2009 Origins of an idea.

It all started during a dinner between 8 friends. Iain (founder) noticed how different conversations moved between different people very quickly, which made the night really interesting. The next day the same people had moved into a group chat app which was very noisy and nothing like the previous night’s dynamic. A simple question arose:  “...Why can’t conversations in group chats flow naturally like they do in real life? There had to be a better way to do group messaging.

An impossible challenge? With 8 people around a table there are 255 possible conversations to manage. With 20 people, that would be over 2 million conversations. No existing user-interface would work, especially within a tiny phone screen. Iain battled with the problem over many months and finally invented the core of what you see inside 8seats today. A bi-directional interface that works with a simple tap or swipe, without typing names. A complex problem solved with a novel and very simple design. So in 2009, Iain registered www.8seats.com …but was too busy to take it further. Long pause…

2019 New Beginnings and first prototype

Iain still wondered why nobody had built anything quite like the 8seats concept. Software like Slack had since entered the market, but this was a functional tool for white collar workers and he felt the big picture solution was still something allowing natural conversations and easier to use. He approached Sandor Moldan to help pull a decent working prototype together for 8seats. It worked really well. Plans to set up a company began.

2021 company setup

Building 8seats was going to be technically difficult and cost a lot of money. Early chats to VCs were all the same: “The world does not need another messaging app.” So on a shoestring budget, co-founders and family and friends helped fund an Alpha and file patents. During this time, something unexpected happened. Nobody had anticipated the large number of business owners who would explain how broken communication was for them. Corporate tools like Slack and Teams were often deemed too complex for many of their staff (like casuals, deskless and front line workers), and not to mention the problem of sensitive data was being left on peoples personal chat apps.

A better business case (to fund 8seats) emerged and some was raised firstly from Angels, and finally in 2024 our first VC joined.

2024 – 8seats Public Beta

We’ve worked tirelessly to bring you the first version of 8seats. We hope you like it so far. It’s available across smartphones and web. It’s just the start but we are live and looking forward to growing 8seats with you together. Please give it a go and share with your team, friends, family!

What's coming next…

We're still in beta (which means there are occasional bugs and quirks) but it is the start of a much longer journey. Soon you'll see even better conversation flows soon and loads of QoL features, all done the 8seats way (nice easy flowing UI). We do envisage a world where messages simply go to wherever they need. Never losing a message. Less time clicking un-reads. Cutting out noise. A better work-life balance.

Being "open" is big part of the vision and we look forward to working with other messaging apps too. We like to think we see things differently to the rest… but at the heart of 'what comes in the future' …is what you tell us you want to see :)

A note on AI…

We are not an AI company (we put 100% humans first) BUT we have exciting ideas on where it fits - but we are focused on the things that make your life easier as a worker or business owner. You can already add AIs as team members - use these for a brainstorm, summarising chats etc. Privacy? Just tap the AI heads down as needed.