Afleveringen
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Rafat Ali is a two-time media entrepreneur. He sold his first blog a few years ago and is now building Skift, a global media company focused on business travel, conferences, and the business of travel.
Of course, COVID was not fun.
The company nearly fell apart, but managed to eek by with a few saving graces. Namely: remote work.
Rafat made the decision to not renew the companyās lease when it came up in summer 2020, and with that decision the company - and its dozens of employees - went 100% remote. This move stands apart from whatās becoming the major wave of hybrid remote announcements, since as of right now the company is totally remote with plans to stay that way.
In this conversation with Rafat, we talked about
š How Skift weathered the COVID storm, coming back from the brink of collapse (and what they are up to now)
š Remote work versus pandemic lockdown work (they are not the same thing)
āļø The future of travel (and business travel in particular)
Have a listen in Substack or in your favorite podcast app!
Thanks for reading!
ā If you enjoy what I do, buy me a virtual coffee from time-to-time to support my work. I know it seems small, but it truly helps.
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Admittedly, youād expect the founder of a company that helps remote teams with payroll and taxes to not like offices. But Sahin Boydas is a little different than most entrepreneurs.
With nearly 10 startups under his belt (a handful of failures and a handful of successes and exits), Sahin has barely ever worked in an office - and never on a permanent basis. Whether in his native Turkey, to Boston, to Silicon Valley, every single one of his startups is remote. Itās perhaps no wonder he refers to offices as āprisons of the mind.ā
In this interview, Sahin and I talked about the future of Silicon Valley, how Sahin thinks about angel investing remotely, and of course the future of remote work.
Check out key takeaways below or listen to the whole episode on your favorite podcast platform.
Image courtesy Remote Team
Silicon Valleyās greatest export
Silicon Valley was - and arguably still is - the global epicentre of tech. Even in a remote world, Sahin doesnāt think thatās going anywhere. Instead, the shift will be from requiring physical presence in Silicon Valley to requiring a Silicon Valley mindset anywhere you are in the world. What constitutes a Silicon Valley mindset? For Sahin, itās a willingness to try new things, take bold risks, and invest in ideas knowing that not everything will work out, but the production and founding process will teach individual founders a lot and help educate the whole ecosystem for the next crop of entrepreneurs.
Key quote:
āThe idea of Silicon Valley is three ingredients. The first ingredient is we welcome everyone in the world. Itās the American dream on steroids. Second, you are free. You can be anything. I think anyone, any gender, any religion, you will be welcome here. Then we have Stanford, getting millions of ideas from professors. And we have the money from Sand Hill Road and Stanford. Then we have the lawyers that know how to do the exit playbooks.ā
āItās not really about the tech, itās about the outcome and building something fastā¦ itās about the culture.ā
Angel investing remotely
After some business successes, Sahin began to invest in other startups (remotely, of course). Instead of following a geographic thesis or waiting for the startups to come to him, he decided to take his stock investing mentality and bring that to angel investing. Namely, Sahin invests in companies that he either is a huge fan of as a customer or, if the solution isnāt what he personally needs, that heās a huge fan of in general. It may not be the most sophisticated, algorithmic investment strategy, but itās a system that helps him direct his investment dollars into opportunities heās genuinely happy to rave about.
Key quote:
āI personally read around a thousand article titles a day to generate ideas. If someone is building my idea, thatās an investment I want to make.ā
āIf I find any idea that I really, really, really like, I reach out to the founders.ā
(Disclosure: Always do your own diligence on investments and follow your own independent research. Everything we talked about in the episode were just examples, not advice.)
The future of work
Sahin founded RemoteTeam.com to help remote companies manage the nitty gritty details of payroll, taxes, and employee administration on remote teams - all the little things that get more complicated when you donāt have one central office location.
As such, itās pretty easy to believe that Sahin thinks the future of work is remote:
Key quote:
āWe somehow got used to this 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours of family time. But I donāt think Iāve ever worked 8 hours linear in my life.ā
āIām so excited that the world is catching up to [remote work] and changing.ā
The final word
āThe office was built by the industrial revolutionā¦ the office is our prison of the mindā
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Sahin on:
* Twitter
* Instagram
* LinkedIn
* RemoteTeam.com
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Lauren Razavi is now a sought after consultant and researcher on the future of work (and remote work in particular), but she didnāt start her career that way. Instead, she ran away from home at a young age and became a music tour manager, helping indie bands get their break. Then she transitioned into full-time freelancing, digital nomadism, and eventually to big techā¢ at Google before striking back out on her own.
In our conversation, she shared her insights on the future of the office, mobility, and humanity in remote work.
Building humanity into remote work
āA lot of people think technology somehow changes how humans behave, but I really donāt think it does. We behave in the same way using different kinds of communications tools. For instance, Iāve run a Slack channel for freelancers who collaborate on different projects, and itās a small but close knit community. Most of us are in touch most days just to have some digital recreation. But you consciously have to make sure that youāre not spending your whole day gossiping on Slack, for instance. Thereās a balance to strike, but I donāt think anythingās lost.ā
The future of the office
āOne of the trends I think weāre going to see moving forward is a shift of the office from a place that people go for 9-5 every day into spaces for collaboration and getting together on a less regular basis with a clear motivation and purpose.ā
āBut even the most dedicated remote workers are still going to encounter a lot of situations in their work where being remote from others is not necessarily conducive to achieving that particular task they might be focused on.ā
āSoftware is having an absolute renaissance now from the downturn in a way nobody really expected. You have these software companies that are absolutely flourishing because theyāve been on a path and were viewing a future of work they thought was very distant. And before 2020 it was very distant. And now suddenly itās here.ā
Not just remote, but mobile
āWhen we say remote work right now, we mean work from home. But I think by the end of this decade we will see a fundamental and enormous shift to work from anywhere. In the next stage of things, people are going to wake up to whatās possible. Weāre going to see a much more fluid approach to location from workers. For instance, if your role is remote, whatās to stop you from taking your family to a villa in Italy for three months every summer?ā
āWeāre seeing this as sort of a pandemic recovery process for many countries like Barbados, Bermuda, and Georgia. These countries and governments actually want to attract remote workers as replacements for tourists.ā
The final word
āRemote work itself is for everybody, but I would say that remote work definitely isnāt for all types of work.ā
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Remotely Inclined Chats with Lauren Razavi
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Lauren. Letās start with your story and journey into remote work
Lauren: My story actually started about a decade ago. When I was a teenager, I basically ran away from home and joined a music tour. From that experience, I ended up becoming a freelancer and remote worker - and I havenāt changed course since.
I wanted to be a musician, but I was absolutely terrible at the guitar, singing, and the piano. So that wasnāt going to work. So I started to promote some friends. One of the bands I was working with started to get some traction, and that was mainly through my work as a music manager. Back then I didnāt really understand what I was doing, but just kind of going for it and leveraging the internet to spread the word about music and to make connections.
From there I went to university and studied politics. The main thing that studying politics teaches you is that you donāt want to get into politics! While I was studying, I fell into being a freelance journalist. I started pitching editors at magazines and newspapers in the UK and worked really, really hard for six months not getting anywhere.
Then I started to get somewhere with freelancing and it all flowed ever since. Itās taken me from freelance journalism and foreign reporting to Google in a couple different roles. Then I transitioned more into writing, speaking, and consulting rather than just the kind of straight freelance journalism, which is where I am at today.
You had a unique remote work journey. Is remote work actually for everyone?
Remote work itself is for everybody, but I would say that remote work definitely isnāt for all types of work.
One of the trends I think weāre going to see moving forward is a shift of the office from a place that people go for 9-5 every day into spaces for collaboration and getting together on a less regular basis with a clear motivation and purpose.
But even the most dedicated remote workers are still going to encounter a lot of situations in their work where being remote from others is not necessarily conducive to achieving that particular task they might be focused on.
So does that mean people who hate remote work have a point?
When people say they hate remote work, sometimes thereās a real confusion in terms of what they are talking about. Particularly this year, when people say they hate remote work, what they might mean is more that they hate doing remote work unexpectedly during a pandemic, without the right equipment and surrounded by partners, children, and other housemates. None of that is conducive to remote work just like any other kind of work or entrepreneurial activity.
You have to be able to choose your way of doing things. Right now, a lot of people donāt really have that as an option. Theyāre not able to say they are the kind of person who needs a coworking space or the kind of person who needs a quiet room. Weāve all been thrust into this situation.
And remote work in many ways is such a vague term. Maybe 70% to 80% of most peopleās work is actually deep focused work where they need to think about things and produce stuff that doesnāt require other people. Certainly in the knowledge economy, the vast majority of work lends itself to this kind of deep focused work. When I talk about remote, Iām talking bout that aspect. But also making an allowance for the fact that some stuff does have to happen and is more efficient in person.
What physical infrastructure does remote work need?
Thereās a hardware aspect and a software aspect to that question.
There are quite clear hardware aspects of a decent remote work set up: ergonomic set up, electronics, etc.
Software is having an absolute renaissance now from the downturn in a way nobody really expected. You have these software companies that are absolutely flourishing because theyāve been on a path and were viewing a future of work they thought was very distant. And before 2020 it was very distant. And now suddenly itās here. So theyāve seen interest in their products and users skyrocket.
A lot of small office interactions are being eaten by the world of software. But thatās really exciting because itās freeing us up to have more meaningful human-to-human interactions.
Do human relationships suffer when you donāt have the mundane little interactions to prompt conversation?
When I think about the mundane things, in an office that might be asking if someone wants a cup of tea. Or helping them out with something. The same kind of thing happens in digital spaces.
A lot of people think technology somehow changes how humans behave, but I really donāt think it does. We behave in the same way using different kinds of communications tools. For instance, Iāve run a Slack channel for freelancers who collaborate on different projects, and itās a small but close knit community. Most of us are in touch most days just to have some digital recreation. But you consciously have to make sure that youāre not spending your whole day gossiping on Slack, for instance. Thereās a balance to strike, but I donāt think anythingās lost.
What else is involved in the future of work besides remote?
Iām actually writing a book on this at the moment - itās about the global mobility aspect. For the past six years Iāve lived and worked as a digital nomad, essentially travelling all around the world whilst building my career.
When we say remote work right now, we mean work from home. But I think by the end of this decade we will see a fundamental and enormous shift to work from anywhere. In the next stage of things, people are going to wake up to whatās possible. Weāre going to see a much more fluid approach to location from workers. For instance, if your role is remote, whatās to stop you from taking your family to a villa in Italy for three months every summer?
Weāre seeing this as sort of a pandemic recovery process for many countries like Barbados, Bermuda, and Georgia. These countries and governments actually want to attract remote workers as replacements for tourists.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Lauren on her newsletter and on Twitter.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
One truth about remote work thatās become a clichĆ© is that it saves you money. Many remote entrepreneurs Iāve spoken with say that their choice to be remote was, at least in part, due to the costs of an office.
The challenge I have with this statement isnāt about its truth. Instead, it ignores the other, very real expenses that pop up when you run a remote business. I want to shine a light on those for two reasons:
* A lot of bashing around remote work stems from the idea that companies are reaping massive savings while forcing employees to pay for office expenses (in the words of Laurel Farrer - āwill no one ever be satisfied?ā).
* Entrepreneurs thinking of going remote - you need to go in eyes wide open. Youāve probably experienced some of these costs as you navigated COVID, but there are others that will come up if you want to build a thriving remote culture.
Iāve broken down this article into three categories: freelancers / solopreneurs, services teams, and product teams. Each category is cumulative, meaning a services team will also have the expenses that a freelancer or solopreneur has. Further, a product team will likely have the expenses of a services team and a freelancer, since a lot of product companies offer services, whether as a revenue line or under the banner of customer success.
So shall we talk about money?
Image via Burst
Remote expenses: Solopreneur and freelancer
All businesses have some fundamental things they need to pay for. In the freelancer and solopreneur world, thankfully those expenses can be relatively low. However, they can still amount to thousands of dollars per year for:
* Payment processing for digital payments
* Web hosting for personal sites and ecommerce platforms
* Custom email and digital asset managers
* Social media management tools
* Contract management and e-signature tools
* Any custom technology necessary to do their job (design platforms, etc.)
These infrastructural costs hurt freelancers and solopreneurs the most, in my opinion, because they are not built for the freelance world. Big tech platforms like Zoom didnāt build for freelancers when they launched a āfreelancerā level. Instead, the company simply took enterprise value triggers and offered fewer of them for a lower price. While this covers some needs, it does not reach all - leading to platform creep for freelancers.
Services companies
Services companies will have the same infrastructural costs of a freelancer, scaled up by the size of their team. However, they will also have:
* Virtual office tools like Workplace by FB or Memberstack / Memberspace / etc.
* Project management tools like Asana, Trello, or Airtable
* Travel and retreat expenses (donāt assume remote teams shouldnāt spend time together)
* Home office stipends or coworking memberships for employees
* Virtual events
* Gift cards and other goodies in lieu of office perks like snacks and coffee
* Payroll and team admin software that manages the complexity of having employees in different countries
These kinds of expenses are often higher for remote service companies than they would be for an office-centric company. Take retreats, for example. You canāt hire a coach bus to drive outside the city with the team - everyone has to fly in, some folks from very far away. It creates opportunity for fun exotic locales, but also adds to the cost base.
Product companies
Selling a product is the most scalable type of company, but it also carries with it a higher fixed cost base. Not only will product companies have all the costs associated with human capital, they will also have:
* Ticket management and support hub software
* Fulfillment and shipping costs
* Returns and inventory management costs
* Cyber security costs associated with remote product development
* And more based on what kind of product they are selling
Many of these costs can be outsourced or handled as a percentage of revenues, but that leaves a smaller pot to pay employees and hold profit for investment later. When these companies are remote, there is some efficiency to be gained - an ecomm brand can have centralized inventory instead of distributing it to storefronts first - but that doesnāt mean itās all easy from there.
There are of course other costs associated with running a business, but I tried to highlight the ones that remote companies have (or have more of) compared to office-centric companies. And if youāre noticing some overlap, thatās a good thing - it means that many office-centric companies are more set up to work remotely than they may have thought.
One more thingā¦
I started Remotely Inclined to investigate running a business remotely, and now invest multiple hours per week researching different topics, interviewing experts, and putting together this content.
If youād like to support that work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. You get access to everything I produce and you can have me solve your remote work problems for you - just send me a question. Iāll do the research and publish the answer.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Laurel Farrer has been leading remote organizations for 14 years, well before it was a hot topic. Now, she helps other companies figure out their remote work arrangements with her company Distribute Consulting and she built a thriving community of remote workers in the Remote Work Association.
While Laurel knows thereās a lot of flexibility in remote work, one thing that grinds her gears is when people have complained about wanting remote work for years only to deride organizations now for ādownloadingā office expenses onto employees. To quote: āWill no one ever be satisfied?ā
In this interview, Laurel shared the four categories of remote work infrastructure, how to take care of your mental health during both the pandemic and with regular remote work, and more.
Remote infrastructure is four things
ā Too many companies ignore infrastructure, believing that once you donāt need an office space anymore, youāre good. Not only is this not the case for hybrid remote companies, but itās also not true of all-remote companies.
Physical infrastructure: All workers, remote or not, need a place to work - desks, chairs, wifi, etc. For a business, this could mean an office, coworking memberships, or home office stipends.
Digital tools: Whatever tools you need to get your work done. This was commonplace in an office environment, but additional tools for communication and collaboration are critical.
Processes and rituals: You may not see everyone every day, so no chatting by the coffee machine. But that doesnāt mean you canāt build regular practices to make work life easier and more pleasant.
Information management: If you donāt manage information properly, you get the worst of both worlds.
Mental health: Remote work challenge accelerated by the pandemic
ā Like an office environment, a remote work environment has mental health risks associated with it. Thatās to be expected.
ā The difference between offices and remote work is that feelings of isolation, disconnection, and micromanagement can be very physical, whereas they might be more difficult to pin down in an office full of people.
ā Unfortunately, the pandemic served to accelerate and exacerbate all these issues, meaning itās critical that people check in with themselves.
ā Self check in questions should be about discovering patterns which you can then do something about. This is entirely about what works for you - not about any sort of best practice.
The final word
āThere is no right way to do remote work. Itās however you want to leverage this as a strategy in order to optimize operations or retain employees or access a greater talent pool. Itās up to you.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Laurel Farrer
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Laurel! Whatās your remote work journey and why did you found Distribute Consulting?
Laurel: Iāve been working remotely for 14 years. The entire time I was operating distributed companies. And 14 years ago, remote work wasnāt cool. It wasnāt natural. I got a lot of questions. Through those years, I was a consultant informally on the side, answering those questions. About four years ago I was experiencing a horrible company culture, and I said I was going to dedicate my life to preventing this for other people. I unexpectedly quit my job because it got to a level where I couldnāt do it anymore. I thought about what would be next, and I knew I wanted to strengthen the conversation about virtual organizational development and create the resources I wanted and needed as a distributed company executive.
What does it mean to be an āoffice managerā in a virtual world?
The role of an office manager is to keep operations humming - to create an environment in which productivity and business operations continue and people have a place to come together that fuels their productivity and collaboration. Thatās exactly what you do as an office manager in a remote company, but in a virtual space.
We still need to have a place to work together. We still have tools to manage. We still have environments to create activities or to plan and coordinate.
How does the office manager role change in a hybrid-first remote world?
The goal with remote work is not to necessarily make everybody go distributed overnight. We canāt do that. It would completely crush our economy. What we need to think of instead is location irrelevancy in our work so business operations can continue regardless of where we are. So that means we can be just as productive outside of the office as we can be inside of the office. Thatās where this new office management role becomes environment creation - weāre going to create an environment where people can collaborate digitally in order to work together as a team in order to produce and review output. Itās creating infrastructure of employee engagement, culture, rituals, and accessibility. Itās just making the office digital instead of physical.
Continuing on the idea of infrastructure - what physical infrastructure is necessary in a remote work world?
This is a conversation too many people neglect. Weāre still physical people - we might work in digital spaces, but weāre physical. We need to pay attention to our coworking spaces or home offices or mobile and HQ offices. They have to support our health and safety so we can continue to be productive, safe, and strong mentally, emotionally, and physically.
The conversation about infrastructure is not just tools. Too many people stop there once they figure out if they should have Microsoft Teams or Slack. Itās bigger than that. Itās about how youāre interacting with each other.
Infrastructure is four things:
* Physical infrastructure like offices and desks.
* Digital tools like Zoom or Slack.
* Processes and rituals to help people get their work done.
* Information management to ensure everything is accessible for people to do their jobs.
I spoke with Avery Francis on the podcast about mental health for remote workers. How many current mental health issues are embedded in remote work versus caused by COVID?
There are health risks - mental health, emotional health - that come along with working remotely. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbates them. Weāre at risk of feelings of invisibility or micromanagement or imposter syndrome. Or feeling very controlled by our leadership team. Or burnout. Or informational isolation. Or feeling disconnected from our job.
When weāre in this exaggerated situation, all those problems become even more extreme. So people have to be hyper-aware and hyper-preventative of that isolation, burnout, and micromanagement, which means they need to be extremely proactive in self-awareness and thinking about āok, do I have a problem? How am I doing today?ā
Some ideas:
* Cutting off work at scheduled times.
* Start work at scheduled times.
* Reach out to a coworker.
* Go for a run during lunch.
The point of remote work is that itās all about employee empowerment. Itās autonomy management, which means weāre in control. We donāt have to be supervised, which is a double-edged sword. On one side you get all this freedom, but on the other itās up to you - if youāre feeling these problems of burnout or isolation, youāve got to be willing to solve it.
What steps can people take if they do a self-check in and things arenāt going well?
Youāre learning about yourself. So for some people, thatās journaling. For some people itās talking it out with a friend. Or talking to a therapist. Or taking a schedule of their day and collecting data about how you feel at different points of the day.
However you get there, just get a point of clarity and be able to notice patterns.
Is remote work just an excuse for companies to make employees pay for things like rent and desks?
I always laugh at this conversation. For the past 10 years, employees have been begging their employees to please see the light about how much money you can save. And that productivity is going to increase and output will increase and retention is going to increase. And the employers wouldnāt even think of it. And now all of a sudden we have this global boom and everyoneās saying employers are just trying to take advantage. Will no one ever be satisfied?
There are pros and cons to both. Companies will save tons of expenses, but now some other expenses theyād never even thought about in their budget, like increased travel or home office stipends or coworking membershipsā¦ now they have to compensate for those.
There is no right way to do remote work. Itās however you want to leverage this as a strategy in order to optimize operations or retain employees or access a greater talent pool. Itās up to you.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Laurel Farrer on LinkedIn. You can also check out Distribute Consulting and the Remote Work Association.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one). Or just read onā¦
Sharon Koifman has been running businesses remotely for 18 years, and now he helps companies around the globe hire full-time remote workers with his agency DistantJob. Heās also publishing a book, Surviving Remote Work, all about how to become the best possible remote employee (or manager). In our interview, Sharon shared a couple lessons he learned the hard way - namely, why CEOs should never try to be their companyās social centre.
The perils of CEO-driven company socializing
ā When Sharon first started DistantJob, he went remote as a matter of cost: no office expenses and geographic arbitrage on salaries. This was also the value he thought he was offering to clients - a cheap talent solution.
ā He soon realized the paradox that if you see humans as simply outsourced cheap labor, they wonāt perform as well for you. He switched his mentality - and DistantJobās work - to focus on placing full-time remote employees.
ā As a result, he immediately tried to become what he called the āsocial centreā of the company. Heād bring everyone together for Zoom happy hours and crack jokes. The feedback was dismal: no one was having fun.
Remaking socializing for remote work
ā After collecting feedback from employees, two themes emerged: they didnāt like that Sharon was driving all the company social activities and they didnāt like being forced into big digital groups. Both resulted in feelings of disengagement.
ā As a result, the company revamped how it socialized:
* The company uses Donut, a Slack app to match people for 1-1 coffee chats.
* Further leveraging Slack, there are different channels for different kinds of socializing and fun, so people can pop into the āroomsā they are interested in - food, board games, etc.
* The company is ā99.999%ā remote, but will occasionally get together around conferences (back when that was possible) - this allowed the team to socialize at night but also learn and connect with the latest industry trends during the day.
The final word
āWhen you have too many people in a physical or zoom meeting, the majority of people donāt get invested in that meeting. But when you have one, two, or three individuals ā¦ you can really get to know them.ā
Image courtesy DistantJob
Remotely Inclined Chats with Sharon Koifman
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Sharon! Can you share how you got into remote work and what your company DistantJob is all about?
Sharon: Iāve been running businesses from my computer for about 18 years. I started off running a web hosting company - and Iād even started a company before that where I was trying to create one of the first music distribution sites, though unlike Napster it would all be legal.
I didnāt really have money. So when I decided to find myself, I was sharing my hosting account with a few colleagues of mine and charging them. Next thing you know, we had about 3,000 clients and that music site never came to be.
So hosting became my first company. We had offices in India. Had our servers originally in Texas then moved to New Jersey. I was sitting by myself running this entire operation. I realized my dad inspired me a lot because he ran an engineering firm. He would do the design of the machine on AutoCAD, on his computer by himself. The machine shop would make the components, someone else would ship it to the clientā¦ again, it was all remote.
Then came DistantJob. The original concept came to me from the first business - when you have an office in India, you have to do some outsourcing. Itās unavoidable. But for me that was like a business sin. Youāre getting paid for the way youāre doing things, your processes, and your methodology. But then you take everything you claim you have and you give it to a company which you have no control over. You donāt know their processes. You donāt know if the results will come in the way you want. It was pretty shocking for me. I didnāt understand why you couldnāt just hire somebody that will work on your processes and build your culture.
After I sold my hosting company, I realized the need for full-time, permanent, career-driven, focused individuals that are working internationally and remotely. You still have this massive advantage of going to the world and finding amazing talent, but back in those days for some reason people felt the only way to hire individuals was through outsourcing.
Youāve mentioned before that itās not just about hiring someone, but actually helping them build digital relationships (colleagues and friends). How do you do that at DistantJob?
I came into DistantJob with the original focus of making a cheap solution. Then I realized that wouldnāt work - the world was too big. My mentality initially was that remote workers were less efficient, but then I realized they could be more efficient if you manage them.
Now, the way I approach it is to start with all the positive things about the office and see if I could replicate them. So instead of hanging out in person, turn on the video camera. Then you can start to know people on a personal level - getting to know their hobbies and such.
At DistantJob, we have a lot of Slack channels for different hobbies. Weāre a big fan of food, nerdy stuff like video games and board games, and we have channels to joke around in.
You found virtual happy hours didnāt work - what happened? What do you do instead?
I remember my director coming to me and saying āI hear that people are not happy or having much fun.ā I realized also that I was busy talking and doing all the entertainment. I was literally trying to entertain my team, make jokes, hang out, and be the social centre.
You slowly see that even though managers got the hint and tried very hard, it didnāt move the conversation along much. Iāve since had a much better experience one on one - intimate conversations. We still have drinks with one another, but now itās two or three people and it works so much better.
I think this is reflective of meeting culture completely. When you have too many people in a physical or zoom meeting, the majority of people donāt get invested in that meeting. But when you have one, two, or three individuals, you can really get to know them.
We also use Donut on Slack, an app that randomly matches you with someone for one-on-one conversations for 15 minutes. That gets better results than a big happy hour experience.
Weāre also completely remote. Once in a blue moon Iāll hang out with my managers, but thatās a big project and it means a big investment on flights in. We usually do it around conferences, so itās an opportunity to see the market while taking the evenings to hang out. But 99.999% of what we do is remote.
In the remote world, thereās a huge conversation about pay vs. geography. Whatās your opinion?
This is a very conflicting discussion because Iām a little bit on both directions at this moment. I pay what I can afford to, but I am a big fan of the geographic arbitrage solution on an ethical side, surprisingly. Take for example India. Theyāre known for outsourcing (the grandparent of the remote job experience).
One of the biggest things that youād outsource to India or the Philippines was a call centre. Youād go there because it was cheap. But the jobs you brought helped the economies evolve, and now a call centre is only 15% cheaper there than it is in the United States. As a result, some jobs are coming back to the United States. Itās crazy - give it 10 years to let those economies evolve and the jobs are coming back while you just created half a billion jobs somewhere else.
Now, I donāt know about producing shoes in child labor camps in some backwards-ass countries. Iām very much pro building successful, intelligence-based jobs.
Youāve just written a book based on your 18 years of remote CEO experience! Tell me more about it.
The book is called Surviving Remote Work - itās all about getting people comfortable with (and not fearful of) managing remote employees. Itās about figuring out the optimal ways of success for remote employees and remote managers. And I hope I wrote it in a fun, easy to read way.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Sharon via email or pre-order his book on Amazon.
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Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one). Or just read onā¦
Techstars is one of the largest startup accelerators in the world, with hubs in over 30 cities, spanning over 10 countries around the world. But in 2017, the accelerator launched Techstars Anywhere, a program for people who canāt - or shouldnāt - relocate for an accelerator. With COVID, the whole startup ecosystem went remote, but Techstars Anywhere was able to continue operating and support all other Techstars accelerators with its experience and knowledge.
In todayās chat, Ryan Kuder - the Managing Director of Techstars Anywhere - shared the biggest challenge heās seen on remote teams, the secret to getting into Techstars, and why Techstars Anywhere is all-in on remote work.
The biggest challenge of remote teams
ā Whether hybrid or all-remote, Ryan observed teams struggling with intentional communication. Itās not just that you canāt read body language, but each act of communicating requires the intention to act. Itās a weird thing initially for people who are so used to sitting in an office and passively recognizing opportunities to communicate.
ā The solution that Ryan shares with Techstars founders is two fold:
* Plan channels for emotions, problems, and specific issues to rise to the surface. Because you canāt see things in person, the different channels (i.e. āClient issues.ā āStuck on a problem.ā etc.) make those challenges visible again.
* Set the tone as the founder, actively leveraging the channels as you want employees to leverage them. Encourage people to use the systems in place so that they become habit.
Techstars Anywhere: the secret to getting in
ā Techstars is sector and stage agnostic, meaning a brand new startup might be in the program with a multi-million dollar scaling company. This is because Techstars chooses to focus on inflection points in companies.
ā Ryan said the inflection points he looks for are:
* Companies that are getting ready to launch once theyāve built a product.
* Companies getting ready to fundraise, whether a first round or a subsequent round.
* Companies getting ready for scaling and fast growth.
ā From there, Ryan said the companies that are successful at getting into Techstars all have both a vision for the future of the world and a clear understanding of how their company fits into that new world. Then comes the traditional team assessment, skills assessment, and other common elements of getting into a startup accelerator.
From remote companies to empowering remote work
ā In the first cohorts of Techstars Anywhere, the accelerator wanted any kind of company. The issue wasnāt whether you were remote or not, simply that relocating for an accelerator didnāt make sense. For example: one of the first Techstars Anywhere companies was an organic mushroom farm in Brooklyn, NY.
ā Ryan and Techstars have a vision that remote work will become significantly more accelerated due to COVID (something we agree on!), and as a result tons of industries will change, both in terms of how we work but also how we live and travel.
ā In response to COVID and the changing world of remote work, Ryan and the Techstars team are making a big bet with Techstars Anywhere, focusing the accelerator on the future of work and startups tackling the impacts of remote work.
The final word
Techstars applications are open. The accelerator is looking for companies at the point of evolution - product to revenue, revenue to growth, etc.
Remotely Inclined Chats with Ryan Kuder
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Ryan! When we chatted, you said Techstars Anywhere isnāt a remote version of Techstars, but a whole new, remote accelerator experience. What do you mean by that?
Ryan: Weāre all thinking about how to build remote experiences for our employees - especially over the last six months. The first step people take is usually to do what theyāve always done, but now on zoom. Everything kind of stays the same - but you wind up with some dissonance in that experience.
So the way weāve thought about Techstars Anywhere is weāve got objectives for our founders. We want them to become great storytellers. We want them to build a fantastic network. We want them to be able to raise money. We want them to understand the levers and metrics that drive their business. And we want them to be able to understand the rhythms and cadences for their companies.
We used our decade of experience that we had running Techstars accelerators as the starting off point then thought, given these objectives, what are the changes we need to make? Itās been an evolving process since our first remote accelerator back in 2017, which had a hypothesis of a hybrid model - itās a little bit of time together in person, a little bit of time working remotely with the objective being to create an experience that was going to get that full value of a Techstars accelerator experience.
Which elements of the accelerator are all-remote versus which are in-person?
So much of what we do is building relationships. And thereās just something about breaking bread or having a drink - or even just sitting with somebody looking out over the ocean. In normal times (non-covid), itās an experience that combines three in person gatherings with five week sections of remote work.
When weāre in person, weāre focused on deep dives into particular topics and focused on relationship building. Weāre focused on building out the network with our mentors. And then when we are in our remote periods, weāre focused on the meetings, execution, and building of the companies. In-person sessions are spread out evenly throughout the program so that weāre constantly getting back and forth.
One of the great things about the Techstars network is that with all current Techstars accelerators running remotely, weāve been able to try out of a lot of things and been able to focus on what itās like to build experiences for founders that are delivered first and foremost, remotely.
Whatās been the biggest change or evolution in your process with Techstars Anywhere (barring COVID, which of course forced lots of change)?
There have been a lot, to be honest with you. Like a startup founder, one of the things weāre constantly figuring out is how do we continuously build better experiences for our constituents - founders, mentors, and investors.
The way weāve gone about it is thinking about three experiences and figuring out the opportunities for us to create and opportunities for those to overlap. Each of the four programs weāve put in different things, set up different kinds of meetings, structured interactions differently, and created more opportunities for connections. Itās focused on creating community that involves not just the founders in the accelerator but also all the alumni and mentors and investors attached to the program.
Can you share an example of how you structured your virtual experiences?
I believe that great remote work is not exclusively remote. When we think about how people develop relationships, thereās a ton of value that comes from hybrid things.
At Techstars anywhere, we spend the first two weeks really understanding our business. Week one is a qualitative look at the business. Where are we as entrepreneurs? What are the businesses we want to build? Who are our customers? What are they buying from us and why? In week two we look at quantitative parts of the business: revenue, financial models, KPIs, and target setting.
For the remainder of the program, companies work through meetings with mentors on their KPIs and understanding the challenges that companies are facing. Midway through the program, we get together and start to talk about storytelling, fundraising, and figuring out the best financing strategy for the business.
We donāt have a traditional demo day - we do it online, and have been doing online demo days since 2017. Weāve been playing with the format to get the right audience to the right founders. Weāre really focused on a few questions: What are we doing after this is over? How does everybody go home? What kind of continuity do we keep? When the program is over, the Techstars experience is really just beginning.
What have been the biggest stumbling blocks administering a remote accelerator?
One of the biggest challenges is having a comprehensive understanding of everything thatās going on. With the shift from co-located to remote work, we lose the ability to see people. You donāt know when to tap somebody on the shoulder and say āletās grab a cup of coffee and talk through whateverās going onā.
One of the most important things I can do is to approach every day with intentionality. We need to ensure weāre communicating the things we need to and that we are checking in with people on a regular cadence. If folks are struggling with a task or job or customer, create channels that allow that to surface so we can see whatās happening around us without necessarily being able to see it visually. That requires everybody to buy into the systems that are put in place in order to allow those things to surface.
How do you make sure youāre in a good spot as a leader to be intentional with communications?
Itās important that your company develop the culture thatās right for it. There isnāt any kind of culture that fits everybody. When you think about your own remote policies and remote styles, the most important thing is that founders recognize for themselves where they want to be. Some founders will be overly transparent. Some will tend to be more reserved.
The big part is how you set the tone of the types of things we share and talk about as a community. That becomes something reinforced by behaviors.
The accelerator is now beginning to focus on startups that support the future of work. What prompted the shift?
Our first class was really focused on how we create a great experience for founders who canāt or shouldnāt relocate for an accelerator. But Techstars is a largely remote company ourselves and we started to see the changes that happen in work firsthand.
With covid, we went from slow roll adoption to overnight nearly 100% adoption where it can happen. Our hypothesis is that this will come back down a little bit but is still a step function above where it used to be. Weāll see this adoption of more flexible work-from-anywhere policies, where itās home, the office, or a coffee shop or coworking space. We believe that will have big, lasting, fundamental changes not only in how we work but in how we live. So weāre interested in founders that are looking at these types of impacts.
When a personās office does not dictate where they live, all kinds of things change: neighbourhoods, transportation, entertainment, travel, etc. There are all these downstream effects.
What kinds of companies are you looking for with the new cohort of Techstars Anywhere?
We have applications open for seven or eight Techstars Accelerators, including Techstars Anywhere, most of which will be running at least partially remotely. Weāre not 100% sure what that will look like moving forward.
For Techstars Anywhere, when we think about the founders that are a great fit, itās people who have a vision about the way the world should look and what their company is in it. Theyāve got an ability to share that story and get people on board. Theyāve got all of the technical and functional skills necessary to get to whatever the next stage is. And we also look at the market people are working in, the progress theyāve made, and the idea they are working on.
Itās about companies entering inflection points. Around launch. Around a fundraising round. Around growth.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Ryan on Twitter and via Techstarsā website.
Image courtesy Techstars
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Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one). Or just read onā¦
Today: Iām responding to two viral articles about remote work on todayās podcast. The long and short of it? Iām skeptical.
Ok, so two articles went mega-viral this week in the remote work blogosphere:
* Remote Work Is Killing the Hidden Trillion-Dollar Office Economy
* Working from āanywhereā is possibleābut not sustainable
From a media perspective, I have to hand it to them. Salacious headlines. Very āanti.ā Itās got punch, facts, scary futuresā¦ itās a delight. A great story. Which is exactly why I eye-rolled at the titles. However, I was also intrigued and curious. So I read both articles - here are my thoughts.
Are we in for a crash - or a call to creativity?
The article on how a trillion-dollar economy is dying because it was very tied to the office ecosystem is real, and itās scary. White collar workers and business travellers are the dominant spending category for a huge swath of the economy:
* Hotels.
* Airlines / air travel.
* Food delivery.
* Restaurants and cafes.
* Office-adjacent businesses like dry cleaners, shoe shiners, and suit stores.
* Office furniture, technology, and supply stores.
But, as author Steve LeVine suggests, the bigger fear is not necessarily the primary loss (even though that alone is tens of thousands of jobs), itās the next-step loss caused by city dwellers fleeing the city. If too many people leave the city, even further carnage could result in terms of commercial downtowns falling apart, losing jobs, and more.
The logic is all there. And weāve already seen a huge loss due to COVID, but I worry that the fears might be overstated.
Hereās what I see instead: a call to creativity.
Rents falling in major cities could result in a huge spike in small-time entrepreneurship: the cute cafes, shops, and restaurants that could never afford city rents. Further, people leaving could ultimately be nothing. Whatās 50,000 people leaving in a city of millions? A painful blip, but little else. Thereās real potential damage from the idea that more people might choose not to move to cities from small towns, and that could cause some city damage. However, doesnāt it kind of suck that our current model of city living is āit sucks, but you have toā? We can do better.
Who isnāt able to afford the city right now that could soon? Photo via Unsplash.
Remote work is giving people the opportunity to live where they want - and it might even make cities more affordable. Just as thousands of people are taking their remote jobs and buying old houses, there are people who have always dreamed of living in the city (or just love cities) and now itās affordable for them. I think the only people that will truly fail in this shift are the ones that built on the idea of guaranteed demand. If anything, we might see new developments building actual homes in cities (or āhome in the skyā condos) at affordable rates, instead of shoeboxes we cram into because the only good jobs are here.
Innovation has a remote work problem
In the article that remote work isnāt sustainable, Professor Hyejin Younās main point is that remote work cannot produce the same levels of innovation that central HQs in large cities can.
So, right off the bat: this article is not about remote work, itās about innovation and what kinds of environments foster it. The remote work connection is interesting and topical, but this article is not analyzing what remote work is or can do. Simply suggesting that remote work and innovation are not compatible.
From there, the Professor Youn - a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, walks through his primary arguments:
* Big cities are hubs of innovation because of their diversity.
* Remote work is great for productivity, but not innovation.
Ultimately, he drew the conclusion that if a company wants to be innovative, it needs to have an HQ in an innovation-breeding city, which he says starts around one million people. Thereās a grave message to āthink twiceā before going to cities under one million, and suggests that municipal leaders need to create policies and infrastructure to attract ācognitive laborā (aka knowledge workers) - something we completely agree on.
Where I disagree with Professor Youn is the implication that you can only get diversity from large cities. Sure, cities might bring the diversity to you, but distributed and remote teams are possibly the best cross-section of global diversity available to the working worldā¦ if you build it that way. Yes, you can work remotely with all your bros from college, but you can also work remotely with brilliant minds living in different cities, countries, and circumstances. Thatās a heck of a lot of diversity.
We need to build innovation systems for remote work. Image via Unsplash.
The concept of remote being great for productivity but not innovation is one I have a hard time disagreeing with. However, what Iāve seen and learned from my interviews with remote entrepreneurs is that the new crop of innovators is not trying to take office-innovation virtual, they are looking at the strengths of remote work and building new models of innovation. For example, Shelly Spiegel focuses heavily on her remote culture. Melissa Kargiannakis leans into short meetings with ample additional communication opportunities. Floyd Marinescu focuses on reducing cognitive load to make innovation easier. This isnāt to say itās a silver bullet - just that innovation is not a one-legged beast.
PS - liking these articles? Share them with a friend!
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Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one). Or just read onā¦
Today: I interviewed Job (pronounced āYopā), the founder of Remote.com. He shared his views on how to build a strong remote company - and what remote work advocates mess up on.
There are laws, admin work, and a lot of planning that goes into making a job offer. Double (or triple) this amount of work if you want to hire an employee that isnāt in your home country. With the rise of remote work, this will be a key challenge for distributed companies in the future - and itās a problem that Job van der Voort is solving with his company, Remote.com, a platform that handles all backend administration for hiring employees around the world.
In our interview, Job shared his experiences on how to onboard new employees remotely, why a day of zoom calls is the wrong day to succeed in remote work, and what remote work advocates get wrong about the future of work.
Onboarding the right way
ā In Jobās experience with Remote and GitLab, good remote onboarding is a function of three things:
* Communication.
* Documentation.
* Welcoming.
ā Communication should be frequent and try to answer every question before itās asked. Companies should provide all standard messaging and go further to ensure that they are answering every anticipated remote-work related question. All of this should be documented and made readily available for new employees.
ā When it comes to being welcoming, Job means helping new employees build their network within the organization. Professionally speaking, this takes the shape of encouraging coffee calls with either the whole organization (in small businesses) or the personās new team (in big companies). Outside of the professional realm, this is also about creating social opportunities.
ā At Remote, for instance, they have a question of the day where everyone answers in a thread. These questions are meant to be philosophical or just fun (for instance āWhatās the best food youāve ever eaten?ā), but never about work.
A day of zoom calls is a day wasted
ā Job is a huge fan of asynchronous communication, and says it should be the default in every remote organization. If youāve filled your days with zoom calls, āyouāre doing it wrong,ā since that will lead to the lowest levels of productivity.
ā To get better at asynchronous communication, Job advocates a standard framework in the organization of what kinds of communication go on which platforms. (This is very similar to the ācommunications triageā framework advocated by Floyd Marinescu in our interview).
The power of human connection in remote work
ā While asynchronous communication should absolutely be the default in remote companies, there are clear exceptions to the rule for Job:
* The moment when you have too many back-and-forths.
* Anything social or with the purpose to help people bond.
* Creative sessions and brainstorming.
* Just wanting to work together.
ā The last bullet - just wanting to work together - is a critical one. This is the area Job says remote work advocates often get wrong. Promoting asynchronous communication and remote working arrangements should never imply that human connection isnāt important or desirable.
The final word
āI think the biggest mistake in remote work advocates can make is to deny the value of being together in person.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Job van der Voort
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Job! To start, can you explain your role as CEO of Remote.com?
Job: I founded the company along with my co-founder, who is the CTO. Itās my job to make sure that we execute and operate well. I started Remote.com after experiencing the struggles of international hiring when I left my previous employer.
We founded Remote to solve what we believe is one of the biggest challenges when you want to build a distributed teams - when you hire someone in another country, you have to pay them, be compliant with local labor laws, and provide benefits. Remote has its own global infrastructure, meaning we have an entity in each country in which we operate. Through those entities, we can employ people for you. We act as the employer of record.
In practice, letās say you want to hire Jane from Portugal. You come to us - within a day we can onboard Jane. We give her employment agreements, any benefits you would want to offer, and we invoice you as the employer each month, but you just treat Jane like any other employee. For Jane, she gets a local payslip, benefits, and everything else she would expect from local employment.
Do you only support full time employment or also contractors, consultants, and other forms of work?
Most of our clients have a number of contractors working for them. They start paying them through our platform, which we allow them to do for free. Once they feel itās necessary to convert those contractors to employees, they can easily do that through our platform as well.
Whatās your advice or process for onboarding employees youāve never met before? Any examples to share?
The important thing is that you communicate a lot, especially early on to create many moments of interaction and communication - and not just between managers and a new hire, but within the whole organization.
You donāt get any accidental interactions when working remotely, so you have to force it. For onboarding, thatās where it starts - literally just have a call with each other. Make sure there are plenty of ways to talk with each other.
Then make sure all information they might need is well documented and they could easily find it themselves.
But the most important part of this is that you should spend time thinking about how to make people feel welcome and comfortable in a new situation. When you do things in person, we have social standards. We have social scripts that we can follow to make sure someone is comfortable. When youāre remote, those arenāt established. You have to spend time thinking about making someone feel welcome. Once someone is onboarded, ask for feedback and let people tell you exactly how they feel.
For example, we encourage people to set up coffee calls with almost everyone else in the organization. Of course it depends on the size of the organization, but at least encourage people to have coffee calls with every single person on their team so they get a bit of a network established throughout the day.
Beyond that, the most important thing is to have many moments of interaction that are not about work. On our team, we play a lot of games together. We have a Minecraft server at the company. We play Pictionary together. We share news with the team. We have a question of the day, for instance āWhatās the best thing youāve ever eaten?ā
Whatās the best balance of asynchronous versus real-time communication?
This work should by default be asynchronous. It helps a lot to establish standards around what communication happens where. Slack doesnāt really encourage asynchronous communication, whereas other platforms (we use GitLab, for instance) helps a lot with asynchronous communication because it doesnāt feel like a chat.
But there are very clear exceptions.
* The moment when you have too many back-and-forths.
* Anything social or with the purpose to help people bond.
* Creative sessions and brainstorming.
* Just wanting to work together.
I think the biggest mistake in remote work advocates can make is to deny the value of being together in person or doing synchronous work.
Changing gears, should remote teams care about data security more than in-office companies?
I used to work in an office building software for government, so it has to be highly secure. What we did there is if you walked away from your computer and left it unlocked, people would run a script on your computer to set your wallpaper to something ridiculous. Itās to make fun of you but also show you that you left your machine unattended and you run the risk of someone walking in and doing something with your data.
When you run a distributed company, you canāt do this. So you have to create a strong culture around security awareness. There are some basic things you can do. It starts with educating people and giving people great hardware and software.
Iām not a fan of bring your own device. I feel like thatās mostly a cost-cutting measure for organizations. Everyone at Remote gets a Macbook Pro, itās very simple. The hard drive is encrypted by default and has good security practices. And then we know exactly what can be ran there and what people run over there.
We also manage our passwords through password managers, which is one of those simple facts that makes your life a lot easier when it comes to security.
Your culture of awareness needs to make people think about what it means to be secure and what you can do to prevent others from messing with your data. For Remote, we handle a lot of personal information. What we did is created extremely limited access to essentially everything. Even as CEO of the company, I cannot access our customersā data in any way, and everybody in the organization is very clear on that. The way we built our software is that if you as an employer or employee were to revoke access or delete something, it would be unrecoverable for us.
Whatās your advice for folks who want to stay remote post-COVID?
The best thing you can do is treat your organization as one of your products. Review it and try to improve it - and never stop trying to improve it. You do so iteratively because there are no hard and fast rules and how to make remote organizations work. There are just a handful of examples. You really have to invent much of it yourself.
There are many challenges of working together in an office, but weāve been facing them for one hundred-plus years. Whereas the problems of working remotely weāve been facing for maybe the last five years or do.
Also: I would tell every leader that if almost every day is full of meetings or zoom calls, youāre doing it wrong. That is not necessary. The only way you can work effectively is by working asynchronously more and adopting modern tools.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Job on Twitter or check out Remoteās website.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one). Or just read onā¦
Today: Weāre talking about the next generation of remote entrepreneurs - and how BETA Camp is helping them launch their businesses.
Yifan Zhou and Ivy Xu met in middle school and became friends, but went their separate ways after college - Yifan to Bain & Company and Ivy to Silicon Valley. Years later, the two reconnected and realized all of the things they wished theyād learned in high school about entrepreneurship, strategy, and business. High school business classes in Ottawa just didnāt cut it. So the two founded BETA Camp, an immersive camp for high school students to teach them how to start a business - then help them actually do it.
In this conversation, Yifan and Ivy shared the BETA Camp founding story, the curriculum students learn at the camp, and their thoughts on the future of remote entrepreneurship.
Seeing an opportunity
ā Yifan and Ivy reconnected in late 2019, shortly after Yifan finished her MBA at Wharton and Ivy had left her Silicon Valley job to interview tech entrepreneurs around the world. The two reminisced about high school and all the learnings they wished they got as teenagers.
ā With that passion - and realizing that no such camps existed in Canada (and their American counterparts were cancelled due to COVID in early 2020) - the two saw an opportunity to launch BETA Camp as a virtual, six week summer camp.
From nothing to business
ā Weeks 1 and 2 focus on business fundamentals: Strategy, the Four Pās of Marketing, Porterās Five Forces, and other foundational knowledge.
ā Week 3 is all about customer discovery and product market fit.
ā Weeks 4 through 6 focus on taking customer lessons from Week 3 and creating a real, thriving remote startup. Each week features lectures, team discussion and activities, and talks from successful founders about the startup building journey.
The new crop of remote (teen) entrepreneurs
Now in Week 5 of 6, the program is already churning out viable businesses led by teens:
* A business teaching teachers how to use more state of the art technologies for more collaborative classrooms.
* A fitness accountability and accessibility app in Slack.
* A new Slack plugin.
* A UV light box that will kill germs in your garage.
Tools mentioned in this episode:
* Miro
* Mural
* Zapier
The final word
āThe future looks remote to us.ā
If youāre thinking of freelancing - or side-hustling, launching an ecommerce store, or something else entrepreneurial - check out #5to9Conf.
Iāll be speaking about building an inbound client funnel, and other speakers are covering everything from community building to building new products.
Remotely Inclined Chats with Yifan Zhou and Ivy Xu
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Yifan and Ivy! Can you share what BETA Camp does?
Yifan: BETA Camp started out just this summer because of the pandemic - we knew there were going to be a lot of high school students at home without something impactful for the summer. So we started a six-week immersive virtual summer camp focused on enabling the next generation of leaders, whether they want to be entrepreneurs, tech innovators, or business leaders.
The BETA Camp program has lectures from industry professionals on topics around building a business: intro to business, user design, scaling, to growth. They see the whole spectrum and then actually apply it to their own startups. Throughout the six weeks, they have the opportunity to work in teams and build a startup from the ground up.
Was this going to be remote anyway, or was that in response to COVID?
Ivy: Iāve always been interested in helping high school students broaden their perspectives. Both of us grew up in Ottawa and we didnāt see many opportunities. After going to Queens University for a bachelor of commerce, I ended up moving to Silicon Valley and seeing the ambitious entrepreneurs, the startups, and the scale of things. It really broadened my perspectives on what I can do with my career - itās something I wish Iād seen earlier.
Yifan and I met in middle school, but then went our separate ways after university. But there was this unique time - back in 2018, I quit my job and travelled for a year, interviewing tech leaders all over the world. In 2019, Yifan had just finished her MBA at Wharton. So it was time when we both didnāt have that much on our plates and so we could start something. Thatās when we thought of BETA Camp in the spring.
Both of us being from Canada, we realized that there werenāt many competitive and immersive programs in the business, tech, and entrepreneurial space here. So there was a market gap. There are plenty in the US, but a lot of them were not running during the summer and now so many got cancelled due to COVID. So we saw this opportunity to provide this experience - and we think we can do it well with counselors that we can bring in. It really highlights the strength of a virtual program, since we can allow students to learn from the best of the best, no matter where the counselor is anywhere in the world.
How did you develop the curriculum? Whatās included?
Yifan: When we came up with the curriculum, it was asking what we would have wanted to know in high school.
Week one is very introductory - intro to business and entrepreneurship.
Week two is business fundamentals. Thinking about strategy, the Four Pās of marketing, and Porterās Five Forces. That kind of traditional business stuff.
Week three is product-market fit and customer research. Basically: finding a problem and finding out the pain points of your customers and designing something they actually want.
Weeks four, five, and six is developing that product and growing it. Think about scaling, sales, marketing, etc.
We have lectures and bring in amazing camp counselors from all over the world, and they are generally an hour and a half. Thereās some theory, but then immediately live activities. It creates this MBA program atmosphere when you think about cases and having discussions.
Then thereās Founder Fireside chats, where we bring in founders to talk about their journey and students can ask whatever questions they want. One amazing founder I want to highlight is a highschool student who built a business - and I think the students could really relate to how you establish the ability to start a business as a high school student.
From there we have Future Fridays, which talks about what the future could look like. Weāll have someone with an MD, JD, MBA, or PhD talk about what that looks like from their perspective. Or a digital nomad talking about not having a permanent place to stay and how they deal with that.
Should everyone start their businesses remotely?
Ivy: I believe the future is moving more and more towards being remote. As for BETA Camp, the future looks remote to us. Weāre going to stay a remote program just because of the broader horizons and the skills that we want to teach at BETA Camp.
In 10 years, by the time Campers join the workforce, theyāll most likely have the option of joining a remote team. Something I want to highlight is the skills we teach is how to communicate remotely - our teams are located all across North America. And then they come together and are using some of the best tools out there like Miro, Mural, or building integrations with Zapier. These are the tools used by remote teams.
Do you work with universities? How can parents get involved?
We havenāt really done university partnerships. Unlike some other programs, weāre not a recruiting channel for these universities. But weāve found amazing camp counselors from universities like Stanford, Wharton, MIT, etc. and also from some amazing companies.
On the parent side, itās fantastic to see some of them - some of our campers have parents who are very entrepreneurial. Itās great for an entrepreneurial parent to guide their child, but also BETA Camp is a great opportunity for those students to meet other students with a similar passion for producing whatās going to be valuable in the world.
As we record this, youāre in week 5 of 6 - how are things going? Whatās next?
Ivy: Itās really not even a six week program to build a startup, since the first two weeks are introduction and strategy. Looking back, all the skills and new tools they know is great.
* We have a team starting a business teaching teachers how to use more state of the art technologies for more collaborative classrooms.
* We have another team building fitness accountability and accessibility app in Slack.
* Another is building a Slack plugin.
* Then one team is building a UV light box that will kill germs in your garage.
Itās all across the spectrum. With todayās systems - and we teach them about integrations with no-code - everyone could operate remotely.
Itās one of the most rewarding things for me is seeing the real projects with validated markets - itās unparalleled learning for these students to apply what they learn and feel how hard it really is to get customers and think about backend operations.
Next is weāre launching a Fall 2020 program thatās going to be 12 weeks instead of just six, from September to December. Itās going to have the best parts of summer based on feedback from students, just pushed out over 12 weeks.
Running parallel to school, we hope theyāll be able to achieve at least the same, if not more results by the end of 12 weeks.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get learn more about BETA Camp on their website or Instagram.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one). Or just read onā¦
First: I recently stumbled upon Hauniv, an amazing monthly email digest of the startups that have raised money (they manually verify the data - no robots). If youāre interested in the startup space, you should definitely check them out.
Today: Weāre talking about how to build a thriving remote business of one with Anna Codrea-Rado, a NYT and Guardian journalist turned remote entrepreneur.
Anna Codrea-Rado started her career as a journalist, eventually getting laid off by Vice Media in one of their mass layoffs. Instead of getting another job, Anna decided to go freelance, publishing pieces in the New York Times, Guardian, and more. From there, she built a fully-fledged business of one with multiple streams of income coming her way.
In our interview, Anna shared how she started her business of one, the process she used to build multiple streams of income, and how she continues to expand even though she is still her only employee.
Setting up multiple streams of income
ā When Anna was laid off, she decided to go freelance and her main income source became pitching and selling stories to major media outlets or magazines. She knew she wanted to grow her income in other ways, so she looked at building out new opportunities.
ā Now, Anna still writes for major outlets but also has: A podcast, a paid newsletter, online courses, and a forthcoming book on building a freelance business of one.
ā Getting to this point required a shift in thinking. Hereās are the questions Anna asked herself that led to identifying new business opportunities:
* Who else wants your skills? In Annaās case, she started with media outlets but corporate blogs wanted her skills as well, which opened new client opportunities.
* Who can you teach your skills to? Anna taught writing in journalism schools and now teaches freelancers how to build their businesses.
* What else can your skills produce? Instead of only writing for media outlets, Anna started self-publishing her newsletter, The Professional Freelancer, and is now writing a book.
* How can you step out of your comfort zone but lean on your current skills? Everything Anna does is based on her skills as a writer and journalist, so she has a higher chance of success from the start.
Building your own support systems
ā As freelancers and solopreneurs, itās easy to feel lonely, isolated, or just plain alone with no one to ask for help or advice.
ā Anna found that the way around this is to find two kinds of people:
* General support such as a spouse or friend. The one who will tell you itās going to be alright when things get touch.
* Colleagues / āwork spouses.ā This is the person you can turn to with professional issues who can offer real advice based on relevant experiences.
ā Once you have your support systems in place (Anna calls it your āemotional emergency fundā), it becomes a lot easier to stand up for your rights to be paid fairly, paid on time, and treated well. Solopreneurs work with multiple stakeholders, often with a power dynamic involved, so having additional support systems help give you the courage to ask for what you deserve.
The final word
ā[Growing my business] was about learning my options, what made sense for me, and going one step out of my comfort zone but very much leaning on my existing skillset.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Anna Codrea-Rado
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Anna! Can you share what your business is all about?
Anna: We were just saying before recording that there isnāt really a neat word for encapsulating everything that I do, but I always say first and foremost that I am a journalist. Thatās what Iāve done for the past three years working remotely for myself. Beyond that I am building out more of a digital business. I still do traditional journalism for legacy media organizations like the New York Times, Wired, and the Guardian. Then I have a newsletter called The Professional Freelancer. Itās on Substack, which is how we got to know each other - through the Substack community. I also have a podcast called Is This Working, which is about the messy parts of work. And I campaign for freelancer workersā rights while working on a book - itās a guidebook for freelancers and anyone else who wants to work for themselves.
You built a lot of revenue streams for your business. What are the mechanics behind your business and its growth?
I believe very passionately that a diverse portfolio of income streams is really fundamental for anyone, regardless of whether youāre employed full-time, a freelancer, or whatever your business structure looks like. Multiple revenue streams provide a bit more stability and security - they spread the risk out. Itās simply not putting all your eggs in one basket.
I also think that thereās a bit of an image problem with multiple streams of income because itās such an unsexy phrase. I know we have side hustler, but I donāt think that quite gets to it either.
I got into freelancing in 2017 when the company I was working for, Vice Media, pivoted to video and had a massive global layoff. I started with my existing skill sets and how I could package them up differently and sell them to different types of clients or in a different format.
So you think about large businesses and think about it in terms of B2B or B2C. Iām both since I sell to individuals and to large organizations.
I built it all one by one. I started with traditional journalism - selling articles and stories to newspapers and magazines. Then I started adding new ones. I started doing some public speaking. Then I started doing some teaching and 1-1 coaching. Selling the newsletter came a bit further down after Iād built up the audience.
It was about learning my options, what made sense for me, and going one step out of my comfort zone but very much leaning on my existing skillset.
How can people get started finding that first āthingā they can use to become the foundation of their business?
Start with an audit of your own skills and what youāre doing, because itās easy to forget how valuable the skills you already have are. If youāre doing it repeatedly or have been doing it for many years, you take for granted that you have something very valuable. Itās a good idea to think about who else might want to have that thing.
Take myself for example. My main thing was writing journalism. So then I thought about what other offshoots come from that. One of them is that I can teach the business of freelancing and the business of journalism. That is often a first step when youāre thinking about multiple income streams: what skill can you teach to others?
For a lot of people, itās easier to teach than you might think it is. And you can teach in lots of different formats. Iāve taught guest lectures at journalism schools. But you can set up your own webinars or online events - or in person events if we ever get back to a time when we do those.
Then you can think about who else wants the actual skill. In my case, itās distilling complex ideas into easily digestible copy. Thatās a skill that not just media outlets want to buy. So you can take it and sell it to companies that maybe want to start a blog. And then you can end up in a place where youāre selling directly to your readers.
Itās really starting with how am I looking at something and what are other ways it could work for me.
How do you balance advocating for your own rights as a freelancer with so many stakeholders and clients?
Itās much easier said than done. But I have been advocating for freelance workersā rights, particularly around pay. I have two campaigns at the moment. One is about late payment terms in the media and journalism industry, since all freelancers face issues with getting paid on time because of the power imbalance.
Then I have a campaign around pay disparities in what Iāve identified as the freelancer pay gap - differences in pay that freelancers experience depending on a number of factors like gender, race, ethnicity, age, location, and all of these things. On top of that, thereās a disparity between what a freelancer gets paid versus an in-house person, with wages in favor of the in-house employee.
Nonetheless there are structural problems that make freelancing unnecessarily difficult. So as freelancers itās really important that we educate ourselves on what our rights actually are and then try as hard as we can to stand up for them.
As a solo business owner, you can also work with other people. You can hire people to help you out. Iāve recently started working with a bookkeeper, since itās difficult and draining and this person is better at it than I am. Iām paying for peace of mind and mental health, basically. It can be scary when you work for yourself and think that hiring someone is scary and daunting. But in the long run itās investing in not only your business but yourself.
Whatās your advice for folks just getting started in their business?
This might sound counterintuitive, but I think when you are a business of one you need a work spouse or freelance advisors - your kind of freelance board of executives.
However you want to think about it, you need people. You need them to support you but also people to give you solid business advice and who can talk to you about your specific issues. The number one challenge freelancers face when they work alone is thereās no one to turn to. Iāve lost so many hours just to self-doubt because I havenāt had someone who can share an idea.
You also need an emergency fund and all of that practical stuff. But thereās an emotional side of working for yourself - you need the emotional equivalent of that emergency fund. Build up that support network - it will pay off in the long run rather than finding yourself in a position where you need that network and then not knowing where to find it.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Anna and Instagram and Twitter. You can pre-order her book on Amazon.
Image via Instagram
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one) Or just read onā¦
First: My book is live in paperback! If you know any freelancers (or are one yourself), I hope you enjoy it.
Today: Weāre talking remote salaries, documentation, and more with remote work consultant Rhys Black.
Rhys Black started his career managing remote teams before starting his own multi-national, all-remote company helping government trade agencies connect with entrepreneurs. Now, he runs Delocate, a consultancy based in London, UK, that helps companies plan their remote work strategies.
In this interview, Rhys shared his insights on how remote companies can better use documentation to encourage autonomy in employees. From there, he sounded off on what he thinks the remote salary debate is really going to be about.
Remote leader to remote entrepreneur
ā Rhys started his career leading remote product teams, engaging with developers, marketers, and designers all around the world.
ā His first foray into entrepreneurship was a company called Trade Nations, which helped government trade promotion agencies connect with entrepreneurs and level-up their marketing. He built a distributed team across Europe and Latin America.
ā His friends started asking him for advice on how they could run their remote teams more efficiently. Soon, he had too much demand on his time. He moved on from Trade Nations to found Delocate, his consultancy focused exclusively on helping companies set up the backend processes and culture frameworks to make remote work successful.
Asynchronous is king
ā When working remotely, particularly with team members in multiple time zones, Rhys advocates for becoming as asynchronous as possible (asynchronous basically meaning that you donāt expect an immediate response to a message).
ā Asynchronous communication starts with documentation. When companies build ālean documentationā - treating any internal document like a product intended to solve a problem (or answer a question), you can train people to build a muscle memory that they should always check the documentation and do some of their own research first before asking another team member for help.
ā From there, leaders have to encourage and promote a culture of non-immediacy. This means reminding people who are always jumping from question to question that they should be focused on their own deep work and to let peopleās questions sit for a bit. Part of this, of course, is having nomenclature or a tag for truly urgent issues, since sometimes you really do need an answer right away.
Tools mentioned in this episode
* Notion
* Slack
* Loom
* Salesforce
* Asana
* Tandem.chat
The final word
āI think that it [salaries] become a bit of a land grab by some of these larger tech companies. They are happy to continue to pay San Francisco salaries. So theyāll do it to suck up the best talent around the world in the short and medium term.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Rhys Black
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Rhys! Tell me more about your work with Delocate
Rhys: Yeah. My background is in the tech industry, predominantly in London, UK, and a bit in the US, as a program manager. I was managing teams of developers, designers, testers, and marketers. Those teams were usually some form of remote. Not necessarily fully distributed, but a mix.
Then I started my own company previous to Delocate called Trade Nations, which was a fully distributed company with employees in Europe and Latin America. We were working with governments, specifically trade promotion agencies.
Delocate kind of spun out of Trade Nations. I started helping some friends who had businesses and were running remote teams. They were having a lot of similar challenges, and Iād made all of the mistakes already. So it was telling them what to do and what not to do. It evolved from there.
What were the top three challenges you noticed on remote teams?
The first thing would probably be the basics of collaborating and communicating together. Especially when time zones are involved.
One of the things we work on with clients is helping teams become as asynchronous as possible. Thatās a big part of it when time zones are significant - you canāt be waiting on someone for 10 hours. So the first thing is to create an environment where people can answer their own questions and get to work.
The other thing is creating an environment that is as distraction free as possible. When youāre working synchronously, itās easy for teams to end up answering everybody elseās questions more than focusing on their own work.
How can a founder or team leader create distraction-free environments?
One of the most important things is to create a culture where hyper-responsiveness is not tolerated. If people see it happening, it should be cracked down on pretty quickly. If you donāt breed that culture in a remote company, it can wreak havoc. You need to be pretty staunch on that and make sure your team realizes that we donāt expect you to respond immediately.
We donāt want you to respond immediately because we want to create a work environment that allows you to get into flow. Itās a much more enjoyable experience as an employee to be more productive and focused as opposed to pinging you left, right, and center every couple of hours.
Does that mean leaders should punish people for responding quickly?
No I donāt mean cracking the whip on people, but I mean being proactive in creating that culture. A lot of the time culture is just left up to chance. Itās about being proactive so people know itās very clear. Then itās a case of nudging a little bit and creating habit formation. Eventually, it becomes second nature and the team starts to moderate everybody else.
Should leaders remind people they donāt have to respond to everything immediately?
Yeah. I did that in my own company. I regularly had team members that I could see they were messaging too much in the evenings and things like that. Iād tell them that I was not expecting a reply that moment. Itās just about setting the expectation.
Can over-documentation reduce creativity?
Documentation has a pretty bad rap. Itās thought of as this thing that gets written and then never really used. That certainly shouldnāt be the case in a remote company.
In my eyes, documentation has been created wrong - or suboptimally - for quite a long time. Thereās a balance between documentation and spontaneity. In a young company, you donāt want to kill the best thing a company has which is agility and being flexible.
I approach documentation like any product, since documents are the productization of knowledge. You can create a document in a very lean way - it doesnāt need to be a 10-page thing on a particular topic on day one.
What I usually tell clients is to link all these individual pieces of information in Notion. Add a blurb or context about what itās for, and then let that be the seed of the documentation. If it starts to get traffic and traction, then maybe itās worthwhile to take that information and consolidate it a bit.
But documentation is useless if you donāt use it. You have to build that muscle memory where instead of pinging someone on Slack, first look in the documentation. Then comes the balance point: if youāre looking for 20 minutes, maybe itās time to call it quits and message someone you know has the answer. So it shouldnāt get in the way of asking questions.
Whatās your opinion on setting remote salaries - should it be done by location?
Itās an interesting topic. How do you price Thailand in a global market, for instance? Itās not something I typically advise our clients on, since there are some good salary calculators out there.
I think that it will become a bit of a land grab by some of these larger tech companies. They are happy to continue to pay San Francisco salaries, since pretty much anywhere else in the world is cheaper than San Francisco. So theyāll do it to suck up the best talent around the world in the short and medium term.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Rhys via email.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one) Or just read onā¦
First: Welcome to new subscribers! If you know someone interested in running a business remotely, Iād be grateful if you forwarded them this newsletter.
Today: Weāre talking choosing to go remote, structuring a business in a way that works for you as an entrepreneur, and the power of moving your energy where itās valued.
Avery Francis has been an HR leader for years, but went out on her own to found Bloom in 2018. The company has been some form of remote from day one, but went fully remote in late 2019, and Avery has since run the business from Canada, Scotland, the Netherlands, and more.
In this conversation, Avery shared the biggest shift she made as an entrepreneur - and how it led to generating over $500,000 in revenue from Instagram, only working 28 hours a week despite growing quickly, and becoming more profitable than she ever thought possible.
Copy what you know and end up a copycat
ā Avery worked for a few companies before she went out on her own to found Bloom. In the beginning, Avery structured Bloom based on copying her experience at her previous employers.
ā This helped her get off the ground, but she realized that the business wasnāt actually serving her. She was making some money, but was working more than she wanted to and in a way that didnāt feel authentic to her.
ā She thought actively about the kind of business and lifestyle she wanted, not just what she knew about at the moment. This was based on personal desires, what she admired about other companies, and Bloomās values. From there, she started to restructure Bloom to better serve clients, make more money, and provide a better lifestyle for her and her team.
Changing for the better
ā A key part of Averyās realization is that she wanted to travel more and build a business that served her, instead of the other way around.
ā Here are a few of the changes Avery made to her business:
* Moving from 5 days a week, 8 hours a day to 4 days a week, 7 hours a day.
* Moving from working on client site to working remotely with occasional client visits.
* Not being available 24/7 on email for clients and setting boundaries.
* Launching more specific services, including Bloom Experiences, to evolve the company away from just contingent recruiting.
* Invoicing monthly instead of bi-weekly.
ā These changes not only provided a far better lifestyle but made Bloom more profitable, as new services brought in revenue and monthly billing allowed for more client development without concern that an invoice was always coming the following week.
Twitter energy on Instagram
ā Another part of Averyās transition with Bloom was to bring her personality more into the business. She wanted a business that allowed her to be herself, not have to put on a face for clients.
ā As part of that, she started using expressing creative / visual side, taking the insights she would share on Twitter and creating graphics for Instagram. One Instagram post took off, and helped her gain over 70,000 followers - including Arianna Grande.
ā Her newfound platform with Instagram helped Bloom and Avery reach a global audience, which so far has resulted in over $500,000 in new business - just from leaning into the things she already liked to do and building a business that supported who she was as a person.
The final word
āOnce I got to the point where I had overcome my own assumptions about the type of business that I was going to build, I moved away from basically copying what Iād already seen, done, and what already worked. I was able to build a company that was right for me.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Avery Francis
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Avery! Can you share what Bloom does?
Avery: In a nutshell, we help companies build the worldās best workplaces.
You were hybrid remote but decided to go full remote - what was your decision making process like?
We made the decision to go fully remote about four months before COVID hit. It had been something Iād been working toward for about a year and a half since founding my business. I realized a lot of work could be done remotely.
I spend a lot of my time having confidential conversations or conducting interviews, and often Iām working in a startup environment in these big open spaces. There was often either not a lot of office space or not a great desk situation for me.
Iāve also been in a long distance relationship for a very long time and it came to the point where one of us had to make a move - and Iāve always wanted to work in the UK. So I took advantage of my dual citizenship and built a company where I can work remotely and work from anywhere in the world.
How did you adjust client expectations?
Iām really lucky to attract and work with some really amazing companies. When I initially said Bloom is moving to a more fully remote team, there were no questions asked.
There were no client challenges. The challenges that were presented was making an adjustment in the way I structured my business - and that meant hiring more people. While I was running and operating the business from Scotland, I had three people based in Toronto continuing to work onsite with clients, but in a more passive basis versus being on site for eight hours a day.
Did having to hire change you as an entrepreneur?
I needed to rework how I was thinking about the company I was looking to build. Being transparent, I was working with an organization that did - and does - very similar work to what weāre doing at Bloom. And I had structured my business off of the company I was working with prior. As a result, I was building a business that wasnāt the type of business I would want to be working in.
So it wasnāt necessarily external factors that caused challenges, but it was my own way of thinking. Once I got to the point where I had overcome my own assumptions about the type of business that I was going to build, I moved away from basically copying what Iād already seen, done, and what already worked.
I was able to build a company that was right for me.
What were some of the unique elements that worked for you?
When I used to work full time, I would go from one company to the other. What I found in terms of making this transition to building Bloom is that I had complete freedom to mess up, to make mistakes, and to build something true to me.
* The way we structured our days.
* In how we collaborated with clients.
* The way we communicate.
For example, weāre in a busy season but we donāt work Fridays. Weāve had a four day work week for well over a year now. Thatās what the team prefers. And we donāt work eight hours a day, we work seven. And even when we answer emails, we set really clear boundaries with clients in terms of when weāre available to chat and when weāre there to support them.
For invoicing, instead of doing everything on a biweekly basis, which is what I was used to, we do monthly. Itās actually influenced us being more profitable.
You also launched new offerings and leveraged new growth channels. Tell me about that
The plan was to launch this new offering months ago, but COVID hit. So weāve been doing this work, and now get to formally introduce it: Bloom Experiences. Itās for organizations looking to bring in a new approach to corporate training and education for their teams.
At Bloom, weāre all about growth. Itās what weāre best at. We wanted to specifically look at how we were actually helping companies grow. We look at our values and how weāre able to impact growth, and weāre really good at building those systems and structures so companies can scale in a meaningful and intentional way.
So we were able to put in great, equitable hiring systems. But once these people get hired, what were we doing to further grow these folks? Thatās where the education and deep learning experiences come into play.
Obviously, with the uprising of the Black Lives Matter movement recently, weāve been doing a lot of diversity, equity, and inclusion learning experiences too.
Most coaches and consultants are on LinkedIn or Twitter. But youāve found success on Instagram. How did that happen?
Yeah! I have celebrities like Arianna Grande following me now. Itās funny.
What was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek post about what non-Black folks can do to better support Black people ā¦ kind of spiraled.
What Iāve been saying is that I take my Twitter energy to Instagram. Instagram is a flex in terms of where youāve travelled, who your friends are, and maybe a cute photo of your beautiful partner. And Twitterās where you flex your brain muscles and talk about the things youāre passionate about.
And then I do it in an aesthetically pleasing way. Iām serving up - in some cases hard - lessons from my own lived experiences as a Black woman or some tongue-in-cheek advice.
(She uses Canva to design her beautiful Instagram carousels.)
Whatās been the result of that Twitter energy on Instagram?
Just in the past two months, itās resulted in over $500,000 in revenue. Thatās pretty wild. Itās very unexpected. I didnāt know that Iād be able to build these kind of deep connections and relationships on Instagram.
I love sharing ideas and sharing how to do it. Iām happy to share all my tips and secrets and how I navigate what I do. With Instagram, it feels more in tune with who I am. Iām a creative and visually driven person. And the design works for me. Youāre confined. Youāre forced to break down your ideas and concepts. You only have nine frames in a carousel to work with so you have to be really direct and concise with the ideas youāre sharing.
I found Instagram is a great place for me to test out content before I put it on Twitter, too.
What advice would you share for entrepreneurs choosing to stay remote post-COVID?
The biggest hurdle Iāve come across is just my own mindset and how I think about the company that Iām building as an entrepreneur. Choice is really important in terms of not being totally dogmatic in terms of whatās going to be your company now versus your company five years from now.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Avery on Instagram and Twitter.
Image courtesy Avery Francisā Twitter.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one) Or just read onā¦
Buffer makes over $20 million in revenue annually, but they donāt have a sales team. Instead, they have a lifecycle marketing team led by Ashley Hockney. She started working remotely at Zapier, then as an entrepreneur, and now at Buffer.
In this conversation, Ashley shared more about how Buffer grows without a sales team and the tools and processes she uses to lead a distributed, remote team of marketers across the globe.
A remote marketerās toolbox
ā Buffer is timezone agnostic, so all documentation and collaboration has to be inclusive of people in different timezones. A big way Ashley does this with her team is through Slack threads. That way, everyone can see the core topic and add their thoughts into the thread. When organized properly, threads are easily searchable, so anyone in the company can learn about whatās going on.
ā A powerful ātoolā in Ashleyās arsenal is not a tool at all, but being a moderator. Buffer has guides on how to communicate - what type of information goes where, for instance - and Ashley spends some time ensuring those guidelines are followed. Because the team is asynchronous and remote, clean data is critical for team collaboration and knowledge sharing.
How to be a remote marketing leader
ā Remote marketers have to show their emotion, thoughts, and personality through writing. If youāre not a strong writer - and even if you are - Ashley recommends leveraging emoticons, smileys, and other types of content to help express emotions if you donāt have the words to do it. This is often frowned upon in āprofessionalā settings, but can be incredibly helpful at generating connection and understanding remotely.
ā Leadership is about providing your team access to data and information, but then giving them time and whitespace to learn by themselves. A good marketing leader might be smart, but cannot teach their team everything. As well, in order to encourage learning on their own, a team leader has to both demonstrate that for the team and make sure people have time and autonomy to learn.
The final word
ā[Remote work] is truly something I think is here to say. Allowing life to be a priority over a commute. Letting people get two hours back in their day to say āthis is my time.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Ashley Hockney
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Ashley! Tell me about yourself and your work at Buffer.
Ashley: I joined Buffer as the Director of Marketing and was running this team of product marketers, growth marketers, email, and community. We were looking at our customers and thinking how we could serve them. Traditionally, you might see a marketing director really invested in revenue, leading into growth hacks, etc.
But Iām now the Head of Lifecycle Marketing, which is a bit of a divergence from that. We look a little bit more at lifetime value (LTV) and how we support users, not just at the moment of coming into the funnel, onboarding, or confirming at the end of a trial. Itās what happens after that.
Buffer is famously remote. But you donāt have a sales team. How do you do business remotely without a sales team?
Iāll break it down into parts and explain why it made sense to focus on lifecycle marketing at Buffer.
With a sales team, youāre devoting a lot of time to one-on-one attention, but itās also very outbound. There is a lot of value in that, particularly in B2B companies or enterprise-focused companies. But when we think about lifecycle marketing, the actions are a little more at scale or data-driven. Itās more about how we can achieve that customization through smart data at scale (Lots of big words, I know).
A lot of this aligns with Buffer - who we are and what we know that people love. When we think about our value proposition and positioning in the market, we think about why we are great at this - and it comes down to our brand, how we do things, and how we think about our customers.
Itās also things like our transparent salaries and our culture. That translates a bit into our product as well - with what we hope is a simple UI. With those things in mind, a business model of going really upscale and trying to one serve someone with a thousand-dollar budget just didnāt feel like us. So when we think about how we grow and scale the business without reaching for big contracts, it became about serving more people at a more accessible price point. It just felt really on-brand for us to say letās serve a couple more and lean away from a model that searches for a really high price point.
How do you keep the creativity up when youāre remote and canāt brainstorm in one room?
Truthfully, it comes down to your people and investing in them. We hire people who are so thoughtful and considerate, and out of that comes empathy for wanting to do better and wanting to learn more.
Structurally, especially coming in as a marketing director, it was about how I empower my team with smart data and then time and white space to go research and learn so they can make decisions on their own. Communication is part of that as well.
How do you facilitate communication on a remote team?
Slack! Slack threads are key. We use it to asynchronously chart big thoughts and concerns. We also use Dropbox Paper and Dropbox Files. Then, itās not a tool, but we have guidelines on how we communicate - what goes where, how, when.
When youāre thoughtful about that, you get that kind of inclusivity and cross communication that can get out of hand if you donāt set those guardrails.
What are the most important guidelines people need to set for remote communication?
I think itās necessary to know what communication goes where. At Buffer, weāre timezone agnostic, which has to be a choice you make as a company. With that, weāre intentional about communicating asynchronously to be inclusive of all time zones.
Another thing Iāve learned is that you have to be intentional about how you want things to go - and if you are going to moderate or not moderate. At Buffer, weāve seen the benefit from moderation, offering how we communicate in a positive way. Or this is how we use emojis.
How did you get introduced to remote work? What made you choose to stay remote as you became a team leader?
I got my first foray into remote work when I was working at Zapier in 2016. I spent the year travelling around, which was an incredible experience. Iāve stayed remote since, started my own company and was remote from home. Then with Buffer Iāve always been remote.
Remote work is truly something I think is here to say. Allowing life to be a priority over a commute. Letting people get two hours back in their day to say āthis is my time.ā For me, thatās opened up opportunities. I spent time in Japan. I spent time in South America and now I know a little Spanish.
And staying is huge for parents as well. Perhaps 2016 is a trigger for me as weāre heading into an election. But we think of those boundaries between Coasties and rural areas. I live in Brooklyn, but I was raised in a small town in Indiana. Thereās this dialogue about how these worlds are so different and how we donāt communicate. And one of the wonderful things about remote work is youāre not tied to where you are - you can reinvest in those communities. You can choose where you want to live. Boundaries set up by geography just arenāt there.
Whatās the biggest lesson you learned as an entrepreneur that helps with your role at Buffer?
For anyone in tech, thereās this comment that people canāt wait to start their own business. That they donāt want a boss. Or that they want freedom. I was totally this person. What I found working for myself is that you have many more bosses, more clients, more partners, more landlordsā¦ thereās always a moment where youāre collaborating and co-creating.
Like the Bob Dylan song: Youāre always going to have to serve somebody.
Whatās your least favourite part of remote work - and how are you handling it?
Iām an extrovert. I love people. So itās being intentional about getting out with friends after work or joining a coworking space that is easy to walk to.
Whatās one thing you wish every remote marketer knew?
Thereās this dialogue often in an aggressive growth space thatās about having to do something and push through and force it to come off as confident. That you canāt include emojis. Or no one likes smileys. You have to let people know where youāre at - lean into emoticons to help express emotion when you donāt have the words.
What resources do you turn to for professional development and learning?
I think remote is actually better for professional development. When things are remote and youāre doing it right, thereās a lot of documentation. For example, at Zapier I was trying to figure out if this launch we did had any impact on engagement and adoption. I went really deep in the data with before and after analysis. I could just pop in and spend a little extra time because I was curious reading and learning from other teams.
For anyone whoās curious or ambitious, those resources are there so you can asynchronously learn and absorb. Thereās a lot of passive resources for you learn from your coworkers.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Ashley via email or on Twitter.
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Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one) Or just read onā¦
First: Welcome to all the new subscribers - weāre officially over 650! If you know someone interested in running a business remotely, Iād be grateful if you forwarded them this newsletter.
Today: Weāre talking about remote community building with an entrepreneur whoās built a multi-thousand person virtual freelancer community.
Bobbie Racette has been helping businesses remotely for years, but never as much as during the COVID pandemic. Her business, The Virtual Gurus, connects businesses all over the world with highly-trained, highly-educated freelancers and virtual assistants for everything from blogging and social media to data entry and planning calendars. Now, sheās further innovating in the space with askBetty, a Slack app where entrepreneurs can work with freelancers on a task-by-task basis.
As an entrepreneur, Bobbie has built a strong community of over 6,000 freelancers in the Virtual Gurus network. The way she built - and sustains - that community is a lesson for anyone leading remote marketing, community, or sales teams.
In this episode, Bobbie shared what she focuses on when it comes to community building remotely: education, infrastructure, and the human touch.
The power of education
ā A core value proposition of Virtual Gurus is providing highly-trained remote workers for companies. To help ensure the success of gurus on the platform (thus making them more money), the company hired an onboarding team to explicitly work with new gurus to get them up to speed and matched with clients.
ā Another way that Bobbie and the team ensure their community is poised for success is to offer them direct education. The Virtual Gurus Academy offers courses - available to anyone, not just guru community members - on specific skills that Virtual Gurus clients are willing to pay for.
Communities need infrastructure
ā Whether digital or physical, every community needs the infrastructure to succeed. Current team solutions were helpful, but frequently didnāt allow for the kind of community building that Bobbie wanted.
ā While itās not visible on the front-end, the Virtual Gurus team built a thriving community platform where gurus can connect to help each other with work assignments, mentor each other, and build their networks.
The human touch
ā Every marketplace has at least two sides, and Virtual Gurus is no different. So they have a customer success team explicitly focused on providing the human touch to both clients and the gurus working to support them. That way, no one feels that they are only working with a machine - and thereās always a direct connection to the core operations team.
ā Part of Bobbieās mission is to use technology and business as a driving force for good in the world. This was one of the reasons behind founding the Academy, but also drives Bobbieās further community building efforts. Specifically, sheās working with various underserved and often-ignored communities, including the LGBTQ+ and Indigenous communities in Canada, to teach them the skills necessary to launch their own freelance business, whether with Virtual Gurus or not.
The final word
āThe main thing [about remote work] is to trust your team. You trust them in the office. Youāre not sitting beside them all the time. You just have to have that same trust being at home.ā
Iād be grateful if you shared this post with anyone you know interested in remote work and running a business remotely
Remotely Inclined Chats with Bobbie Racette, Founder of Virtual Gurus
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Bobbie! Can you share a bit about yourself and Virtual Gurus?
Bobbie: Yes! Virtual Gurus is a virtual assistant platform - a marketplace where we provide work to virtual assistants, freelancers, and remote workers. On the flip side, we provide services to businesses and entrepreneurs of all sizes.
We match based on algorithms - we have all the virtual assistants in a database and you can select which assistant might be better for you. Our assistants are all in Canada, but work with clients all over the world in Singapore, the UK, Australia, and all over the US and Canada.
Weāre also working on a Slack app called askBetty. Since so many entrepreneurs donāt need full-time virtual assistants, weāre building askBetty as a by-the-task app.
You gave away a lot of free services in response to COVID. How did that impact your business?
I turned it into thinking that panicking isnāt going to get me anywhere. Instead, what can I do to help people?
A few of our clients were quitting and pausing because they were stressed out and not sure what was going to happen. It was all unknown at that point. So we decided to launch a People over Profit program and decided to kick it off with 110 startups across Canada, giving them free service from us.
We took a financial hit from that, but everything worked out because most of the clients ended up staying on because they liked the service. We didnāt even need to do any marketing because it was marketing itself from work of mouth. That resulted in us having 66% month-over-month growth.
How do you manage a growing remote team - now in the hundreds - while still maintaining quality?
One of the things weāve worked on internally is the management side. There are a lot of moving parts as you grow. So we hired a full-time client success team to manage the quality of the work. We also have an onboarding team and a Virtual Gurus Academy to train virtual assistants, which is available to everyone. We try to help VAs and freelancers to scale up.
We also have a whole community on the backend. People donāt see this, but the community can talk, support each other, and help each other with jobs - itās all remote workers helping each other.
I love the focus on community. How do you balance synchronous vs asynchronous work with your growing team?
Weāre trying to figure out exactly what weāre doing as far as making sure, logistically, how our virtual assistants can service multiple clients at once and how they do it. So we have a few staff in a small coworking space, mainly our operations staff, and everyone else. Most of our upper management is at home.
We also train our contractors on the importance of time management and balance. We work with them on prioritizing. Thatās helped us as well with our own skills.
With the Academy, people can take courses anywhere. With askBetty, it will be everyone with a Slack account.
Hybrid remote versus all-remote: whatās your preference?
So Iām at home. Our COO is at the office because she just got back from a holiday. We have full time staff for operations in an office. Sometimes itās important to be in the same room. Upper management doesnāt necessarily need to be there, but our CSMs found they feel like more of a team when together and more able to focus on the client success side of it.
Iād love to get rid of the added expense of a coworking space, but the CSMs love it there. We also give our VAās the same option - if they want to go into coworking spaces local to them, weād be happy to build partnerships with coworking spaces they can use.
But we donāt need a full office. Weāre also growing and hiring five more people, but still wonāt get an office - they will be fully-remote workers.
Whatās your advice for leaders making the hybrid vs all-remote choice for their teams?
The first thing I thought when COVID hit was that it would be a game changer. A lot of people came to the realization that working from home is probably better - you can be just as, if not more, productive from home. And I know expense-wise, itās better for my company.
But we had the platform for it. It was an easy transition for us. We ended up changing the transition to make sure we could help all the businesses that use our service, and we were able to reach out and give them advice on how to change everything. One of the things Iāve tried to tell people is that everything stays the same, youāre just not looking at their faces all day (other than zoom or something).
Whether remote or not, everybody should know their core responsibilities and should still be able to perform those responsibilities. You just have to over-communicate and set expectations with staff and contractors. Then you should be able to work remotely. I think the main thing is to trust your team. You trust them in the office. Youāre not sitting beside them all the time. You just have to have that same trust being at home.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Bobbie on Twitter and check out Virtual Gurus.
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Image courtesy Virtual Gurus
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Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Respond to this email (or send me one) Or just read onā¦
Joe Blair is a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley firm Cota Capital and host of the Epic Human Podcast, but before that he was an engineer turned entrepreneur. His first foray into the concept of remote work was when he invested in an air taxi service back in 2017, which caused him to think more consciously about where people could live and work. At the time, remote work was seen as an exciting new prospect, but potentially more hype than reality. COVID obviously changed things a bit.
In this episode of Remotely Inclined Chats, Joe and I dig deep into how VCs are thinking about remote work, how the whole VC ecosystem has changed from in-person to remote, and how successfully fundraise remotely without āremote washing.ā
From opportunity to reality
* When Joe first got into remote work back in 2017 / 2018, a lot of the conversation was how remote was a niche thing that had some potential. COVID forced everyone to try it, and now the conversation has shifted from potential to practicality.
* The first Remote Work Expo that Joe hosted in 2019 had 35 attendees. The April 2020 edition had over 450. The questions focused on the right tools and management practices for remote work.
* Even though many workers are looking forward to returning to office life when itās safe to do so, Joe says that heās seen a decadeās worth of acceleration in the remote work movement due to COVID.
āRemote washingā is out, accurate categories are in
* With the rise of remote work came āremote washingā - slapping a āwe help remote teamsā logo on your business, similar to āgreenwashingā when companies talk about helping the environment as a marketing tactic.
* Joe said that most venture capitalists can see through remote washing, so it wonāt help your odds of fundraising in this environment just by saying you work for remote teams.
* Technologies that help remote teams often fall into one of four categories: horizontal solutions explicitly for remote teams, vertical solutions for a specific industry that includes remote workers, physical infrastructure to support remote work, and back office functions that support remote companies. You can build a successful company in any of these categories.
Building VC relationships remotely
* VCs are adjusting to the new reality of becoming remote workers, said Joe, and a new study found that 69% of VCs are giving all-remote deals the green-light. Joeās VC firm, Cota Capital, just finalized its first all-remote deal, investing in medtech startup Proprio.
* If you want to fundraise remotely, you need to work on digital relationship building skills and focus on authentic reach outs. Whatever you do, donāt copy-paste a generic blast out to every VC you can find.
* Warm intros are still the best bet, but if you canāt get one, then anchor your efforts in a genuine connection to what the VC is interested in personally. Youāre far more likely to get a response if youāre talking to them about blogs theyāve written, podcasts they host, or other ideas theyāve put out into the world versus just talking about what their fund is doing in that particular moment.
The final word
āI think weāve accelerated this transition to remote work by at least a decade.ā
Iād be so grateful if you shared this article with your colleagues and friends who are interested in remote work
Remotely Inclined Chats with venture capitalist Joe Blair
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Joe! Can you share your journey with remote work?
Joe: Sure. To put it into context, Iām from the New York / Connecticut area. I was originally an engineer, turned entrepreneur, turned venture investor. Iāve been doing venture investing for the last seven years after graduating from Harvard Business School.
I came to remote through my interest in mobility. About three and a half years ago I started getting interested in the future of aerial mobility, which led me to an investment in a company called Lilium, which is an on-demand electric air taxi company. Itās a new transportation paradigm where you can get from city to city in the air, on-demand like you would with Uber.
I started thinking harder about if this new transportation dimension were to manifest, where would people live? I then started thinking about what if you donāt have to commute at all.
Then I found myself in Wyoming at a round table discussion with the then governor. We were talking about mobility and he was asking how we bring San Francisco-based tech companies to Wyoming. I was in this beautiful log cabin style mansion, snow-capped peaks all around me, and I started thinking that it was one of the most beautiful places Iād ever been. I was struck by the irony that they were asking how to get people to live there, meanwhile in the back of my mind Iām thinking I would love to live here, so how can I figure out how to work remotely and live here?
So I started thinking about it from first principles as an engineer. The internet exists. Remote conferencing exists. Cloud-based productivity tools exist. Why canāt people work remotely? It didnāt seem to me like there was a technology barrier.
What barriers were holding people back?
I put together a summit to explore this topic back in 2019. Remote Summit. It was a virtual conference - we had 35 people show up, and we powered it with Remo.co.
We had some thought leaders, including Laurel Farrer from Distribute Consulting and the first head of remote at AngleList, and some of my VC friends showed up. And we talked about remote - I think the title at the time was about whether remote was hype or a huge opportunity. The context was all about that remote is happening, but is still kind of niche and a futuristic concept. It would probably take us 10 years to progress and there are probably a few dozen companies that have started innovating in this space.
I remember thinking it would probably take a long time but maybe there are early investments to be made. And then COVID hit and the world flipped upside down. All of a sudden, these companies had to go fully remote. They were forced to do it. Then people realized they could get by. Maybe they needed different management styles, but thereās good arguments out there for if remote work is at parity with working in an office. I think it depends on management style.
But if you look at the big picture of this Black Swan event for remote work, letās say 2% of knowledge workers were working remotely pre-COVID. Now itās about 80% to 90%. Then when things āgo back to normal,ā letās say that number goes down to 20%. Thatās still a 10x jump in a very short period of time.
I think weāve accelerated this transition to remote work by at least a decade. Itās been an extremely exciting time. You have announcements from companies like Coinbase, Twitter, Square, and Shopify, saying this is working for us and weāre going fully remote - at least an an option - in perpetuity.
And itās a huge shift in mindset of employers, because they are realizing that many employees really value remote work. They get to spend more time with family and friends, reduce time commuting, and live life on your schedule.
What are you seeing in VC conversations about remote work now?
At the beginning of April, I had another conversation with Laurel Farrer, and we decided to do another summit. The conversation was around managing a team remotely - what tools are available. Many entrepreneurs had been working on these products for years and now theyāre making their products available. So we did another Remote Startups Expo, about the tools, software, and platforms that are going to enable this transition to remote work.
I think thereās excitement in the air. And an acknowledgement all around that the tools we have are not optimized for the needs of managers and employees alike.
I tend to split the category of remote work into four different categories:
* Horizontal collaboration tools like Tandem chat.
* Vertical collaboration tools around a particular industry, like Pendo Health out of the UK thatās effectively Slack for medical professionals.
* Physical infrastructure. Having some sort of location to go to whether itās a home office or a third place.
* Back office for things like hiring remote workers across the US and different countries.
Entrepreneurs are taking advantage here in a good way. Theyāre providing solutions that are really needed. It feels like weāve been talking about remote work for a long time but itās really only been a couple months. Weāre still at the very early stages of this game.
How are VCs shifting to remote and assessing deals remotely? How do you avoid āremote washingā?
I think Brianne Kimmel makes a good point about remote washing. With any hot trend, youāre going to see this. Like greenwashing or what I called block-washing for blockchain.
Any good investor can see through that almost instantly. What I think the nuance here is that there are tools built specifically for remote teams and then there are tools that are horizontal by nature that are good for centralized and remote teams.
There are legitimate businesses built in all those four categories I mentioned before that would not be considered remote washing.
But VCs have a very old-school mentality. They want to meet in person. To shake hands. They say ideally people live in my zip code so I can visit their office. But I think thatās starting to change.
Like in every other industry, VCs are coming to grips. The reality is it doesnāt matter if your company is in Santa Clara, New York City, or Hong Kong. Iām not going to be able to meet you in person any time soon. So whatās the difference?
Iāll speak for Cota Capital, my firm. We just made our first remote investment a few weeks ago called Proprio, an exciting company out of Seattle, Washington. We met them virtually, did all our diligence virtually, and couldnāt be more excited about the investment.
VCs are challenging their own assumptions and are having to deal with this idea of becoming remote workers themselves.
Whatās your advice for a founder looking to fundraise remotely?
The hardest part is making that connection when you donāt have it already. So of course warm intros ar egreat, but those arenāt always accessible to everyone. So for the folks who donāt have warm intros or existing relationships, I advise people to read up on the investors that you find personally interesting. Go to their Twitter, Instagram, podcast, read their writing. Get a feel for what they are interested in.
If youāre building something that fits their investment categories or things they get excited about, I would suggest reaching out directly in an authentic way, saying āhey, I read your article. Iām building something that I think youāll find interesting in this category.
I love to jump on the phone when people do that for me and I can tell theyāve actually read up on me and done some homework. Itās not always a fit, but I almost always get back to them.
I donāt advise you just copy-paste your email and blast every VC in the valley and see who gets back to you. I donāt think thatās a wise approach.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Joe on:
* Twitter: @joeblairvc and @epichumanpod
* Instagram: https://instagram.com/epichumanpodcast
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joealanblair/
* Website: https://www.epichumanpod.com/
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Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about running a business remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Take this short survey. Or just read onā¦
As this audience is well aware, Iām pro-remote work. But I also donāt pretend itās the solution to every work problem. In previous Remotely Inclined Chats episodes, Iāve talked with leaders about the ways that remote work isnāt perfect - or ways itās downright annoying. For Floyd Marinescu at C4 Media, it was around creativity. For Andrew DāSouza at Clearbanc, it was about culture.
Andre-Paul Johnson, the head of growth at Breaking Walls, is also pro-remote, and has been working remotely on and off for a decade. He even left Breaking Wallās Montreal office to work remotely from Jamaica in 2019. He also writes a newsletter about remote growth. But despite its benefits, he noticed a key weak point in remote work, and thatās what we talked about on this edition of Remotely Inclined Chats.
So whether youāre pro-remote and want to avoid a serious pitfall or hate remote work and want some schadenfreude, keep reading.
A hybrid failure
ā As more companies announce their post-COVID remote plans, the vast majority are picking a hybrid arrangement. People often think that a hybrid arrangement with some in-office employees and some remote employees is the best of both worlds. In Andre-Paulās experience, it could end up being the worst of both worlds instead.
ā When companies have a hybrid approach to remote work, a two-tiered culture can appear. Suddenly, a lot of work gets done in the office that remote workers donāt see, and vice versa. In Andre-Paulās experience, companies will often default to the culture and communication style of the founders and leaders. However, in-office employees benefit from good remote cultures while remote workers donāt benefit from in-office cultures. So thereās a disconnect if leadership or company founders work in offices.
ā A key issue Andre-Paul noticed in his hybrid remote arrangement as asymmetric information flows. When you arenāt in the office, you donāt see what people are casually working on and you donāt have random ācollisions.ā This isnāt as much of a problem in all-remote environments, since information flows become entirely virtual. Itās a significant challenge in hybrid environments since a lot of work happens that isnāt documented when youāre in an office, leaving out remote workers.
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Seeing the trees and the forest
ā Addressing this challenge, for Andre-Paul, was a matter of communicating in the open as much as possible. When work is documented (a regular management best practice), then it doesnāt matter where the work happens. For this to be successful, leaders of hybrid teams have to default to virtual information sharing regardless of if work is done in an office or remotely.
ā One solution that Andre-Paul particularly liked was Quoraās announcement about going āremote-first.ā While employees can choose whether to work remotely or come into the office, all of Quoraās leadership must be remote. This will keep information and culture flows happening virtually, so both remote and in-office employees can plug into whatās going on.
ā Despite the negatives he experienced, Andre-Paul is still pro-remote. He sees the benefits of location freedom and building deep relationships with people online as well worth the nuisances of asymmetric information and broken information flows.
The final word
āThe thing with remote is that itās not that different, in the end, from in-person management.ā
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Remotely Inclined Chats with Andre-Paul Johnson
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Andre-Paul! Tell me what youāre up to at Breaking Walls.
Andre-Paul: Breaking Walls is a video startup based in Montreal. Iām the head of growth on our small team. My job is to make sure whatever our devs are making ends up in peopleās hands. That means a lot of things when youāve got a small team - but itās one of the cool parts of the job since you get to touch a lot of different aspects of the business.
You went remote for love. What happened?
Iāve been working remotely on an off for the past 10 years on a wide variety of products, small teams, big teams, some hybrid, and some fully distributed. Iāve kind of run the gamut of what itās like to work remotely.
But this past year and a half has been extra unique. Our team is based out of Montreal. I used to live in Montreal. Then early 2019 I moved to Jamaica to be closer to my girlfriend, which is a pretty big move. A big part of that also meant a lot had to change with how I did my job because our team was co-located. We still had the office in Montreal. Working as the lone remote work on the team means you need to implement new processes and adapt how you work to the new situation. Luckily for me I was able to be in a job that allowed me to work remotely.
Iāve always wanted to travel, so I took the plunge. About a year and a half of travelling later, Iām back in Canada but still working remotely - currently based out of Toronto with the team still in Montreal. And now, of course, everyone is remote due to COVID. That has added a new dynamic to the team.
You said that hybrid remote work is like the worst of both worlds. Can you elaborate on that?
One of the big issues with hybrid remote work is managing the flow of information in a way that seems fair to everybody. Typically in a co-located team, or a team where everybodyās in the office, all the conversations happen in person: information exchange and information flows.
It also all happens in the same place in fully distributed teams - all online, on Zoom, or in Slack.
But when you have a team that has both people in an office and people working remotely, you end up with a fragmented flow of information. Oftentimes that flow of information happens wherever the leadership team is. I can tell you from experience that most leadership teams on hybrid teams end up in the office. So what that means is everyone in the office has access to those informal conversations with the leadership team. Theyāre privy to the decisions being made and the processes behind those decisions. Meetings happen in the office and remote colleagues arenāt included, or itās an afterthought.
People who work remotely on hybrid teams often end up feeling like second-class citizens within their own team. And that impacts not only team productivity but team morale. And the result is a lot of hybrid remote teams donāt perform up to the level that they could, and there are different ways to mitigate that.
How did you mitigate these challenges?
Before jumping into what I did, one thing I read recently is what Quora did when they announced they were going hybrid remote-first. Theyāre allowing anybody to work remotely while keeping headquarters open to anyone who wants to come into the office.
But what their CEO did that I think is brilliant is that he said the leadership team has to work remotely. As I mentioned, the information flow happens wherever the leadership team is. And in this case, leadership is remote. So the information flow would happen online. If people chose to work in the office, they still have to log into meetings through their own video chat and camera.
Everybody ends up on equal footing and thereās nobody who is at an unfair advantage over other people in the company. And I think that is an extremely thoughtful way of implementing hybrid remote work in a way that actually works for your team and allows your team to remain productive and everybody feel valued.
In terms of information flow stuff Iāve done with my team, weāve been working on a lot of challenges that remote work has. I think a lot of remote managers will be able to relate with this.
If you look at teams in an office, a lot of information flows relatively freely and you donāt even realize it. Informal conversations, team lunches, looking over at someoneās computer, or even just the physical space element of knowing someone is there if you need help. On top of that, you get body language, which is huge. It has its pitfalls, but a big advantage is that all the information flows freely and you can get away with a lack of structure and poorly defined processes since so much information is implicit.
With a remote team, thereās basically no implicit information exchange. Itās harder to build trust and harder to empower teammates or get timely feedback.
Hereās what weāve done in our teams over the years to try to fix these issues:
Over communicate: you have to communicate absolutely everything. Every decision that gets made. Every conversation. You have to make sure nothing is left to chance and make sure all information is conveyed explicitly so expectations are set properly.
Document: itās not only communicating, but making sure that everything gets documented. We have meeting logs for every meeting, which I know a lot of teams do in-office but itās crucial to do that on remote teams. Same thing with decision logs, making sure that the reasoning behind every decision is documented.
But even with communication and documentation, itās harder to build trust with your team. It becomes a challenge because all communication ends up being very intentional and explicit. You lose those serendipitous moments of running into a colleague or going out for lunch or drinks. You have to plan for everything.
On our team, weāve started making room for non-work bonding. That means anything from a daily non-work video chats (or weekly) to talk about anything and get to know each other as people. We also have informal Slack channels or activities like book clubs or movie nights, or even team offsites (in non-COVID times).
How do you balance getting work done and travelling?
A big part of that comes down to how your team structures work. Iām on a team that allows a lot of asynchronous work from the get-go. Our team has synchronous periods, like working at similar times, but people will come into the office at different times during the day or something like that.
In remote teams, itās a great opportunity to take this to the next level and try to find the right mix between synchronous and asynchronous work.
That way, unless we had scheduled meetings or other scheduled activities, Iām free to make my own schedule. And that freedom makes a huge difference in team productivity. On the flip side, asynchronous work has its pitfalls as itās harder to build trust or culture, but thatās where synchronous communication and synchronous work comes in.
In my experience, 30% synchronous and 70% asynchronous time seems to work really well. We donāt measure exactly, but thatās approximately how weāve done it with our team for the past couple years.
Whatās your advice for a remote leader struggling to build information and trust systems remotely?
The thing with remote is that itās not that different, in the end, from in-person management. Management always comes down to giving space to your best people to do their best work, and making sure you facilitate information flow within the team.
So whatever you can do to improve that on your team, wherever your feel your team is lacking, itās your job as a manager to facilitate a solution. A lot of the time that is the same in a remote setting as it is in a non-remote setting. Itās much harder than it sounds, but itās as simple as that.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Andre-Paul on Twitter or on his newsletter.
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Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter for people who run businesses remotely. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Take this short survey. Or just read onā¦
Aaron Orendorff learned to be a content marketer from the church. After getting a masters of divinity and working at a multisite church in Oregon, he learned the basics of storytelling, creating emotional connections with people, and public speaking and writing. He spun that experience into a content marketing agency called IconiContent, and he ran editorial at Shopify Plus remotely for years.
Now a VP of Marketing and a partner at Common Thread Collective, a digital growth agency, Aaron helps ecommerce and direct-to-consumer companies tell their story with high quality content.
In this Chat, Aaron shares how he cultivates close relationships remotely and how he builds a sense of emotional connection with people heās never met in person.
Creating emotional connections remotely
* When he joined Shopify, the company was vast majority in-office (this was years before Shopifyās major remote work announcement).
* To build emotional connections with people, Aaron focused on being present in every digital channel possible.
* The tactics Aaron used are:
* Starting in Slack, offering encouragement, praise, ideas, or comments in random channels throughout the company.
* Working on a multi-platform āstack,ā he would then connect with people on LinkedIn that he talked to on Slack, sending them a DM with an interesting note. From there, heād do the same thing via email.
* As the conversation continued, heād look for opportunities for a phone call, which meant heād get access to their phone number.
* Once he had their phone number, heād send a text message to continue āshowing upā in different ways.
* This strategy, though, can get annoying for people. The key is to ensure that youāre truly helping the person, not just messaging them. Focus on their problems, issues, or questions.
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Building a brand
* Aaronās experience in the church taught him the power of being as present as possible. When he left the church and wanted to get into content marketing, he focused on guest posting in as many blogs as possible.
* He would write anything he could about marketing principles to be published anywhere possible - he didnāt question whether it was a small or big publication.
* Over time, publishing in small blogs and building a network helped him land major publications like Fast Company and Entrepreneur. This work became cumulative, helping him connect with people like Tommy Walker who connected him to his opportunity to join Shopify Plus.
The final word
āThereās power in appearing more present and more real than you really are when you diversify your channel approach to interactions.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Aaron Orendorff
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Aaron! Letās kick it off with what youāre up to at Common Thread Collective?
Aaron: I joined Common Thread Collective in February 2020 as the VP of Marketing. Iām also a partner. Itās a digital growth marketing agency for ecommerce and direct to consumer companies. I fell in love with it based on my past experience at Shopify Plus.
You were in the ministry before getting into tech. What was that transition like?
Iād love to say it was a calculated move, but thatās a lie. I invested myself wholeheartedly in my first career. I went to seminary, got a masters in divinity, focused on public speaking and preaching, and worked at a multiside campus church in Portland, Oregon. Then I proceeded to burn that career down. I found myself unemployed and unemployable in rural southern Oregon.
Iād cut my teeth, mentally speaking, writing in church ministry. Which is where I learned, as crass as it sounds, that it doesnāt matter if youāre right, it matters if you create an emotional connection with your audience. When youāre able to articulate their objections and point of view better than they can, they turn the corner and think maybe there is another way. And whether weāre talking bout conversion in the religious sense or in the way tech uses it, the principles are the same.
All communication is sales - trying to get whatās in my heart and mind into someone elseās in a way that makes them say āyesā.
So I found these incredibly transferable skills. I had a suspicion that was later confirmed that people were selling things on the internet, but couldnāt write or communicate well. So I jumped primarily into content marketing, and one thing led to another. Over the past 7 years.
You mentioned that when you joined Shopify they werenāt as open to remote work as they are now. How did you build relationships remotely?
To get to Shopify, I wrote like a madman - anywhere and everywhere - for a 2-3 year period. I tried to get my name on as many sites as I possibly could, from niche marketing to mainstream like Business Insider, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, or Mashable. This was to essentially trick the world into thinking that I was somebody. And this is even more important today in a remote working environment.
What I used to do is every time an article would go live, I would tag people who were featured in the article, asking them to check that I quoted them right. Not a big ask, just for a bit of curiosity. I cast these wide nets over and over again. And when you do that enough times - when you show up enough - one of them hits. Thatās how I ended up connecting with one of the most influential people in my life, Tommy Walker, who was at the time the editor in chief of Shopify Plus.
How did you cultivate relationships at Shopify remotely?
When I was writing in other publications, I was in multiple places and multiple sites. It creates this powerful social proof illusion in someoneās mind. Itās the same principle when it comes to remote working, especially when it comes to working in a company thatās predominantly in offices.
What I found was the more involved I got in various Slack channels that I didnāt necessarily need to be a part of, the more I went out into those channels and started mixing it up in the comments. Then I would track down the people I really liked. I could find them on LinkedIn and send them a DM there. Or Iād find any excuse to relevantly email a few people at once or doing one on one.
Then I always look for an opportunity to actually call somebody to get their phone number. Then try texting them. What I did was the same sort of experience where suddenly I was in all these different places.
It feels more like Iām a real person with a much deeper relationship than I genuinely have simply because of that multiplicity of touch points.
I then thought about other days to do this. And my new favorite one: Rather than writing out long instructions to my team or a long request to other people, Iāll do a Zoom recording / screenshot. That way my face is in the video and itās 3-5 minutes long.
Is there a limit to this? Does it ever get annoying for people?
It can. But at first, I would say 70% of my time was spent going out into their world. I would go to their channels, pay attention to what they are saying, and offer solutions to their problems as much as I can.
The vast majority of the time Iām showing up, Iām not coming with a problem or a request.
Whatās your advice for newbie remote entrepreneurs?
Thereās power in appearing more present and more real than you really are when you diversify your channel approach to interactions.
Perhaps the crowning achievement of this is building up to the sacred phone number. People are incredibly busy. So I am always building up to the excuse to ask for a phone number, not to call them, but to cross into the intimacy of text. I want it to be something where I intrude, but to cross that final barrier. So maybe I can possibly send them a phone recorded video of me celebrating something. Itās building this good will.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Aaron on Twitter or LinkedIn.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
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Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about remote work and remote entrepreneurship. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Take this short survey. Or just read onā¦
Rebecca Jacobs and Cailey Gibson have never met in person. Yet they are co-founders of Anika Works, a platform that helps nonprofits connect with impact-focused businesses. Their journey is one that seems odd when you consider the lore of co-founders meeting in college, or being high school buddies, or a chance meeting at a tech event. However, they are one element of the new reality: building a remote business does not require knowing someone in-person beforehand.
Despite not meeting in person, both were adamant that they built trust and vetted each other before agreeing to work together - there couldnāt be a āletās try it and weāll see approach.ā Further, both care deeply about wellness and self-care, something that gets harder when you are working remotely and prone to feelings of isolation.
In this Remotely Inclined Chat, Rebecca and Cailey share how they met, how they vetted each other to build trust, and how they ensure wellness is built into the fabric of their business.
Vetting a co-founder youāve never met
* The two met in a facebook group, when Rebecca was looking for some social media and marketing help for Anika Works (initially, Rebecca was a solo founder).
* Cailey did some work, but found that she wanted to get more involved -- that led to the co-founder conversation.
* A big part of vetting for both Rebecca and Cailey was checking self-awareness and learning about who the other person becomes under stress. The key resource they pulled from was the Founder Instituteās 34 Questions to Ask a Potential Co-Founder.
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Taking care of yourself: Wellness as a remote entrepreneur
* Taking care of yourself has been critical to Anika Worksā mission from day one, so the team prioritizes it.
* Rebecca loves Ink Blot Therapy and the community of founders she built through the Founder Institute accelerator.
* Cailey shared that the company has a #TeamWellness Slack channel where they hold each other accountable to personal wellness and the company has an open calendar for the team with different meetups, suggestions, and wellness tips so people donāt have to spend time searching for insight.
The final word
āGet comfortable with vulnerability. Itās scary, but that has been the source of so much of my growth and ability to succeed in this business.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Rebecca and Cailey from Anika Works
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Rebecca and Cailey! Can you share what Anika Works is all about?
Rebecca: Thanks for having us! Anika Works is a matchmaking platform where we help connect small nonprofits and grassroots organizations with service providers and corporate sponsors that help them prepare for fundraising, connect with the right donors, and help their organization so they can do more good.
But you two havenāt actually met in person? Tell me about that
Rebecca: Absolutely. What happened was that I was a solo founder to start. I came in with this idea. I went through the Founder Institute in Toronto. I noticed that in the trenches, it can be tough to be alone through all of it. So I knew that if I wanted this to work Iād need to find people better than me at everything except for the few things I could focus on and engage with.
I found myself in facebook groups. It was also my first segue into remote work because it was something I was curious about. One group, for female founders, I stumbled across Cailey as I was requesting help for marketing. She was a fantastic service provider for me, helped me set up our own facebook group that is now thriving.
Weāve now known each other for about six months and have been working together, but weāve never met in person.
How did you vet each other without meeting first?
Rebecca: There needs to be some meaningful conversations happening. I want to make sure that my co-founder has all the information available and make sure itās a fully transparent process. Ultimately my mindset was making sure she feels that sheās getting as much out of this as I did.
Cailey: We did a 3 page questionnaire - it took us about two hours to do it. If someoneās not willing to spend that kind of time to get to know you, then thereās a question of how you will manage when times get difficult.
One of the questions I remember was how you handle stress and what your conflict management style is. I let her know that Iām the type of person who mirrors the other person. If they are being passive aggressive, Iāll be passive aggressive. Itās definitely not one of those things you think is a great quality about yourself that you canāt wait to share, but it helps both of us realize that when you know the other personās style, you can pick up cues and support each other.
Remote work can be lonely. Has that been a challenge for you?
Rebecca: Absolutely. It has been at the core of what inspired Anika Works and hopefully what will continue to inspire our culture as we grow. Founding Anika Works came from my experience working in East Africa in social sector work. One of the things that came up for me early on in the process was the struggle to balance what it means to take care of yourself and to give to others in your organization. It was something I noticed across the board that people were struggling with in this sector.
How do you address wellness at Anika Works?
Rebecca: As we now enter the entrepreneurship and tech space, itās become very apparent to me that this is not something thatās sector agnostic. It is something everybody experiences. From the beginning it was a personal mantra that I can only do my best. I can only bring 100 percent of myself to work. And I canāt help people if I donāt first fill up my own cup and take care of myself to the point where Iām not worrying about burnout or worrying if I can get out of bed today. Itās been part of my journey from the get go.
For me, Founder Institute helped because I connected with a community of entrepreneurs. I also connected with Ink Blot Therapy, which has been a huge part of how Iāve maintained my wellness. I also think about putting myself out there, however scary.
Cailey: We have a #TeamWellness channel in our Slack. Itās almost an accountability channel of making sure that everyoneās prioritizing their wellness and making it easy for people. Finding time to scour the internet, especially with a lot of things being closed, isnāt good.
We also created a Wellness Calendar that people can quickly scan for things like a daily yoga class to check out. It just gives them something easier to plug and play rather than taking more than 30 minutes to go search for something.
Whatās your advice for new entrepreneurs that want to hustle but also prioritize wellness?
Rebecca: First, congratulations on taking that risk and that step. Itās a hard path in a lot of ways, but also beautiful.
Then I would say get comfortable with vulnerability. Itās scary, but that has been the source of so much of my growth and ability to succeed in this business.
Cailey: Donāt try to control everything. You canāt ever be fully prepared. Just do as much research as you can, then start - with someone holding you accountable (whether a family member, friend, or Facebook group so you know you have a deadline).
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Rebecca and Cailey in the Anika Works Facebook Community or on Twitter.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com -
Hi,
Welcome to Remotely Inclined, a newsletter about remote work and remote entrepreneurship. If youād like to sign up, you can do so here. Want to share your feedback? Take this short survey. Or just read onā¦
Shelly Spiegelās company Fire Engine RED has been remote since she founded it in 2001. However, she didnāt feel she could talk about it for 10 years, worried that people would judge her company for not having an office space. Things changed in 2011 when Fire Engine RED won an award for its culture, noting they were the first remote company to win the award. Many people were shocked at the idea that a remote company could have a culture, let alone an award-winning one.
Since 2011, Shelly has been more vocal about her all-remote company, writing a book on her methods called Fully Remote (formerly Virtual Possibility) and regularly commenting on the remote work world, including putting together one of the first directories of all-remote companies.
In particular, Shelly is proud of Fire Engine REDās culture. The 80+ person company has an impressive retention rate and average tenure of 6.5 years, nearly 50% higher than the American average.
In our chat, Shelly shared the tactical ways she builds culture remotely -- and explains how other companies can adopt the practices for themselves.
Remote culture tactics
I believe our culture is why our team member retention rate is 92% and the average team member stays with us for 6.5 years. Some of our team members are even moving in 7-10 years.
I always say that being CEO is not just being the Chief Executive Officer but also the Chief Entertainment Officer. You canāt just focus on growing the business, you have to focus on your team as well.
Transparency
You name it, Iāll answer the question.
I also have a feedback system where people can participate - they can ask me any question anonymously and I will respond within 24 hours, and share my response with the team. So people know I will answer the question and take action if need be.
For example, we used to put peopleās phone numbers on our website, and I got feedback that people were getting tons of spam calls. Within 24 hours, they were removed.
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Fun
Something else thatās popular is what we call Walking Wednesdays. Itās a phone call (totally voluntary) with a topic that has nothing to do with work. It could be about your first car or your first jobās team members, or something else.
Itās optional, and people go for a walk wherever they are (our team stretches across 26 states and 5 countries). I kick it off then it just becomes a conversation. It works even though we have a team of 80 people -- I would say we have about an 80% of our team that joins each week.
Recognition
We have a Slack channel called REDcognition, where we recognize members of our team for the good work they do for one another. We also post when good client feedback comes in because I want the team to know about it.
Civic duty
Since weāre in an election year in the US, we set up another Slack channel called I Voted, where people can post messages with them voting or with the I Voted sticker on them, their pet, or their kids.
We also joined an organization called Make Time To Vote, which is an initiative in the US where companies commit to letting employees vote on company time, so the time is respected and paid. Thatās one of the reasons we started the I Voted channel, and itās very popular.
An aside: A big part of culture is music. For me, thatās country music (donāt judge). But I also like discovering new music, and I recently learned about Album Daily, a newsletter dedicated to helping you discover - or re-discover - great music.
If youāre a music lover, this newsletter is worth checking out.
Family and COVID
With more family members home than ever before, weāre in the process of putting together a company-wide talent show to showcase our team membersā talents and the talents of their family as well.
Everyoneās excited because itās not just the team, but also families. And for children especially. In fully remote companies, too, every day can be bring your pet to work day, so one of the things weāre doing with the younger children of our team members is having a pet show and tell call where they can introduce their pets to our team.
The final word
āYou canāt just focus on growing the business, you have to focus on your team as well.ā
Remotely Inclined Chats with Shelly Spiegel
Transcript edited for brevity and clarity.
Stefan: Welcome, Shelly! Can you share what youāre working on and what Fire Engine RED does?
Shelly: Absolutely. I started Fire Engine RED in December 2001 and from day one we were a fully remote company. Weāre coming up now on 20 years.
We primarily serve colleges in the US and work with admissions offices helping them market their institutions to prospective students. On the technology side, weāve developed a CRM product to help colleges manage their interactions with prospective students. So weāre a hybrid company - marketing and technology.
How has it been growing a remote business in the education field?
Back in 2001 we were an anomaly being remote. We didnāt feel it was in our interest to share that we were remote with our prospective clients for the first 10 years. If people asked, weād be honest, but we didnāt just talk about it.
In 2011, we applied for an award through Inc Magazine as a top place to work that had a great culture and good values. I was thrilled were one of the 50 companies selected. And in fact we were the first fully remote company to be selected for this award. The judges were shocked that a fully remote company could have a culture.
One of the reasons we went and stayed remote was the ability to hire top talent - and educators became impressed with the team we put together. I would always tell them we were able to do this because weāre fully remote, and thus they became more and more comfortable with that fact.
Should people speak loudly about being remote now, or should they keep it silent?
They should very much talk about it. Itās a positive. It really is. It gives companies the ability to hire top talent.
And when COVID hit, it proved that further from a business perspective.
My worlds collided. We had so many processes in place to work remotely that we could continue working without skipping a beat. And then I gave several webinars to colleges and admissions offices, specifically teaching them how to lead a remote team, since my clients found themselves in this position overnight.
2020 has been the year of change. Now people realize things can change at any moment.
Can you share what youāve done to build such a strong culture remotely?
I believe our culture is why our team member retention rate is 92% and the average team member stays with us for 6.5 years. Some of our team members are even moving in 7-10 years.
I always say that being CEO is not just being the Chief Executive Officer but also the Chief Entertainment Officer. You canāt just focus on growing the business, you have to focus on your team as well.
Transparency
You name it, Iāll answer the question.
I also have a feedback system where people can participate - they can ask me any question anonymously and I will respond within 24 hours, and share my response with the team. So people know I will answer the question and take action if need be.
For example, we used to put peopleās phone numbers on our website, and I got feedback that people were getting tons of spam calls. Within 24 hours, they were removed.
Fun
Something else thatās popular is what we call Walking Wednesdays. Itās a phone call (totally voluntary) with a topic that has nothing to do with work. It could be about your first car or your first jobās team members, or something else.
Itās optional, and people go for a walk wherever they are (our team stretches across 26 states and 5 countries). I kick it off then it just becomes a conversation. It works even though we have a team of 80 people -- I would say we have about an 80% of our team that joins each week.
Recognition
We have a Slack channel called REDcognition, where we recognize members of our team for the good work they do for one another. We also post when good client feedback comes in because I want the team to know about it.
Civic duty
Since weāre in an election year in the US, we set up another Slack channel called I Voted, where people can post messages with them voting or with the I Voted sticker on them, their pet, or their kids.
We also joined an organization called Make Time To Vote, which is an initiative in the US where companies commit to letting employees vote on company time, so the time is respected and paid. Thatās one of the reasons we started the I Voted channel, and itās very popular.
Family and COVID
With more family members home than ever before, weāre in the process of putting together a company-wide talent show to showcase our team membersā talents and the talents of their family as well.
Everyoneās excited because itās not just the team, but also families. And for children especially. In fully remote companies, too, every day can be bring your pet to work day, so one of the things weāre doing with the younger children of our team members is having a pet show and tell call where they can introduce their pets to our team.
What is your advice for a remote entrepreneur who is feeling in over their head?
Only hire people who share your values.
You can have all the processes in place with the right clients, but it comes down to people. You just canāt focus enough on your people.
Not everyoneās cut out to work remotely, and not everyoneās cut out to work for you. So youāve got to define your values and find people who share those values.
Amazing, thank you for your insights!
You can get in touch with Shelly on Twitter or LinkedIn.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit remotelyinclined.substack.com - Laat meer zien
