Hi everyone, I’m Tony, one of the founders of Navigator. I’m super excited to introduce Navigator 1.0 to you all. Last summer, we introduced the Navigator Beta — a new kind of tool that pairs a beautiful agenda with an assistant that takes on the busywork of running meetings. Since then we’ve added support for more ways to meet and incorporated the feedback we’ve received from our users.
In addition to countless bits of polish to get the service ready for prime time, here’s what’s new in 1.0:
⚡️ Automations
Configure the Navigator Assistant to take on an even wider set of tasks: team reminders to prepare for a meeting, pre-read distributions, meeting summaries, and action item tracking. To help keep your meeting engaging, you can also have Navigator gather short updates from everyone attending or suggest topics for your next 1-on-1.
⏱ Time Saver
With this automation, you’ll get automatically notified if nothing is on the agenda and asked if you’d like to cancel the meeting.
🔁 Scheduled and Recurring Topics
Set topics to be revisited next meeting or at a future date. Want to create a standing agenda? Set the topic to recur every meeting.
☝️ One-off meetings
Now, whether you’re meeting every week or just this once—Navigator is ready.
📚 The Navigator Library
We’ve organized everything we know about effective meetings into an actionable collection of tips and tricks.
Navigator is currently free for anyone who would like to sign up. If you’d like to give it a try or learn more, you can do so at navigator.com. We’d love to hear what you think :)
I never saw such good app. I see potential in Navigator, not only to meetings. I think that I will use it very often. Good luck, guys 👍.
PS. Will there be native Mac and iOS applications?
@wiktor_wojcik Thanks Wiktor! We'd love to hear what you think once you get a chance to try it out for a bit.
We do have a native iOS app (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/na...). In regards to desktop, we don't have anything on our roadmap for a native application, but open to it as an idea... Let me know how you'd imagine it adding value beyond the web browser—what about a desktop app could get you excited?
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Your landing page is outstanding!
I applaud anyone trying to improve (and reduce) meetings. Without strong agendas, they are prone to devolve into uselessness. Navigator's features seem great for countering that! This will be a popular tool. :)
Great job! Was wondering when I'd hear from you next. It looks nice. I tired to play around with it a bit and you've already invited everyone on my team... Maybe that behavior is a little aggressive? There was never a confirmation step...
@philsalesses Hey Phil. Sorry about that—We're aware that it can feel a bit sudden depending on how you have automations configured, and when the meeting is scheduled. Team is working today to add a more clearly worded confirmation step during first setup!
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I adore this app.
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Definitely believe in this space. Like the bot approach, and great designs. Very pleasing. Looked you up at CB, surprised not having heard of you guys before. Keep it up.
@axtg 👋 Hi Xander! I'm on the design team at Navigator. Thanks for the kind words. Would love to hear what you think if you get a chance to try it out :)
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GET OUT OF MY BRAIN! Navigator seemingly automates *almost* every detail and trick I use when setting up and managing my weekly team meetings:
*Schedule meeting
*Fixed and rotating topics
*Call for agenda
*Update final agenda + distribute pre-reads
*Distribute meeting notes
*Follow up on action items
Automating all of the above would easily save me 1-1.5 hours a week + reduce impact on mindshare, decision fatigue, etc.
@tonydevincenzi I assume there is a solution for the meeting owner/organizer to approve the submitted agenda topics and assign their priority/time slot?
Unique Feature Request / Manager Best Practice: I approach my teams as not actually MY team, but always OUR team. I see myself as a servant-leader and no better or more important (and in many cases, far less important) than any member of my team. The same goes for each member of our team. If I am doing my job right, my team members view each other as equals, all doing their part to power the machine and enable our wins. Just like a QB can't throw a touchdown without their OL blocking, we understand that none of us can achieve any of our goals without the contributions of our teammates.
One of the ways that I instill this with my team is to rotate ownership of "my" team meeting. Just as it is not my team, but our team, it is not my team meeting, but our team meeting. And thus, we are all owners, no matter where you might be on our org chart.
Today, I manually assign a new owner each week, ensuring that everyone has a chance to run a team meeting before starting over. This way, every one of our teammates gets to take a leadership position, gets practice at leading a meeting, and gets to share themselves and their voice with us. The team then also gets practice deferring to every one of their team members (asking for time on the agenda, needing such approvals, then deferring again during meetings), gets to observe (and hopefully admire and celebrate) their teammates practicing and developing their leadership skills, and gets to learn a little more about their teammates. My favorite team meetings are those where our junior or more silent teammates surprise the team with polished presentation skills, or insert a bit more of their personality (we've had some great LOL PowerPoints and a custom DJ set, to name a couple of examples).
Now, this is a unique use case, but I share it as I hope to make it less unique in the future (powered by all the team leaders here). Maybe Navigator can help usher in this practice by automating the randomization and assignment of meeting owners amongst a team.
@natethenate Love the enthusiasm! Hope Navigator can help with some (if not all) of what you've listed out.
Thanks for the suggestion on having a rotating/randomized organizer for your meetings. We've heard this before and will continue exploring the idea.
One thing to note: It's pretty easy to switch the organizer for any meeting. Click the list of people on the agenda surface -> then hover over any participant -> click the (...) icon -> Change to organizer :)
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@tonydevincenzi Someone saw my post and ask for a bit more background on why I thought Navigator was so useful. I thought I'd share my response, in the even it proves helpful:
Teams that run bad meetings don't need Navigator. Bad meetings just need a calendar app and invite system. Bad meetings are dictatorships. They are usually run by a single individual and have either no agenda or a rigid agenda that allows little room for collaboration.
When employees say they hate meetings, or that their schedule is full of meetings that don't allow them to get real work done, they are referring to bad meetings.
It is easy to run a bad meeting. And they are rarely worth it.
Good meetings are dynamic. Good meetings are owned by all participants. They require scheduling, collaboration, follow up, participation, execution, and more follow up. Good meetings ask that most of the meeting work actually be completed in advance of the meeting.
Good meetings are hard. They introduce additional project management and administrative overhead. But they are oh so worth it.
Navigator aims to eliminate, automate, and delegate or distribute much of that overhead. By removing much of the friction required to administer and facilitate good meetings, making them almost as easy to run as a bad meeting, Navigator increases the likelihood your next meeting will be a good one.
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