Thursday.social - A space for remote teams

When work moved online during the pandemic, most tools focused on helping teams get things done. But the coffee breaks and spontaneous chats between meetings were harder to recreate. During discovery, we found that teams were missing those everyday moments of connection, not just a better way to work together.

Thursday was built for that gap. Its Lounge space gave remote teams a shared space to chat, unwind, and play mini-games, with work left at the door. Instead of another meeting in a video grid, it was a place to spend time together as people, not just colleagues.

Remote work made us more productive, but the Great Resignation highlighted a disconnect: people were connecting to their work, not each other.

We interviewed 25+ remote workers to understand why.

The space was designed to turn passive participation into active engagement, while making it easier for hosts to schedule, run, and reflect on team socials.

The Lounge works like the lounge in an office: a shared room where people gather. Your cursor is you. Move it and you move through the room, so everyone’s presence is visible at a glance.

Research showed why video tools fall short here: they have no sense of space, and they feel cramped for social catch-ups. A grid of faces makes reactions hard to read and hides the body language, the hand movements and gestures, that real conversation runs on.

So we built the Lounge!

User cards moving inside a room with walls. It balanced three things: easy to understand, spatial, and fast.

Mixers are short breakout activities (games, discussions, challenges, team-building) played in small groups so everyone takes part. Like a team games night, the activity isn’t the point. The connection is.

Room size follows the activity: bigger groups for lively games, smaller ones for quieter talks. Small groups keep conversation natural, with fewer awkward silences and less call fatigue.

Breakout rooms on video calls feel lifeless: a screen full of faces, and nothing to do with your hands. Mixers are the opposite. Even when you’re just listening, there’s something to move or react with.

The dashboard was designed so organizers could start with one click or customize it endlessly to suit their team’s needs. Hosts could schedule socials to their calendars, have new activities scheduled automatically using templates, and share them with the whole team using our Slack bot.