
Show HN: A support network for working remote – my idea to overcome cabin fever - ob1gman
http://hi.remotetogether.com
======
mdip
Gotta say - Well done.

I'm a remote guy and have been for over 10 years (different companies) and
being a part of a community targeted at "just remotes" is something I've
wanted for a long time.

The site is polished; extremely so for something "brand new". It was a joy to
write my first two posts, setup my profile and read _literally everything_ on
the site this evening. Little things like the activation e-mail not ending up
in my spam folder in GMail (which seems to happen with every "Show HN"
activation message) make me believe you've got a bit of experience doing
things like this.

There haven't been that many forum/HN/Reddit-style sites that I've actually
been excited about -- I'll be checking back in frequently and I hope you
manage to build up an active community as a result of the work you've put into
this.

~~~
insteadof
The polish, the forums at least, are probably due to using what looks like
Discourse to power the discussions.

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ob1gman
This is kind of the story behind RemoteTogether for anyone interested!

[http://hi.remotetogether.com/t/remotetogether-why-
now/20](http://hi.remotetogether.com/t/remotetogether-why-now/20)

~~~
erikb
You should write a little more why people should put there trust in your
website. I mean, it's basically a forum, right? What should make me believe
that you are cabable of forming a community that helps each other in these
regards? What does it have that Reddit, Stackoverflow and HN don't offer
already? Etc.

E.g. we have an aggregator for remote workers. We will gather contracts for
you, help with book keeping, have a project manager and corresponding tools
prepared (issue tracker, wiki, chat channels) etc. To not make it an ad, I
won't say our name. But I just want to show you that people already spend a
lot of effort in that area. Certainly the demands we have working remotely are
not all met already. But right now it's hard to see what makes your site
interesting.

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arsenide
I love this idea. To come back to this page do I have to go through HN? I
tried going directly to hi.remotetogether.com straight from a new tab and it
does not work.

Unfortunately I will probably be not contributing at this current moment, as I
am in the camp of "looking for remote work" and not "currently employed doing
remote work" :)

~~~
ob1gman
Any chance you could send me a screenshot of what you're getting?
info@remotetogether.com

hi.remotetogether.com should work. Got to resolve this problem. :)

~~~
arsenide
[http://i.imgur.com/COZJe0p](http://i.imgur.com/COZJe0p) \-- looks like the
main landing page!

~~~
ob1gman
Looks like an issue with DNS. Resolving now. :)

~~~
marshray
I see what you did there

~~~
peterhadlaw
Thanks for pointing it out to me, twas so subtle I almost missed it

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scribu
Seems very similar to [https://nomadforum.io/](https://nomadforum.io/)

Not all remote workers are nomadic, but all digital nomads work remotely.

~~~
ob1gman
Yeah - very true. I would say if you're a digital nomad you should join
[https://join.nomadlist.com/](https://join.nomadlist.com/).

Looks like a great community and if I were a Digital Nomad I would join. But
if you work from home I'd love to have a network around that... And that's why
I've created RemoteTogether.

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joshbackstein
Because you are dealing with passwords, I'd really recommend forcing HTTPS,
which unfortunately doesn't seem to be available at all.

Other than that, I like it!

~~~
ob1gman
I'm going to set that up tomorrow. I honestly wasn't sure what kind of
feedback I would get, but so far most people have been excited.

If you want to send me your email I'll let you know when I've finished setting
it up. Thx for the feedback! And good call!

~~~
joshbackstein
Sounds great! It should be on my profile now.

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kchoudhu
Hey, I'm starting my first remote gig this week. How very, very timely.

~~~
ob1gman
Awesome! Sign up. Would love to talk more!

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mjcsmf
Really nice forum! It's quite difficult to find the remote community, there
are a lot of forums with communities related to it (digital nomads, nomads,
freelancers) but not for remotes.

I am a remote worker at [http://www.whitesmith.co/](http://www.whitesmith.co/)
and since the beginning, that remote work is part of our core culture. And I
hope you don't mind but I would like to share with you the way our remote
workers have a presence in the office:
[https://remotes.in](https://remotes.in). Started to be an internal tool but
right now is open to all remote workers, our goal is to create the biggest
remote HQ in the world! This tool is in beta version and I would love if you
try and give us feedback :)

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orthoganol
Is this a community/ support group or your startup? Noticed you are calling
yourself 'founder'.

~~~
ob1gman
So hi.remotetogether.com is a community and support group, but I'm going to
eventually create products around RemoteTogether.

The forum is just the start. Also have some podcasts coming soon. Sorry for
the confusion.

~~~
orthoganol
Thank you for the honesty. I am always looking for support groups as a remote
worker and occasional traveler, but to be honest myself, I believe there are
too many opportunists/ profiteers in the digital nomad 'industry', and it
simply annoys me. I will not be participating, but I wish you good luck.

For anyone interested, r/digitalnomad is probably the best 'support group'
currently.

~~~
ob1gman
yeah - no problem. This isn't quite for Digital Nomads really. Honestly, I
think digital nomads already have a community... I work from home. I don't
work from other countries really.

So my vision is to create a community of Remote workers.
[http://levels.io](http://levels.io) has done a great job of creating a
community for Digital Nomads. RemoteTogether is more for the people who work
from home and spend upwards of 10 hours at home working.

~~~
orthoganol
Levels also has had a fair share of backlash in the DN community for being
said profiteer ($100 to join a Slack group, for example. $20 for 14 page
'guides' for cities with info mostly taken from free forums, etc.). If he's
your model, go for it. I would just add an asterisk to your use of 'support
group' or 'community.'

~~~
ob1gman
Hmm. I didn't quite realize that, honestly. I don't plan to monetize
hi.remotetogether.com. I could maybe see ads at some point on there? But
that's about it. I have other monetization strategies. Like create an actual
product.

Also, I would say what Levels.io has done with nomadslist.com is exceptional.
I've used it for a couple of trips (Vacations - DigitalNomad-ing) I've been
on. I realize you may not be a big fan of him, but he's done some good! Just
food for thought.

Thanks for the responses though. Very. Very. Very. Insightful. Things I hadn't
considered.

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sharemywin
your confirm email field isn't big enough for my email weird because your main
one is.

~~~
arsenide
I had the same problem before realizing it is actually a "username" field.
Maybe add a "confirm email" textbox because most of us are probably used to
having one on all website signup pages?

~~~
ob1gman
I'm looking at this right now! :)

Sorry for the inconvenience.

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jmm7175
Getting 502 Bad Gateway when trying to confirm account.

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ob1gman
Oh no! Can you send a screenshot to info@remotetogether.com ?

thx!

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jmm7175
It's working again now!

~~~
ob1gman
Ok. Good!!

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bobbles
Great logo! Just signed up

~~~
ob1gman
Thanks! :)

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voltagex_
Activation email for hi.remotetogether.com didn't come through.

~~~
ob1gman
Did you check your spam folder? Since we're a new org we are a little unknown
by some spam filters.

If it's not in your spam folder will you email your account details to
info@remotetogether.com ? That we I can diagnosis the issue better. Sorry this
is happening to you!

~~~
ob1gman
Just looked you up via your HN username. Looks like the email went through and
was delivered. Hopefully, it's in your spam folder.

~~~
voltagex_
Turned out to be connection issues on my end! (Gmail on Android doesn't seem
to really report those)

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hhw3h
It would be nice to use my email as my username.

