Many office workers have rejoiced in the ability to work from home in the post-pandemic years, but for those who miss the camaraderie of an office or coworking space, a startup called Groove lets people find coworking partners by the hour.
Groove got its start, unsurprisingly, during the height of the pandemic-era lockdowns, when CEO Josh Greene and his cofounders were looking for a way to capture the experience of sitting alongside colleagues in a coworking space or coffee shop. They settled on an app where users can meet strangers or acquaintances in a kind of virtual lobby, joining a group of up to four for a session that includes a five-minute intro video chat, 50 minutes of independent work with cameras off, and another five minutes to wrap up over video. The app is largely used by freelancers and solo entrepreneurs in fields like software, marketing, and copywriting.
Greene says his team liked that the app included a mix of accountability—users typically discuss what they’re working on and can optionally check off tasks in a checklist, notifying their Groove partners as they finish them—and social connection. But for many, he says, the real benefit comes from the structure it brings to their day, especially as many long-term users find groups of people they like to regularly work with at the same time.
“It becomes the backbone of how they will get their work done in a day, especially their deep work,” he says. “They ride the sessions—there’s a positive wave that comes out of the hour.”
Sherita Harkness, owner of the strategy consulting business Trading Fourz, says she started using the platform last year at a challenging time in her life when she was going through a stressful move and had seen several family members pass away. “I should probably join something that’s going to help me get out of bed in the morning,” she recalls thinking. “Within the first week, maybe, I ended up meeting maybe four or five different people.”
Now, she says, she regularly sets her alarm to hop on Groove and work alongside the people she’s met there. “My office is just across the hallway, or it’s a coffee shop,” she says.
Those sorts of connections have likely helped the platform survive where other pandemic-era work tools have faltered, with more than 30,700 Groove sessions, or a total of more than 1.5 million minutes of Grooving, logged between September and November. The app emerges from beta on Tuesday, with membership at $18 per month or $120 for a whole year; Greene says he prefers funding the platform with a membership fee to alternatives like advertising, in order to keep it aligned with user needs.
Lex Roman, an Atlanta marketing entrepreneur who’s participated in about 400 Groove sessions, also says she appreciates the support she’s gotten from others on the platform. “What I learned is people were really interested in what I was doing,” she says. “I became interested in what they were doing.”
That has naturally led to helpful business connections and social media support for her projects, as well as concrete discussions of projects she’s working on. Roman typically uses Groove when she’s putting together her marketing podcasts and, in one recent session, she found herself talking with another user working on a YouTube video about video editing techniques.
Even as the beta ends, the platform will remain invite-only, so the company can make sure users are a good fit for the platform—though that doesn’t simply mean workaholics: Harkness says she’s been on sessions where people freely admit they didn’t accomplish much, with no shame, and she’s used the platform during nonbusiness tasks like cooking Thanksgiving dinner.
Joining a session where someone was preparing food also helped get Roman enthusiastic about the app. “My first Groove, somebody was cutting up venison, and I was immediately sold on the app,” she says. “I was like, people are here, living their lives, and this is an experience you cannot get anywhere else.”
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