An async standup tool that asks once and chases the blocker
Standup Smith is built for engineering managers who still run a daily Zoom. People answer in about 2 minutes. You read one digest. Open blockers get a DM the next working day.
An async standup tool is not a shared Google Doc and a hope that people fill it in. A doc has no local-time prompt, no thread, and no memory of yesterday's blocker. The tool has to DM each person, collect three answers, post them in one place, and then do something about the stuck work.
Standup Smith is that loop. It is not a video product, a poll product, or a project tracker. Tickets stay in Jira or Linear. The standup answers the three questions that do not belong in a ticket: what moved, what is next, and what is stuck on a person.
How the 2-minute pass works
You install the Slack app (Teams on Business and Scale). You name the standup, pick a channel, pick a local send hour, and write three questions. The default three:
- What did you finish since the last check-in?
- What will you finish before the next one?
- What is blocked, and who are you waiting on?
Each member gets a DM at that hour in their own time zone. They type their answers, or tap skip if they are on leave. Three short answers take about 2 minutes. If someone ignores the DM, a second ping goes out 2 hours later the same day. There is no third ping. Silence is recorded as missed, and that is how the weekly participation percent is built.
Answers post as one thread in the channel you chose. The parent message is the date and the standup name. The replies are the people. On Team, Business, and Scale, the first reply is the AI digest: blockers, risks, and who is waiting on whom, in plain sentences ("Amina is waiting on Chris for the API token"). The raw answers stay under it.
What "async" does not mean
It does not mean blockers vanish. On Business and Scale, when someone reports a blocker, the bot DMs them the next working day, and every working day after, until they mark it resolved or a manager closes it. Skip days and holiday calendars keep the bot from nagging someone on Eid or a US federal holiday.
It does not mean you never talk. If the digest shows four blockers on the same deploy, get on a call. The tool's job is to make that call rare, and to make the agenda obvious when you still need one.
It does not mean anonymous. Every answer carries a name. If you want anonymous feedback, Geekbot offers anonymous reporting on its paid Basic plan. Standup Smith does not.
The limits on each plan
Free: 1 team, 5 members, 1 standup, Slack, 30-day history. Enough to prove people will answer.
Team (19 a month): 20 members, 3 standups, AI digest, weekly email, 365-day history.
Business (49 a month): 75 members, 10 standups, Slack and Teams, blocker follow-up, US, UK, UAE, and KSA holiday calendars, 365-day history.
Scale (99 a month): 200 members, 25 standups, owner plus 5 admins, CSV export of 100,000 rows per month, 1,095-day history.
Those caps are hard. If you have 21 people on Team, you move to Business. We will not quietly "flex" a seat.
Why join the list now
Founding members get 30% off regular prices for as long as they stay subscribed. 30-day money-back guarantee once the product opens. No card needed to join.
Confirm your email and we send The async standup playbook: 12 question sets and a 3-day blocker escalation template.
FAQ
When does it launch?
No public date yet. Founding members get the invite first, by email, before anyone else.
Can I import last month's Zoom notes?
No. There is no import. History begins the day people first answer.
Do you read private channels?
No. The bot only sees the DMs it sends and the one channel you pick for the digest.