I would like to introduce you to one of our investments, Balloon, a platform that eliminates groupthink so that companies can get the best ideas, feedback and insights from all team members in order to beat competitors, reduce product churn, and win. Balloon is one step that leaders can take to facilitate conversation, build out a structure within their teams to discuss what hybrid work will look like, and co-create the future with their teams to get maximum buy-in. Today Balloon launches 100+ templated sets of questions co-created with preeminent business leaders, experts, and researchers—including Adam Grant, Daniel Pink, Dick Parsons, Matt Mulllenweg, Kat Cole, Arlan Hamilton, and 20+ others. Templates ensure you are asking the right questions to unlock insights from your team. These templates span across 25+ categories and can be used for meeting replacement, strategic planning, retrospectives, and team brainstorming - just to name a few. Managing and inspiring innovation in your team is brutally hard and the Balloon team has made an elegantly simple, research-backed (and category-creating!) solution to this ubiquitous and costly problem.

I can't imagine any CEO who doesn't put Balloon in their management tool box. This new way of eliminating "groupthink" while promoting "buy-in" is a game changer. Better, faster decisions without radical change in how you do things is a panacea. Equalizing voices so loud-mouths and introverts share intellectual power unleashes huge untapped potential in the organization. This product is required for organizations to create their new hybrid work environments. We know how to work f2f. We've learned how to have everyone remote. We don't have a clue how to do hybrid. Your organization needs to invent the best way to do it for you. This is the tool to make it happen.

This tool has an incredible way of seamlessly surfacing brilliant ideas that may have been lost in the past. Every manager should be looking to implement this product into their flow if they are looking to surface the best results. Highly recommend.

Hi! I'm Noah, co-founder and CTO of Balloon. Excited to share more about what we’re building. Balloon uses a collaborative flow called a flight. Flights are sets of questions posed by a leader, allowing them to gather ideas, insights, and feedback from their team and make the most informed decisions (with more buy-in). Today, we are releasing Flight Templates: Templated, editable flights that are pre-populated with the sharpest questions to best engage your team in any collaborative effort. We’ve partnered with some of the world’s preeminent business leaders, researchers, and experts to create 100+ templates. Some of template authors include @adammgrant, @danielpink, @photomatt, @arlan, and 20+ others from organizations like HBO, GitHub, VICE Media, Morning Brew, and more. Here are some popular use cases and templates: 💡 Ideation + Innovation - Creative Problem Solving - Refine Your MVP - Build Your Brand Story 🔊 Feedback + Team Alignment - Evaluate Feedback Mechanisms - Team Culture Audit - Personal Development for Teams 🗓 Planning + Pre-Mortems - Strategic Goal Setting - Meeting Management and Agenda Setting - Pre-Launch Check In 👀 Retrospectives + Post-Mortems - Sprint Retrospective - Decision-Making Retrospective - Culture Retrospective

Thanks for hunting us, Jason! Hi everyone - This is Amanda, co-founder and CEO of Balloon. Super excited to launch Balloon (including 100+ templates!) on ProductHunt today. We’re fixing the largest, most costly problem in the workplace. Meetings and tools don’t address how humans actually collaborate, share information, and make decisions. They don’t account for systemic, organizational issues that cost companies billions. Groupthink plagues decision-making. People don’t share their best ideas or most accurate, honest feedback. Loud voices dominate conversations, and leaders don’t know what they don’t know. Before founding Balloon, I was a public health researcher, translating science and research into national behavior change campaigns for the CDC and EPA. My research focused on engagement, listening, and community-based decision-making, and it was in that work that I discovered this problem. We built Balloon from the ground up to align with research for how to unlock the highest quality and quantity of information from a group...and how to do it in the most productive way possible. Some stats: ⏰ Balloon reduces meeting time by 70%. 🎙 On average, participant engagement on Balloon is around 78%. (In traditional meetings, it’s around 35%—and a few people tend to do most of the talking.) 💡 More than 80% of the information surfaced on Balloon is brand new—it’s never been seen or heard within the company before. Thanks for checking out Balloon - excited to answer questions!

Really cool concept - love it!

Hey everyone! Sarah here, growth lead at Balloon. One of the templates series that I’m most excited about is Matt Mullwenweg’s Optimize Distributed Work! Matt has been a champion of distributed, asynchronous teams for years (way before it was the norm!). His six-part series helps teams determine their current level of distributed work optimization and gives them realistic, actionable ways to improve their workflows based on the results—it’s a must-use for any company deciding how to return to the office in a way that will drive productivity and community without interrupting current workflows. Would love to help you find the templates that work best for your team and organization!

Hey there, Product Hunt! I’m Julia, Balloon’s marketing and partnerships lead. Amanda and Noah have explained some of the main values of Balloon, so I wanted to talk a bit more about how Balloon creates an environment of psychological safety, eliminates groupthink, and amplifies unheard voices. Balloon’s collaboration platform allows for anonymous input, creating psychological safety and giving all team members (regardless of age, role, gender, or race) a chance to share freely. This means companies surface true data informed by all voices. Balloon’s research-backed approval voting system removes harmful group dynamics, ensuring idea evaluation is based on merit—not on seniority, loud voices, popularity, or other costly psychosocial factors. This eliminates groupthink, creates a safe space for all people to contribute, and drives more people to provide feedback and guide leaders’ decisions. Balloon allows anyone whose voice might go unheard to participate without interruption, judgment, or fear, offering new perspectives and a truly inclusive process for the whole team. So excited to be hunted by one of our strongest champions, @Jason, and to hear from all of you.

Great solution and very timely in today’s hyper progress plus remote/hybrid workplace.

I can think of many instances where having something like Balloon would've been really helpful. Congratulations on the launch, and can't wait to check it out!

This looks super interesting and helpful. Do you see this being a tool for enterprise clients and smaller (5-50) person companies alike?

This looks super interesting, can’t wait to use it!!

I’m in favor of any product that cuts meeting times by 70% as this one does. The ability to anonymize discussions is a powerful tool. Eager to learn more.

Having started a new role recently in a remote environment, I can see the challenges to collaboration that Balloon can address. As people return to their workplaces, those in an organization who started in the last year and onboarded remotely may face more hurdles in getting a “seat at the table.” Balloon can ensure that everyone’s perspective is taken into account and that the best ideas win.

interesting, helpful product ! Specifically, how does the flight process work?

Really liking the template format. If I’m understanding it correctly, seems like users gain the collective wisdom of the authors to improve their own teams or organizations. Very interesting!

To the moon!!

Really interesting product. Do you see flight deployed across entire organizations or is it typically within smaller teams?

I use this product to make sure I can prioritize what matters most to my team for meetings, to uncover what they might be hesitant to tell me (especially new employees where we haven't had time yet to build psychological safety), and frankly, to save time. When you can get quality input, prioritization, and save time all with one platform -- it's a winner!

I've been working with the Balloon team from an investing and advisory standpoint over the past few years and am amazed at how the team has found such a practical solution to organizational problems faced by every company. It's absolutely incredible what asking a few questions can do to eliminate bias, drive insights, and get the most out of your human capital. Sky's the limit for this Balloon team and product! (No pun intended ;))