Cushion

Ashley John, Dave Hawkins, Sarah Chen, Alice Martinez, Mike Thompson, and Rob Hough looked at how teams communicate today and saw the same problem everywhere: Slack and Discord bury important information under an avalanche of messages, notifications, and chaos. So they built Cushion, an async messaging app designed specifically for small, distributed teams that actually want to stay organized.

Cushion combines posts, messaging, and check-ins into one clean interface. Teams can create dedicated channels for engineering, design, product, marketing, or whatever else their workflow demands. The check-in feature lets teams do daily standups and weekly goals without scheduling another meeting. There's an inbox for focused communication, search that actually works, and AI assistance built in to help streamline workflows. It's async-first, which means no one needs to be online at the same time—and that is exactly how remote work should function.

The core insight here is real: chat apps have made us reactive rather than productive. Cushion flips that by making information findable and organized rather than ephemeral and overwhelming. It's still early, they're offering a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, and they're clearly going after the teams that are tired of drowning in notifications.

They're building in public and looking for teams who want to actually get work done without the noise.