
Launch HN: Rally.Video (YC S20) – Dynamic video platform for social groups - Ali_Jiwani
Hey HN!<p>My name is Ali and I am one of the three co-founders of <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rally.video&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rally.video&#x2F;</a>.  Rally is a video application that makes it easy to hop between breakout conversations. Users can see and hear other conversations around them, as if they were in a shared space.<p>We started Rally because we needed to host a virtual birthday party, and existing solutions suck for larger groups. At the same time, we noticed bars and restaurants closing, and wanted to build a platform that emulated these physical spaces. With that in mind, we added venues, rooms, and tables. A venue (like a bar or banquet hall) can consist of multiple rooms (like a patio, DJ lounge etc). Each room can fit 35 people, and people can form tables (groups) in a room organically. Tables could have up to 9 people, and can be joined with a simple click. Users can create multiple rooms, allowing for events of all sizes, and we are working quickly to expand the capacity of each room.<p>What’s magical about this is how much more it feels like a real party, as opposed to feeling like a meeting. Instead of being stuck in a giant gallery view or siloed into breakout rooms, you are free to switch between tables and rooms as you like. Instead of everyone being on mute, you can choose to vibe off of the audible laughter and chatter from neighbouring tables in the room. You can also create private tables for more personal conversations and take the stage to present to everyone around you.<p>Since launching, people have used our platform for happy hours, team socials, hackathons, brainstorming sessions, conference networking, trade shows, virtual parties, and community gatherings. We know a lot of people are using Zoom breakout rooms for these types of events. Those work fine for board meetings, training, structured workshops and interviews. We think our platform is more valuable when you want less structure and a more social element. Simply put, if you want spontaneity, our platform works. If you want formal structure, use the other tools.<p>Rally is a web app, with video being streamed using WebRTC - so no plugin installation is required. It works best on Desktop Chrome. We are also working on a mobile version - coming soon.<p>I am really excited to share our startup with the Hacker News community. I have tried and failed at building a number of companies, and reading a lot of the content here has helped recharge my batteries and helped me keep going.<p>We are free for anyone to use until the end of August. We are still testing out different use cases and seeing where demand for our product is the strongest. I recognize the space is competitive, and would appreciate your feedback on our product. We’d be grateful if you tried it out for yourself, or joined us for one of our happy hours today or this week.  We’d be super grateful if you’d be willing to try it out with a group of 6 or more people, maybe with your work team, and letting us know what you think!<p>Start your own room by visiting <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rally.video" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rally.video</a><p>Attend a happy hour by signing up here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eventbrite.ca&#x2F;e&#x2F;happy-hour-at-rally-bar-tickets-116186802855" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eventbrite.ca&#x2F;e&#x2F;happy-hour-at-rally-bar-tickets-...</a>
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alfonsodev
Interesring! Enabling the social dynamics that naturally happen when large
groups gather together, is something defenitevelly needed and the existing
video conf solutions are too rigid to implement anything similar. Good job!

~~~
Wistar
In his 1998 book, "Interactive Excellence," Edwin Schlossberg identified one
key aspect of large group dynamics: A sense of audience. Particularly how much
more enjoyable it is at, say, a concert, when you can experience—see and
hear—others in the audience.

I have yet to see any remote technology that comes anywhere close to
representing that golden sense of audience.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Thanks for the comment. Haven't read that book but that is the basic
philosophy we have been thinking about. We are hoping our technology can
provide that kind of ambience.

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ConnorBowlan
I think we've all seen various attempts to solve this issue over the years,
but no one has quite figured out a decent UX to replicate the party
experience. I'm glad to see you haven't gone the common & kind of
intellectually-lazy route of moving an avatar around a virtual space.

Am I far off in thinking that the core challenge would be replicating the
transition between sub-groups? That moment where you'd like to move on from a
conversation and can gracefully step away without interrupting a conversation
to announce your exit, walk through the room until you hear something
interesting, sidle on up to another conversation without it feeling obtrusive,
then join in.

I wonder if the abrupt nature of popping into someone's conversation with a
new video-chat window would go against this. Either way, seems like an
interesting puzzle to solve. Plus, the market is big, has a ton of attention
right now, and any product has some inherent virality built in since some
number of attendees will try it again afterwards. Very cool.

~~~
moron4hire
> kind of intellectually-lazy

I think that was rather uncalled for. My own use of avatars was a result of a
lot of specific design decisions, around dissatisfaction with webcam video,
i.e. the incongruity between the theoretical reason for why it's there ("to
provide eye-contact!") and the reality that it fails at that task.

~~~
skinnymuch
It was not a personal attack. Makes sense some people won’t like avatars in a
world. I don’t think I’d like it either even though I wouldn’t word it like
OP.

Good luck with your project.

------
jimkleiber
I looked at it a bit and am pretty stoked. Not sure how the reliability will
work across different internet speeds and countries but will definitely try.

Main desire: ability to name tables.

In running workshops, sometimes each table will have a theme and then people
who want to talk about that theme can join the table. Would make it easier for
people to know what is being discussed at a table before joining. One
facilitation example is the World Cafe method [1].

Any way to do this now as a host or plans to include it?

[1]: [https://therightquestions.co/the-world-cafe-workshop-
facilit...](https://therightquestions.co/the-world-cafe-workshop-facilitation-
method/)

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Named tables would also lead to tribal separation, which may not be the best.

~~~
Corrado
What if the table names were generated automatically instead of allowing you
to specify them? That way the "lupiform" table is talking about Javascript
while the "wortle" table is all about cooking.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I think that would work as long as the table names were somewhat ephemeral.
Otherwise, people would eventually form identities as lupiforms and wortles
and you'd end up with the same tribal conflicts.

------
vyrotek
I really love the idea and have been waiting for more apps to support these
features!

That said, I'm a little concerned about the business model. What's preventing
the popular (and sometimes free) platforms such as
[https://whereby.com](https://whereby.com) or
[https://team.video](https://team.video) from adding these features?

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Great question. One answer is focus. These companies seem to be focused on
small business team meetings, and we are focused on creating social
environments for networking and hanging out. Another answer is around where we
want to take Rally. Video applications usually focus on making sure the
connection works. Little thought has been put into what happens after a user
is connected. This is where we believe there is an opportunity for multi
video/audio solutions to win. Rally could not only emulate a bar online, but
why not emulate a concert, a lounge, a standup comedy stage etc. There is a
world of online events that need more engagement and social functions and I
think Rally can solve for that. Ofcourse, this is just a 5 month old company
saying this!

~~~
ignoramous
> _These companies seem to be focused on small business team meetings, and we
> are focused on creating social environments for networking and hanging out._

Exciting! Can't wait to see how your product evolves.

------
triangleman
One thing I'd recommend is to focus even more on dynamically updating the
experience depending on the user's system resources. For instance if the
browser starts crashing with too many video/audio streams, or bandwidth makes
video basically useless, you could allow the user to participate in a
conversation audio-only, or automatically turn off background audio to save
bandwidth.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
That is a terrific idea! Thank you

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patchworkguilt
This is cool! I imagine this might be too far off your intended use case for
now, but Rally feels really close to the perfect solution for live
performances. Rather than breaking off into tables, you could use your
"ambient sound" feature to lower the sound of all the audience members, so
that you can enjoy the response of a crowd without drowning out the
performers.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Totally - we fully intend to try our hand at this space. Here is in article
when were still considering the space
[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/stand-up-meets-
covid-...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/stand-up-meets-covid-19-how-
platforms-fare-with-comedys-two-way-street/)

------
obiefernandez
I'm DJing in there right now if anyone wants to see how it might look for a
party!
[https://go.rally.video/venue/a999ddd9-ab89-4d9b-b509-d322d5e...](https://go.rally.video/venue/a999ddd9-ab89-4d9b-b509-d322d5e7a87b/5460748d-530c-4519-87b9-4ff4d33eba0d)

~~~
obiefernandez
Hmm. I'm not sure if maybe I'm not using it correctly or what, but I can't
actually hear people that have joined. (Might just be they're not talking.)

~~~
e1ghtSpace
Confirmed working now. Yes that was me. :)

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
haha was the party fun?

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GraffitiTim
We've been using Rally for our happy hours, and internal meetings where there
are more than ~5 people. It's great being able to easily hop between tables as
conversation topics shift. It brings back a lot of that serendipity that we're
all missing from in-person events.

In fact, I find it allows for _more_ serendipity than a lot of in-person
events. In person, once you're sitting down at a table it's socially awkward
to get up and move to another table. Mostly you just talk with whoever you're
sitting next to or across from. With Rally it's much more fluid. I find myself
hopping around all the time.

In our internal meeting this week we split into groups of 3, and then took
turns jumping on stage to report back to the group.

Disclaimer: we invested

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Thanks Tim!

------
thedrake
Would be good to have a sentiment about the "room" that could be displayed and
conveyed to others. An engagement or virtual clapping would show to others the
temp of the room. Also a key thing would be to have a way for a small room to
grow to a room of 3 or more. A way to discover new rooms that are interesting
would be good. Another thought is to have a time minimum that a person would
have to be in a room. While this is counter intuitive it would help provide
bouncing and promote a minute or more before making a judgement. I see this as
something that would be healthy and prevent room hoppers that never fully
engage and a attention currency that is helpful to meaningful engagement.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
We aim to release something around 'room presence' this week. Eventually we
will get to a feeling of answering which room is hot or not based on movement,
laughter, etc.

Room discovery is definitely in the works. We thought about a public bar
platform at one point. IE imagine going to a Japanese bar with your friends
online and hanging out with them. It feels like an interesting consumer use
case.

Minimum time is not something we thought of. That is interesting. Definitely
some food for thought.

We're from Toronto and not only are we Drake fans but 'The Drake" is a popular
bar in the city that used us a few times to host trivia and happy hours. I was
very confused at first when I saw your username haha!

~~~
thedrake
:) Credits could be a currency. You give them to the person/people in a room
and the room starter would get a higher percentage. The credits could also be
taken away/used when moving from room to room. This would help with the
currency/value placed on a room.

------
thebiglebrewski
Hey this is very cool! How does your product differ from
[https://spatial.chat](https://spatial.chat)?

~~~
moron4hire
From what I can see, inside each "room" it's basically a traditional
teleconference session, with the added wrinkle of having an audio feed in the
room from every other room at reduced volume.

Spatial.chat and my own Calla.chat provide a completely different interaction
metaphor. The room is solitary, but all audio in that room is spatialized.
Spatial.chat does volume scaling, Calla.chat does full spatialization,
including support for HFRT.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Calla chat is super cool! Would love to talk to you about it!

~~~
JVillella
[https://gather.town/](https://gather.town/) is another. Probably one of the
most solid right now.

We're trying to take it the direction of conferences/tech events with
[https://meetfromhome.io/](https://meetfromhome.io/).

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Nice! would love to talk to you as well- ali@rally.video

------
greggman3
I'm curious why you decided to target businesses instead of people.

In other words, the pitch on your site doesn't sound like a place I'd go as a
normal person to have a party with some friends. It sounds like a service a
company pays for to host branded events.

Targeting everyone seems like the explosive growth trajectory where as
targeting businesses does not, at least to me. If some venue uses this they'd
advertise themselves, not you?

I get that I'm clueless about this topic so I'm not claiming to be right. Just
curious. I get that business customers pay but the YC way seems to be growth
first?

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Our team thinks and builds consumer first - we're all fairly young and
artistic (some of us were musicians, standup comedians, and prank show hosts
in our past lives.)

We started by telling bars this could be a way to talk to your customers
during COVID but they wouldn't budge. We then saw business uptake first and
thought, this is what we should do, so we decided to go down this route.

Through YC we have been exploring different use cases and thus kept the
platform open for anyone to try. I think what we realized is the money is in
large conferences and remote teams. There will always be a free tier for
consumers and smaller communities, but b2b or b2b2c seems to be the direction
to take this.

I'd love to hear more ideas from you but definitely agree a fully open funnel
isn't right.

------
gardaani
Is this only about talking to other people or does it allow shared
experiences, such as watching a movie, playing games or watching a concert
together?

I'm thinking about something like [https://kastapp.co](https://kastapp.co)
where people can do stuff together. It's easier to hang out with other people
if there is something to do.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Kast seems cool. People have hosted watch parties on Rally to stream a sports
game or a webinar but it's not our forte. Fun fact, our initial customers were
standup comedians using us to deliver virtual comedy to their top fans. Might
be something we go back to at some point.

I am also a big believer in the watch party space. Shared online experiences
are an undiscovered opportunity in the consumer space. Happy to share more
thoughts on this as well!

------
jbaudanza
I really like this idea but I wish I could try it without linking my
Google/Facebook/LinkedIn account.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
As a guest you don't need to log in with your socials. For now hosts do but we
are working quickly on a login with out socials solution. Stay tuned, and
thanks for the feedback!

------
sathorn
Cool product! I've actually been working on something somewhat similar (WIP:
[https://cyberparty.io/](https://cyberparty.io/)).

Have you considered or tried playing background music to get more of a bar
atmosphere?

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
We have! We should also chat if you want - ali@rally.video

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nostrebored
Hey Ali! This ticks a lot of boxes I've been looking for from a workshop
perspective. Without a chat window available it's not possible for my content
though. Is chat coming to the platform any time soon?

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Chat is coming very soon. It won't be the same chat as all the other video
applications. Chat streams tend to make it hard pay attention to the
conversation so we purposely didn't add chat just yet.

------
ngngngng
As a "pro" feature, have people sign up for events that will coordinate
delivery of food or beverages at the start of the event. Everyone gets
doordash-ed tacos and beer at the start of the gathering.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
haha this is a great idea and definitely one we have tried with a few teams!

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NiceWayToDoIT
Is there a demo/video of this I just want to see before trying?

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
There are a few on the website.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x70-RB9dFs&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x70-RB9dFs&feature=youtu.be)

and more on [https://rally.video/hosting](https://rally.video/hosting)

------
hazz99
Looks very cool and I want to try it out for some workshops I help run, but
I'm struggling to create an account on Firefox––it doesn't seem to be working
for me.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Can you try chrome? We were working on Firefox until their most recent update.

------
bigpumpkin
Very cool. Just curious, for your mobile version, are you thinking about
Android or IOS? And are you going to develop it natively or cross-platform
(react native/flutter).

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
I don't think we will go native anytime soon. I think we'll still focus on
cross platform initially. One of the value propositions is how easy Rally is
to set up and use. Forcing people to download an app might turn people off.

------
sjg007
Do you support end to end encryption? I understand that to get thru NATs you
have to have relay servers. For companies, they may want privacy guarantees.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Great question, we are end-to-end encrypted and that we do not store any data
from our users video sessions. We're also exploring SSO. We also worked with
MasterCard and Amazon and while initially there were questions around privacy,
we got through it in the end. The bigger problem ironically is corporate VPNs
that tend to block video/mic access from certain applications.

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redbar0n
Initially positive to the idea, but to me this seems ill-concieved.

The tagline: > Stop taking turns to speak. Hop in and out of conversations
with one click. Hear the chatter of tables around you.

To me it seems like adding the worst parts of social spaces like
pubs/nightclubs etc.:

\- Noise: People talking over each other. \- Multi-tasking. So it’s hard to
keep a decent conversation going. \- Noise: Can hardly hear what people around
you are saying.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Did you try it out?

You can turn down or off the background chatter and choose to have a private
table so no one can hear you or join your conversation. Also the background
chatter is never high enough to disrupt ongoing conversations.

I'd suggest giving it a shot and seeing how it goes. The founding team is also
pretty extroverted, so we really built this for socializing first.

------
bradbeattie
What's the pricing structure? Seeing no reference to it on your website makes
me caught of adopting it.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Free until the end of Aug. Custom pricing if it's a one off event. If you
wanted a recurring use case, lets chat? ali@rally.video

------
blisseyGo
Any particular reason safari isn't supported as it does seem to support
WebRTC?

~~~
villgax
Safari works amazingly at the moment, the issue is slack in
frameworks/libraries to support the latest changes.

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artur_makly
Congrats. Just curious what is your max on concurrent users?

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
We actually haven't tested that limit yet. We have seen atleast 200 people on
at the same time across multiple rooms. The system didn't break or lag with
that number but lets see. Does that help?

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jczhang
How's it different from Houseparty?

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Houseparty is focused on social consumers and maxes out at 8 people. We are
focused on networking and events that would normally require a bar or banquet
hall, and right now we max out at 35. Houseparty might work best for small
groups, and we find most people use it once and leave. With Rally we see
people coming back at least weekly for events on our platform.

------
yannick
This is great! Well done

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Thank you!

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feross
Cool product. How is this different from
[https://speakeasy.co](https://speakeasy.co)?

~~~
zkid18
From what I see speakeasy is something closer to chat-roullte. Though I failed
to match with someone there.

~~~
Ali_Jiwani
Oh just saw this. We have a shuffle feature that is similar to speakeasy but I
think our room structure and goals are very different.

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Nikhil833032
yes it could be very useful

