· Shuffl team
I rebuilt my 9-year-old startup from scratch, on my phone, in 10 days
Shuffl started with lunches between coworkers who hadn’t met. We nearly shut it down. Instead I rebuilt all of it from my phone in a week and a half.
Short answer
Shuffl started in 2017 as a way to get coworkers to meet. We were about to shut it down. Instead I rebuilt all of it, every feature, the website and the logo, in a week and a half on my phone with AI coding agents. It’s that cheap to build and run now, so it’s free.
It started with lunch
I started Shuffl in 2017 because I liked meeting people at work. I’d set up lunches with coworkers I didn’t know yet, and Shuffl did the same thing for everyone, putting people into small groups in Slack so they’d meet someone new.
It became my full-time job in 2020, right as offices emptied, and I brought on Matt Lee as my co-founder. Remote teams used Shuffl to stay in touch. Slack picked it for its Working from Home collection that year.
We were about to shut it down
I always had a longer list for Shuffl. I wanted it to welcome new hires, help people thank each other, check how the team was feeling and answer the HR questions nobody wants to dig through a handbook for. We never had the time or the people to build it.
This year we were about to shut the company down, so I gave it one last go.
A week and a half, from my phone
I rebuilt Shuffl from scratch with AI coding agents: Claude, Codex, Astra, Fable and Opus. That covers every feature, the website, the docs, support, the Slack bot, the blog and the logo. It took a week and a half, and I did all of it on my phone. I never opened my laptop. Everything on that old list is in there now.
A week and a half, all on my phone. I never opened my laptop.
Before and after
Here’s the old Shuffl next to the new one. Same company, none of the same code.
Everything we could drop
The old Shuffl ran on a pile of services: servers and a database on AWS, the website on Netlify, and Intercom for support chat and the help center. Together they cost about $600 a month.
The new Shuffl is one app. The website, the product, the docs, the blog and support all live in it, and so does Mello, the agent that works in Slack. Hosting costs about $100 a month, plus a capped AI budget. We switch the old services off once every team has moved over.
Shuffl · HR by the numbers
What Shuffl runs on
What Shuffl runs on. Before: about $600 a month: AWS for the servers and the database; Netlify for the website; Intercom for support chat and the help center; A separate web app and Slack bot. Now: about $100 a month, plus AI: One app on Vercel: website, product, docs and blog; One Supabase database; Support built into Shuffl; Mello, an agent that works in Slack.
What’s in it
Here’s what the new Shuffl does.
- Coffee chats, like always: small groups of coworkers who haven’t met.
- A buddy, a day-one intro and a two-week check-in for every new hire.
- Praise from your Slack kudos channel, tied to your company values.
- Birthdays and work anniversaries, shared only after the person says yes.
- Pulse check-ins with eNPS, hidden until enough people have answered.
- Mello, an AI teammate that answers HR questions from the policies HR approved and passes anything personal to HR.
Why it’s free
Software built this way is cheap to make and cheap to run, and Shuffl doesn’t need to be a big moneymaker. So every feature is free, for any size team. Sign up with your work email and set it up yourself.
If your team uses Shuffl today
Your coffee chats keep running. We’re moving existing workspaces over in stages, we’ll message your admin before yours moves, and your intro history comes with you.
Thanks for meeting each other all these years. Chris, founder of Shuffl
Frequently asked questions
Was Shuffl really rebuilt from a phone?
Yes. I directed AI coding agents from my phone for every change, from the product to the website and the logo, and never opened my laptop.
Is the new Shuffl free?
Yes. Every feature is free for any size team, and you can set it up yourself.
What happens to the coffee chats we already run?
They keep running. We’re moving existing workspaces to the new Shuffl in stages, and we’ll tell your admin before yours moves.
Can Mello make up an HR policy?
No. Mello answers only from knowledge HR has approved. When nothing approved covers the question, it says so and offers to pass it to HR.