Tilde
Shut DownVirtual rooms, renovated
Persistent virtual meeting rooms with shared desktops, sticky notes, and collaborative tools — no accounts or downloads required.
About
Tilde reimagined virtual meetings by replacing the presentation-style format of Zoom with persistent, collaborative rooms. Instead of screen sharing, participants shared a common desktop where everyone could interact simultaneously with sticky notes, whiteboards, files, and multi-screen streams. Rooms were persistent — anything added stayed until manually removed, turning ephemeral meetings into ongoing workspaces. The product was completely free with no accounts to create and no app to install, just one-click join via browser. Founded by ex-Apple veterans Chris Bourdon (former Product Marketing Manager for macOS, CEO of Upthere acquired by Western Digital) and Laurent Baumann (former macOS designer at Apple, Director of Product Design at WD), Tilde launched in 2021 during the remote work boom. After months of iteration, the team realized Tilde was actually two products for two different audiences, leading them to split into PopStage (interactive workshops) and PopSpace (presence and collaboration) in 2022. The original Tilde product was shut down in December 2021.
DailyDropout Take
Tilde was an elegant rethinking of virtual meetings from two Apple design veterans — replacing passive screen sharing with active shared desktops. While the product didn't survive independently, the core insight (meetings should be collaborative workspaces, not presentations) lives on through its successor products PopStage and PopSpace.
Discovery signal: Ex-Apple founding team with deep product design expertise, novel approach to virtual collaboration during peak remote work adoption
What Makes Them Unique
Tilde replaced screen sharing with a shared desktop where all participants could interact simultaneously. Persistent rooms meant work artifacts carried over between sessions, turning meetings into ongoing collaborative spaces — all with zero friction (no accounts, no downloads).
Target Markets
Founders
Chris Bourdon
Co-Founder
Former Product Marketing Manager for macOS at Apple. CEO of Upthere, a cloud storage startup acquired by Western Digital. Extensive experience in consumer product development and marketing.
Laurent Baumann
Co-Founder
Former macOS designer at Apple and Director of Product Design at Western Digital. Now runs With Labs, a design studio. Co-created Tilde and its successor products PopStage and PopSpace.