Sideway

One very late night as I was leaving my office and getting ready to go to sleep, my mind was obsessing about a problem that got stuck in my head for a month – how to get a story idea I’ve been developing into a tv show. You see, the story involved so much action on social media, that we would be watching a phone screen on tv half the time. Not a great experience. I loved the story but I couldn’t figure it out. As I turned off the lights I had an idea – turn it on its head. Instead of a show showing social media, why not build an entirely fictional social network in which the show will play out. It was late and I had a long drive in the morning so I wrote it down on a sticky note and went to bed. That night I had one long vivid dream during which I’ve founded a company and ran it for two years. I’ve never had an experience like that. Even more surprising, I woke up remembering every detail. The next day I started working on turning that dream (literally) into a reality. Eighteen months later, together with my husband and almost 300 amazing people we’ve created and produced a show, built an app, and are now working with other partners to apply the technology to other stories. Hartley is our first show. It was filmed during the peak of the pandemic, shot and produced entirely remotely, and built by a distributed team in 4 countries. Episodes 1-5 are live in the app with the last 3 coming out over the next couple of weeks. Would love to hear what you think about the show and the concept, if you have ideas for new stories, and how you would make it even better!

Looks amazing! Congrats on the launch! 🚀

Just half an hour ago, I was thinking how much I bored netflix's tv shows. I'll try your app and add my comments about your show tonight after my shift. Good luck on your start!