Exec Briefing
Actionable insights
If you only have a few minutes to spare, here’s what investors, operators, and founders should know about Screenhero (W13).
- The interaction was the product. Dual cursors, shared input, and responsiveness distinguished co-work from presentation-style screen sharing.
- The team carried the capability. All six employees joined the buyer and shipped voice, video, sharing, and control in stages.
- Feature names conceal semantic loss. Screen sharing survived while the original remote-control behavior later disappeared from current documentation.
- Lineage is not code survival. Public evidence supports influence and behavior integration, not a measured amount of reused source code.
Overview
Screenhero was a collaborative screen-control product founded by Jahanzeb Sherwani, Vishal Kapur, Jason DiCioccio, and Faraz Khan before its February 2013 launch and accepted into Y Combinator's Winter 2013 batch. It let two people control the same Mac or Windows desktop with independent cursors and keyboards, making remote pair work feel closer to sharing one machine.[1]
Slack acquired Screenhero on January 28, 2015 in an undisclosed cash-and-stock deal. All six employees joined Slack to build voice, video, and screen-sharing capabilities. Screenhero remained available during integration, then shut down on December 4, 2017 after interactive control appeared in Slack.
This is both an acquisition success and a standalone-service shutdown. The team and product behavior influenced Slack Calls and interactive sharing, but public evidence does not establish direct code reuse. Current Slack Huddles retains screen sharing and drawing, not the full dual-cursor remote-control model.
Founding Story
YC identifies Sherwani as founder and CEO, Kapur as founder and CTO, and DiCioccio and Khan as founders. Secondary company data says the four had previously built iTeleport, a remote-desktop product for iOS and Mac, but the packet does not provide a primary origin record or complete role history.[2]
The exact incorporation and founding dates were not found. The public evidence establishes that the company existed before its February 2013 launch, but not the year it was founded.
The founding insight was behavioral. Existing screen-sharing tools such as WebEx and GoToMeeting emphasized presentation. Remote developers and help-desk workers needed responsive co-control. Screenhero let each participant move a separate pointer and type into any desktop application, an interaction YC described as Google Docs-style collaboration for the entire desktop.[3]
Remote pair programming became the largest use case. Sherwani later wrote: “The main reason why Screenhero was loved was because it was fast.”[4] Responsiveness mattered because small delays break conversational turn-taking and make shared control feel like remote support rather than collaboration.
Screenhero supported Mac and Windows, integrated HD voice, and reported that 92 percent of sessions were peer-to-peer encrypted. It said remaining sessions were encrypted and not trackable by Screenhero, though the packet contains no security audit, relay design, or key-handling details.
No second origin-era founder quote surfaced. The team's later “We’ve finally done it” statement belongs to the Slack integration and closure, not the founding period.
Timeline
- Before February 2013: The four founders began Screenhero; the exact founding date remains unverified.
- February 12, 2013: Screenhero launched through YC with dual cursor and keyboard control.
- 2013: Secondary database records report seed financing, but the table and narrative conflict and lack primary verification.
- 2014: Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield offered to acquire Screenhero; Sherwani initially preferred an integration.
- January 28, 2015: Slack acquired Screenhero in a cash-and-stock transaction for an undisclosed amount.[5]
- May 2017: Slack launched native presentational screen sharing for paid users.[6]
- October 25, 2017: Slack added shared control and drawing during calls.
- December 4, 2017: The standalone Screenhero service shut down.
- Current: Slack Huddles supports multi-person sharing and drawing, but not documented remote mouse and keyboard control.
What They Built
Screenhero shared any Mac or Windows application while giving both participants an independent mouse pointer and keyboard input. Unlike presentation-first conferencing, both people could act inside the same development environment, design tool, browser, or support workflow.
The product combined low-latency screen sharing, multi-mouse control, and voice. TechCrunch's hands-on review reported little lag but did not provide measurements. Sherwani's later 30 to 50 millisecond figures concerned a subsequent product, not Screenhero, so they should not be back-applied.
Unlock the full Screenhero teardown
Read the complete post-mortem, the rebuild playbook, and the exact reasons Screenhero is still worth studying now.