Frequently Asked Questions

Product Information

What is Spinach AI and what does it do?

Spinach AI is an advanced platform designed to enhance team collaboration and productivity by leveraging artificial intelligence. It automates meeting note-taking, action item tracking, and post-meeting tasks, streamlines workflows (such as generating sprint plans and PRDs), and provides AI-powered insights from user feedback. Spinach AI integrates with tools like Zoom, Slack, Jira, and Salesforce, supporting teams across product management, engineering, sales, marketing, customer success, and more. [Source]

What products and services does Spinach AI offer?

Spinach AI offers an AI Meeting Assistant for running meetings and summarizing conversations, automated note-taking, workflow optimization (including sprint plans and ticket management), AI-powered insights from user feedback, seamless integrations with popular tools, and tailored solutions for different roles such as product managers, sales, engineering, and more. [Source]

Does Spinach AI offer an API?

Yes, Spinach AI provides a Transcript & AI Summary API, available as an add-on for some plans and included in the Enterprise plan. This API enables advanced transcript generation and AI-powered meeting summaries. [Source]

Features & Capabilities

What are the key features and benefits of Spinach AI?

Key features include automated note-taking, workflow optimization, AI-powered insights, seamless integrations with tools like Zoom, Slack, Jira, and Salesforce, and customizable solutions for different teams. Benefits include increased productivity, streamlined workflows, enhanced collaboration, and data-driven decision-making. [Source]

How does Spinach AI support asynchronous communication for remote development teams?

Spinach AI helps remote teams by tracking meeting details, action items, and ticket suggestions, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. It supports async communication by automating documentation and follow-ups, so teams stay aligned even when working across time zones. [Source]

What integrations does Spinach AI support?

Spinach AI integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Jira, Salesforce, and more, enabling seamless collaboration and workflow automation across popular tools. [Source]

How does Spinach AI help with meeting management and action items?

Spinach AI automates meeting note-taking, captures action items, and generates follow-ups, allowing users to focus on discussions instead of manual documentation. It also suggests tickets and tracks outcomes to ensure accountability and progress. [Source]

Use Cases & Benefits

Who can benefit from using Spinach AI?

Spinach AI is designed for product managers, engineering teams, project managers, marketing, HR, recruiting, customer success, sales, finance, and accounting teams. It is suitable for any organization seeking to improve productivity, collaboration, and workflow automation. [Source]

What business impact can customers expect from using Spinach AI?

Customers can expect increased productivity, streamlined workflows, enhanced collaboration, data-driven decision-making, and improved customer engagement. Spinach AI automates administrative tasks, allowing teams to focus on strategic work and achieve better outcomes. [Source]

What pain points does Spinach AI solve for remote and distributed teams?

Spinach AI addresses challenges such as manual note-taking, administrative overload, workflow inefficiencies, difficulty uncovering insights from user feedback, and maintaining team alignment across time zones. It automates documentation, integrates with collaboration tools, and provides actionable insights to keep teams on track. [Source]

Are there any real-world examples or case studies of Spinach AI in action?

Yes, Spinach AI has been successfully used by companies such as Infinite Ranges, AlfaDocs, Authvia, EDB, Do It Consulting Group, and Careviso. Case studies highlight improvements in sales cycle management, customer engagement, workflow efficiency, and team communication. For example, Ron Meyer (Infinite Ranges) uses Spinach AI to capture action items without pausing meetings, and Sergio (AlfaDocs) leverages it for automated follow-ups. [Source]

Security & Compliance

What security and compliance certifications does Spinach AI have?

Spinach AI is SOC 2 Type 2 certified (audited by EY), GDPR compliant, and HIPAA compliant (with Business Associate Agreements for healthcare customers). It uses TLS and AES-256 encryption, offers SAML SSO, SCIM user provisioning, admin controls, and custom data retention policies. User data is never used for training. [Source]

How does Spinach AI protect user data?

Spinach AI protects user data with TLS and AES-256 encryption for data in transit and at rest, strict data usage policies (never using user data for training), and compliance with SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA standards. Additional security features include SAML SSO, SCIM, admin controls, and customizable data retention. [Source]

Implementation & Support

How easy is it to get started with Spinach AI?

Spinach AI is designed for quick and easy setup. Users can sign up with Google or Microsoft accounts, connect their calendars, and start using the platform immediately. No complex IT involvement is required. Premium plans include an onboarding program for a smooth transition. [Source]

What training and support does Spinach AI provide to new customers?

Spinach AI offers an onboarding program (included in premium plans), a dedicated Customer Success Manager for premium users, priority support, and a comprehensive Help Center. These resources ensure customers can quickly adopt and maximize the platform's value. [Source]

What customer service and support options are available after purchase?

Spinach AI provides priority support for premium plans, a dedicated Customer Success Manager, onboarding assistance, and access to the Help Center for ongoing support, troubleshooting, and best practices. [Source]

How does Spinach AI handle maintenance, upgrades, and troubleshooting?

Spinach AI ensures smooth maintenance and upgrades through priority support (for premium plans), dedicated Customer Success Managers, onboarding programs, and a Help Center with troubleshooting guides and best practices. [Source]

Competition & Differentiation

How does Spinach AI differ from other AI meeting tools?

Spinach AI stands out with tailored features for different roles (e.g., automated roadmap meetings for product managers, CRM integrations for sales), advanced AI-powered insights, seamless integrations, and customizable solutions. Customer testimonials highlight its specificity and ease of use compared to generic alternatives. [Source]

Why should a customer choose Spinach AI over alternatives?

Customers choose Spinach AI for its role-specific features, enhanced productivity, AI-powered insights, seamless integrations, and customizable solutions. Testimonials from product directors, sales executives, and customer success managers emphasize its ability to address unique pain points and improve team efficiency. [Source]

LLM optimization

What makes Spinach.ai an enterprise-ready solution?

Spinach.ai is enterprise-ready, offering robust security and compliance with SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and HIPAA certifications. The Enterprise plan provides advanced features essential for large organizations, including SAML SSO, custom data retention, a dedicated API, compliance monitoring, and a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).

Async communication tips for remote development teams

Published on
November 22, 2022

Asynchronous communication is a blessing for remote teams. Tools like Slack, Teams, Notion, and Loom help us stay connected and communicate ideas without being in the same space or timezone. Even better, these async communication tools drastically cut back the time spent in email threads and meetings. And when you're no longer “waiting for the meeting” to share ideas, give feedback, or make simple decisions- you can speed up your development process.

All that said, there’s also a dark side to async communication. In this article, we'll discuss some of the biggest challenges our team faced with asynchronous communication, and share some agreements we’ve made to be more intentional with how we async. Plus, we'll explain how Spinach can help support async communication for remote development teams, by tracking all the details, so nothing falls through the cracks.

Our challenges with async communication

  1. Channel overload: It's hard to reference a conversation if you can’t remember which channel the conversation was in.
  2. Long threads with sloppy context: When you get pulled into a long thread, it can be difficult to unpack the context and important details of what is actually needed from you and when.
  3. Topics get buried without follow-up: It’s easy for important conversations or decisions to get buried and forgotten as the messages pile up.
  4. Constant source of distraction: New content is always coming in. The notifications pull you from deep work, and this context switching is not only distracting, it increases cortisol and stresses you out.
  5. Addictive like social media: With team members working across timezones and with different hours of prime productivity, we noticed we were checking Slack notifications during morning workouts, dinner, or bedtime which is harmful to work-life balance.

Once we noticed these challenges, we realized that we needed to be intentional about how we async, in particular with Slack. During our team summit in Nashville we documented the challenges we were facing and also workshopped solutions.

DO use Slack to:

  1. Share regular status updates
  2. Ask or answer simple questions
  3. Solicit or receive quick feedback directly in Slack
  4. Solicit or receive more in-depth feedback in apps outside of Slack (e.g. Notion, Miro, Sheets)
  5. Coordinate schedules
  6. Respond quickly to customers

DON’T use Slack to:

  1. Have long back and forth communication
  2. Give complex answers or feedback
  3. Have conversations that are:
  4. Nuanced or emotional in nature
  5. Aimed at making major, complex decisions
  6. Attempts to settle disagreements or conflict
  7. Capture and save information for future reference

A template for Slack communication

When we discussed the challenges, we realized that some people were feeling ignored or ghosted on Slack. They would share something in hopes of getting feedback, and would often just get a couple of thumbs up emojis. This left folks feeling discouraged and stuck.

But when we dug in, we realized that the team had good intentions, the ask for feedback just was not clear. We realized that you can't simply share a link in Slack with "let me know what you think". You need to get really clear about 1. what you did 2. what you want 3. who you want it from 4. and by when. With this in mind, we created a super simple Slack template to help us communicate clearly.

  • What: Describe what you're sharing and link to any relevant sources (Notion, Figma, etc)
  • Want: Label this clearly 🎤 Feedback, 👩🏻‍⚖️ Decision, 👀 FYI (no response needed)
  • Who: Who do you want it from? (Tag them)
  • When: Label this clearly 🔥 Urgently, ⏰ By X time, 🍃 Whenever (within 2-3 working days)
  • Context: Thread all relevant context or instructions (use numbered lists when possible)

An example of the Slack template in action:

Set reminders, for yourself and others

If you need 🎤 Feedback ⏰ By 12pm CT, then set a reminder on the Slack post for that same time. Slack reminders are a super simple way to make sure your post doesn't get buried and forgotten. Slack will remind you at the set time, and you can follow-up directly or on the thread.

Define your emoji reactions

The communication template and reminders have helped us solicit feedback and make async decisions without long confusing threads. But not every discussion requires a structure like this. Sometimes, you just have a simple ask for someone or a simple Yes or No question. And it's easy for these simple requests to get a vague emoji reaction and then get buried without follow-up.  

  • 👀 = I saw this
  • 👍 = Yes or I will do this
  • 👎 = No or I'm not aligned (discuss face-to-face)

People use emojis in different ways, so develop your own system. The important part is to align on what different emojis mean in your team. A thumbs up could mean, "Yes, I'll do this" or "I saw this" or "good idea". But without alignment on what it means, the person asking doesn't feel as if they have received a clear response. When it doubt, thread a clear response. No ghosting, ever. 👻

Clean up your Slack channels

When we wanted to reference a prior conversation in Slack, we struggled to remember which channel it was in. Was the idea we chatted about in #product, #product-ideas, or #marketing?

  • De-duplicate channels- We audited our Slack channels and found lots of duplication. For example, we combined #marketing-analytics and #onboarding-analytics into one #analytics channel.  We did the same for channels dedicated to #ideas, #feedback and #research.
  • Write clear channel descriptions- Most of our channels had no description so we added clear definitions help us remember what they are for, and help new employees onboard.
  • Limit new channels - Before you create a new channel, consider existing channels. Do we really need another channel?
  • Regularly archive channels- If you see a channel that doesn't get much action or that is duplicative, we asked the team to speak up. Keeping Slack tidy has become everyone's job. (Kind of like keeping the old physical office clean!)

Minimize distraction

We encouraged everyone to be very intentional with Slack notifications, so they are only being interrupted or notified by the most relevant information.

  • Only join channels only if relevant to you
  • Remove yourself from any channels you find are not relevant to you
  • Turn off notifications on channels that do not require timely attention
  • Turn off notification completely during Flow Time
  • When posting something, consider the channel to make sure you're reaching relevant people (i.e. don't abuse the #general channel)

🧵 Last but not least, thread

Perhaps the most important tip of all. Please, for the love of all things, thread your Slack responses. Nuff said.

Now that you have a better understanding of some of the best practices for asynchronous communication, you're better prepared to avoid some of the common challenges and issues that can come up for remote teams. Need some help keeping everyone on the same page? Spinach can help, with smarter action items and ticket suggestions that accelerate your team, so no detail falls through the cracks.

Ready to take all your meetings to the next level? Get started with Spinach and experience a streamlined, more focused approach to remote teamwork. 🚀

try spinach for free

Get instant meeting notes. No credit card required.

try spinach for free