made the logo in Canva. I just choose a cool font and stuck an M on a background. You can see in the top left corner

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I didn’t even buy a domain!!!!!! The domain is really not as important as people make out especially if it’s invite only which this is. Right now from warm leads.

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I would love ideas on to push or add to this. UI/UX is horrid, can add a lot more features but during beta all that is excessive. Does it in its most basic state improve the users life.

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I like to think it:

1) makes it easier for team leaders to find new and exciting virtual team activities.

2) makes it easier for vendors to advertise their services to teams and companies.

What do you think?

#BlackTechTwitter #100DaysOfCode #NoCode #remotework

Go easy on me for the typos

@rohangilkes @mselyserobinson

mize-4c7579.webflow.io

On mobile the Airtable embedded data doesn’t filter and sort. The downside of no code is the full functionality you want. The upside is the speed and cost.

As you say @rohangilkes work with the resources you have now.

That means scale idea down for first version temporarily

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