TeamBuddy
Wojciech Kocjan
Team building for remote companies
TeamBuddy is my latest side project. It's a combination of team directory with icebreaker questions. I missed a lot this kind of app as a remote worker. It's always very challenging to know better your remote colleagues and this is the problem I wanted to solve.
Most of the tools in this area are focused on the work itself - tasks, goals, reports, projects, etc. My goal was to create something else - built around the people.
Because in the end, it's the people who make the team. And we all need to feel a sense of belonging and to build strong relations with each other.
I've launched TeamBuddy in 2020. The app is fully integrated with Slack and implements a few ideas:
- Clubs - virtual spaces that groups people around similar interests.
- Team Directory - extended profiles of all team members.
- Icebreaker questions - each club comes with its own set of questions.
People can join any clubs they want to, as well as create new ones and/or suggest new questions.
The goal is to allow everyone both to express themselves and learn more about their colleagues.
What have I learned?
- Inertia.js - I always try to learn a new technology while working on a side project. This time I decided to use Inertia, so I could easily combine Laravel on the backend with React components on the frontend.
- Pest PHP - I used Pest for writing and running my PHP tests. The syntax is very similar to Jest and I enjoyed it a lot.
- Slack API - the app utilizes much more than just the "sign in with Slack" functionality: events subscriptions, custom welcome tab, user onboarding, and a bot for user notifications.
- Product development - a broad spectrum of new experiences in this area: from deciding what to include in the MVP, idea validation, building in public, "designing" the LP and the app's interface (thanks Tailwind UI!), and much more...
More info
2020
