Hello from Stella, Justin, and Brian,

Tl;dr we’re launching a new venture.

**Update** The Hoop private alpha is live. Sign up here!

Thank you for joining us on our adventure to help people live their most fulfilled remote working lives. We’ve benefited from your advice, participation and general excitement so far, and we’ll be updating you about once a month to share news and ways for you to get more involved in our journey.

The Beginning

The three of us met many years ago when we were building Trello. Justin led Product, Stella led Marketing, and Brian led Operations, Finance and Legal. The year was 2014 and we were growing a distributed team with a strong remote culture.

We learned a lot along the way, implemented practices through trial and error, and brought many remote-friendly practices into Atlassian when we were acquired in 2017.

A few years later in 2020, our unique experience as a remote team had newfound resonance. Suddenly, the majority of knowledge workers became remote office workers as the pandemic shuttered offices across the globe.

The Crossroads

The reality is that two years after the pandemic, the working world is at a crossroads. Companies can choose to:

• Replicate outdated office practices remotely resulting in the always-on culture of notifications, meetings and burnout

Or

• Optimize for remote best practices including culture built on trust, documentation, and asynchronous communication

The first path is where we see most companies flailing, and most knowledge workers struggling. Current tools and practices exist to support this path, but as we’ve seen, they are not sustainable.

The second path is the one that unlocks the potential for people to thrive creatively, and for companies to reap the benefits of a remote workforce. The next generation of communication and collaboration software will support this evolution of work. This is where the tools of tomorrow will meet the future of work.

The Solution

The future of work lies in companies adopting the processes, tools and culture around asynchronous collaboration. As more knowledge workers collaborate across more timezones, being in meetings and responding to chat in real time is an untenable way of working.

Study after study shows how detrimental the “always on” culture is. Here’s an image from a recent study showing how stressed the brain can get after multiple video meetings with no breaks. Yellow and red represent elevated stress. Blue represents less stress. Taking breaks between meetings is clearly better for humans, yet many knowledge workers are stuck in back-to-back meetings day after day. It’s no wonder many people are suffering from burnout.

There are alternative ways of working, and some companies have already realized the benefits of asynchronous collaboration. Success is measured based on outcomes, not hours spent grinding. Many of these companies are hugely successful, able to hire top talent globally, and do not sacrifice growth for individual happiness.

Yet, asynchronous collaboration isn’t easy to implement. It requires thoughtfulness, intent, and process. We believe software driven modern tooling, built with asynchronous work at its core, can help.

The Product

So where do we fit in? Stay tuned for more. 🙂

**Update** The Hoop private alpha is now live. Sign up here!