Announcing Candor

A new standard for team communication and knowledge sharing

When Herman and I decided to start our company, we knew we wanted to operate as a fully distributed company. We were drawn to the benefits of having the freedom to work from anywhere, access to global talent, and the potential cost savings.

We had also worked in distributed teams before, and found that it made us more productive. There’s a strong culture of written communication, which builds transparency and allows us to be less distracted in our work.

We knew the distributed structure of our company would require a new way of working:

• With different timezones and working hours, our collaboration will be less real-time and more asynchronous.
• Writing things up vs. chatting it down. Important discussions start and end with an exchange of complete thoughts, not one-line-at-a-time messages.
• Company-wide transparency on decisions and knowledge

This new way of working meant we would be communicating primarily through writing.

Having tried various asynchronous communication apps, we weren’t happy with the current writing and messaging stack for team communication:

• Document-based tools serve the use case of one author communicating to many readers. Comments feel like a second-class citizen. It’s difficult to have a thoughtful interchange in comment threads.
• Group messaging apps are good for “rapid-fire” quick discussions and bad for big-picture discussions. Many topics get jumbled together in a channel, making it nearly impossible to keep track of a full conversation.
• Discussions, documents, and team knowledge get scattered and locked in app silos.

As a workaround, many distributed teams that we talked to have set up custom tools and workflows to serve their communication needs.

This is why we decided to start Candor.

Our vision is to make team communication more enjoyable and efficient, and we want to share our thinking and solution with all companies.

Why teams love communicating on Candor

Teams use Candor to drive better decisions and build a productive, inclusive, and transparent communication culture.

1. Built for all types of team communication

Documents, discussions, and threads in one tool.

Candor lets authors express their thoughts more efficiently. We designed the entire writing experience to focus on speed, readability, and to make content stand out.

Candor lets collaborators add their responses without word count or plaintext limitations. Rich threading creates space for debates, ideas, or questions. Candor is about having a dialogue, driving better decisions, and building collective knowledge.

2. Better discussions, better decisions, and a better workplace

Discussions start and end with an exchange of complete thoughts, not one-line-at-a-time messages.

Candor encourages focused discussions on specific subjects. Unlike in messaging apps, information naturally stays structured and on-topic. Discussions are easy to reference and follow even months later.

Discussions are asynchronous by default. This gives people space to focus on work. You can take a step back, think about what is being discussed, and follow up with a thoughtful response at a later time.

3. A powerful editor that makes your thoughts stand out.

We set out to design a beautiful and minimalistic writing experience. The formatting, the clean layout, and the fonts make reading and writing more delightful.

• Distraction-free writing: When you begin typing, you’ll only see what’s essential — your words.
• Keyboard-first UX: Styling text is as easy as typing it. Optimized for efficiency with extensive keyboard shortcuts.
• Modern editor: Use the /command to add rich-text content like code, images, links, and more.

4. Company-wide transparency

Candor makes your organization’s memory browseable and searchable. Information is easy to reference and follow even months later.

Documents, discussions, and threads keep information organized and accessible to everyone. Everyone from the founders to the newest team member can find the information they need.

There’s much more to come. We’re excited to share our learnings and thinking as we make progress.

Today, we are starting to accept teams and companies to our private alpha. If you are interested in joining early and influencing the direction of Candor, sign up here and follow us on Twitter.

— Candor Founders: Arun, Herman