Cushion
combines posts, messaging, + check‑ins for better teamwork
103 followers
combines posts, messaging, + check‑ins for better teamwork
103 followers
Cushion is the async messaging app for small, distributed teams. Work smarter, stay focused, and get more done.
Cushion
Hi Rob, congrats on the launch! I'm really interested in async communication and gone through many different communication tools for my team of 5. The best we've experience we've had in this regard is Campsite before it got acquired from Notion.
Just signed up for Cushion, and after a very pleasant and simple first time set up, I'm curious to know - what are you doing different to campsite or any other async tools?
Cushion
@haiderhaqiqi Thanks! Glad to have you on onboard.
We were big fans of Campsite and the main difference I guess is we’re here and they’re not 😅
We have a lot of the same opinions on how communication should work in small teams but we’re going in our direction with it. Particularly around the role AI plays in helping teams move faster.
If you have any feedback we’d love to hear it.
Interesting concept. I like the idea of making collaboration calmer and more structured. The combination of posts, check-ins, and AI summaries sounds like a thoughtful workflow. How does Cushion help users quickly find the most important updates when there are many active discussions?
Cushion
@vik_sh a few ways:
We have a very performant search function. Because of posts it’s much easier to find the conversation via search.
Also we have AI automations that automatically link posts together that are similar so you can create these networks of posts around the same topics.
Love the concept of combining posts, messaging, and check-ins into one place. As someone who's built a real-time messaging system from scratch (TCP-based, for a social app), I know how hard it is to get the balance right between "instant" and "async" communication. The async-first approach for small teams makes a lot of sense — not everything needs to be a real-time ping. How do you handle the transition when a thread gets urgent and needs immediate attention?
Cushion
@sparkuu teams typically tag someone directly and you can subscribe to notifications on a certain post or channel.
But beyond that we find that most things aren’t urgent and don’t need to be. Posts encourage you to think in blocks of work rather than immediate response.
That said if something is on fire and you need to get in touch with X - we have realtime messaging exactly for that reason
Told
The async-first approach makes sense for distributed teams, but the real challenge is always getting people to actually change their communication habits — that first week of adoption is brutal. Curious how you're handling onboarding for teams migrating off Slack, because the muscle memory problem is real and most tools underestimate it. We ran into this at a previous product and started using Told to surface in-app prompts at the moments where users would otherwise default back to old behavior, which moved activation numbers meaningfully. Are check-ins structured or freeform, and does Cushion nudge teams to use them consistently or is it purely pull-based? That distinction matters a lot for whether async discipline actually sticks.
Cushion
@jscanzi interesting points
We do see that but usually teams that try Cushion come into wanting the change.
They’re either sick of Slack or they are trying a new approach for a certain project.
The will has to come from them. Were just here to help them facilitate that.
Told
@rob_hough thanks a lot for your reply!
The async angle is interesting — most teams I've seen try async end up just recreating Slack with slower response times. What's the actual mechanism that stops it from devolving into that? Curious how you handle the moments where something genuinely needs a fast answer.
Cushion
@zerodarkhub we have realtime chat for instant answers. We just encourage most communication to be Posts. Not everything needs to be done now.
Been stuck stitching Slack threads and a standup bot before, and the handoff is always where things disappear. Cushion putting posts, inbox, and check-ins in one loop feels much cleaner for small teams, especially if blocked work from a weekly check-in can surface straight into the inbox.
Cushion
@piroune_balachandran absolutely dead on!