In the Groove

Our spotlight this week shines on Groove, the “accountability” app for solo workers - you’ll find it at Groove.ooo. This is an app I can’t stop using myself, so I thought it merited a closer look. 

Groove was founded at the height of the pandemic by a trio of entrepreneurs who felt that, even before Covid, they weren’t getting the connection vibe from the coffee shops and co-working spaces they’d been using. (CEO Josh Greene is ex-WeWork, so he should know.) The app’s purpose is to help people focus and get stuff done, through a clever combination of encouragement and peer pressure.  Think of it like you’re running the London Marathon for the first time - those cheers will help you find those last ounces of energy when every muscle is pleading with you to give up.  

A Groove session involves three or four randomly chosen groovers who meet for 50 minute sessions.  As soon as the session starts, each participant shares what they are going to be working on and their goals for the session. Then the cameras go off and, as the clock ticks down, participants tick off their completed tasks, to the accompaniment of digital hi-fives from the others. At the end of the 50 minutes they all come back together to share how they got on before either starting another session with another group, or stopping there. 

Groovers are everywhere. Last week alone I met Ann in Cape Town, Haim in Zurich, Fatima in Mumbai, Josh (not the CEO) somewhere very remote in the US, Amy in Leicester and many others. We’re all working in different fields, at different stages of our careers, with different motivations and goals, but we’re all working from home and, although we have demanding clients, we don’t have bosses or colleagues present to egg us on in person. There’s no requirement to follow up with anyone after a Groove, but in its nature it encourages curiosity and connection and so often you either send or receive a follow up connection request on LinkedIn or the like. 

So aside from it being a particularly great user experience in its own right, as we are all about community, how is it doing that well? 

Community is at the heart of everything

Well for a start, community is central to all they do, and as such it’s telling that their first external hire was Head of Community, Taylor Harrington. All the comms, positioning and general vibe is all about connection; without that it would be a much more arid, less interesting place to be.  (Of course, there are other accountability offerings out there, but they all seem to rank tech first, human connection second.)

Personal

The communications are so darn good.  We know their emails are automated, but they’re written in a way that you really do feel they are for you personally. They have clearly worked hard at crafting their brand voice and values and this runs through everything that is sent out by them. They encourage engagement with the app (congratulatory messages once you have done a certain number of Grooves etc), plus everything “from” Taylor is actually useful.  When was the last time you could say that about many of the emails you receive? A case in point, last week’s email even gave us a recommendation of how to sort out your email inbox – transformatory. (go check it out for yourself ) Note this was not about Groove, but it was related to work and helpful.

Valuable

After three years of staring at the same four walls, for many people working from home has lost its lustre.  Motivation can wane, and without that background office white noise it’s just so quiet.  There’s a huge temptation to go for a walk or to a café just to change the mood. Groove provides a similar change of gear, without having to stop working. It therefore reduces downtime and boosts productivity, while also easing away the tedium.  It’s low-friction (super easy to sign up/ in etc) and really does add something to your day. A great example of a community giving tangible value to its members. Equally, for those just starting out in their career, it’s an opportunity to network with people they might not get to meet naturally. There aren’t as many relaxed and non-structured opportunities to do that anymore. 

Since it’s a private, venture-backed company which is not being written about so much (yet), we can’t include impressive user stats, but the app seems to be getting busier - it’s now rare that you can’t find a group to set up a Groove with instantly and obviously the whole platform requires a critical mass to be online at any given time to actually work. We wish them well and, you never know, the expression “to groove” might come to have a completely different meaning to the one from back in the day.