Mastering Remote: Recent Episodes
Christine Orchard at Arc
Single topic deep dives. Bite-sized episodes. Expert advice to help you work smarter and manage better — remotely. For distributed team leaders and remote professionals. Podcast FKA "Outside the Valley."
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- Know when to hire a remote team member as an employee versus contractor
- How compliance can be actually help you recruit and retain great talent
- How to evaluate an employer of record before selecting one
Resources mentioned:
- Boundless
- Gavin Sheridan’s Twitter list of experts on COVID
- Morning Brew
- Coda
- Asana
Presented by Arc.dev, making it easy to find remote developers, pre-vetted and tailor-matched to you.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- Why a strong employer brand can help attract hard-to-hire candidates
- How to research and build your employer value propositions from scratch
- The metrics to help measure the effectiveness of your employer brand story
Resources mentioned:
- Mozilla’s employer value propositions
- Job Portraits agency
- Anand Giridharadas @AnandWrites
- Mozilla’s Spotify playlist
- “The Four Loves” by C.S. Lewis
Presented by Arc.dev, making it easy to hire remote developers, pre-vetted and tailor-matched to you.
What you’ll learn in this episode
- Several exercises to help you be a more effective leader, especially now
- How to keep your old habits from holding you and your team back
- How to turn experimentation into a core part of your organization’s DNA
Bonus: Why and how Atlassian decided to embrace being a hybrid organization.
Resources mentioned
- Atlassian Team Playbook 4Ls Retrospective
- Atlassian Team Playbook “Health Monitors”
- Report: Reworking Work: Understanding The Rise of Work Anywhere
- "Radical Candor," by Kim Scott
Presented by Arc.dev, making it easy to hire remote developers, pre-vetted and tailor-matched to you.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- How to ace your next VC interview and get funded
- How to overcome the trust deficit when raising capital remotely
- What unexpected challenges founders will face and how to overcome them
Resources mentioned:
- Distributed Valley
- Cota Capital
- Remote Startup Expo 3.0
- Remo virtual events platform
- Del Johnson on Twitter
- “Lead the Field” by Earl Nightingale
Presented by Arc.dev, making it easy to hire remote developers, pre-vetted and tailor-matched to you.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- How to transition from an office-based to fully distributed company (and culture)
- How to get team buy-in and handle people leaving as change occurs
- Why meaningful work is the secret to strong remote team connections
Resources mentioned:
- Creative Market
- “Hiring Your Dream Team,” video of Chris speaking at Calibrate 2018
- Kara Swisher, journalist and host of the “Sway” podcast
- Microserfs by Douglas Copeland
Hosted by Arc.dev, making it easy to hire remote developers, pre-vetted and tailor-matched to you.
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- The history of SpikeBall
- Why playfulness and kindness is essential to SpikeBall’s company culture
- Identifying traits that makes someone suitable for remote work during the interview process
- SpikeBall’s onboarding process for new employees
Mentioned resources:
- Chris Ruder
- Spikeball
- Ken Weary of Hotjar: How to Regain Productivity in Your Remote Team
- Basecamp
Topics also covered in this episode:
- How recruiting teams can adapt to shifts in the talent market.
- Creating a job description that attracts the right candidate.
- Purposefully building infrastructure so your remote team can be sustainable and succeed.
- The importance of culture when bringing new hires together in remote teams.
- Practices or processes that might continue even after the pandemic is over.
- Soft skills recruiters should be screening for when evaluating remote candidates.
Mentioned resources:
- Laurel Farrer
- Distribute Consulting
- Mathew Caldwell
- RocketPower
- Greg Russell
- Snapdocs
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- How culture and onboarding evolved at InVision as they experienced rapid growth
- What companies should know about building a community
- Challenges Jennifer faced as a community builder
- Why remote work is a life-changer for disabled individuals
- Advice for remote job-seekers
Mentioned resources:
- InVision
- Clark Valberg
- Jennifer’s Twitter
- Remote work is more than a job perk—for people with chronic illness, it’s life changing
- Job openings at InVision
Topics also covered in this episode:
- How COVID-19 pandemic has affected Matt and Megan’s working routines
- How Matt and Megan kept the morale and culture of their engineering teams intact during this challenging time
- How they go about figuring out meetings and setting goals for their teams
- The hiring processes and interview questions at TaxJar and Help Scout
Mentioned resources:
- TaxJar
- Help Scout
- Matt Anderson
- Megan Chinburg
- Basecamp
- Fellow.app
- Help Scout’s 12-Step Remote Hiring Process
Topics also covered in this episode:
- Why Brooke was initially attracted to remote work
- Brooke’s experiences with isolation while working remotely
- How Workfrom helps remote workers to interact with each other
- How Brooke thinks COVID-19 will impact the dynamics of remote work in the future
- Why remote work is a big benefit to local communities
Mentioned resources:
- Workfrom
- Brooke’s Twitter
- Darren Buckner
- Techstars
- Techstars Anywhere
- Codementor
- James Clear
Mentioned resources:
- Tuple
- Ben’s Twitter
- How to pair with a junior developer
- Basecamp
- Shape Up
- The Manager’s Handbook
- Clearbit
- Alex MacCaw
- Extreme Programming
- Learntopair.com
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- How our communication style and processes have evolved
- How we designed our workspaces at home
- Handling criticism and feedback in remote teams
- How remote work affected our routines and daily life
Mentioned resources:
- Zoom
- Notion
- Airtable
- Kap
- Loom
- Liam Martin: How to Be a Remote Executive
- Workstation Popcorn method
- MOFT stand
- Tuple
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- How Darren got the rare title of “Head of Remote”
- Why GitLab choose “all-remote” as their company identity
- Why hybrid remote teams can lead to guilt and burnout
- Why “storytelling ability” is important in GitLab
- GitLab’s “handbook-first” approach
- Darren answering questions from Twitter
Mentioned resources:
- Darren’s Twitter
- Darren’s Instagram
- Andreas Klinger of AngelList: Normalizing Hiring Outside Silicon Valley
- GitLab’s Guide to All-Remote
- The importance of a handbook-first approach to documentation
- GitLab Handbook
- Informal Communication in an all-remote environment
- GitLab onboarding
- GitLab communication
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- What attracted Steph to remote work
- The “give and take” approach in remote hiring
- How Steph learned to be a better communicator
- Can you deliberately train communication skills?
- How to encourage top-down empathy in an organization
- Why humility should be at the core of leadership
- The three must-have qualities of effective leadership
- Frameworks for remote decision making
- Is there a middle ground between “delegating” and “being hands-on” for CEOs?
- How Steph adapted to remote life and still finding time to be creative
Mentioned resources:
- The Hustle
- Trends
- Nomad(hubb)
- Eunoia
- FeMake
- Ken Weary of Hotjar - How to Regain Productivity in Your Remote Team
- Must-Have Qualities for Effective Leadership
- Best Practices for Managing Remote Teams: A Psychological Perspective
- Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant
- Jason Fried
- Basecamp
- Sam Parr
- Steph’s website
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- How Laurel persuaded the executives of his previous company to experiment with remote work
- Why Laurel thinks compliance is the number one thing companies should figure out before going remote
- How Laurel measures the cost of transitioning to remote work (as well as the metrics for measuring whether this transition has been successful)
- Why remote work can strengthen local technology culture
- How remote work can enable both re-skilling and up-skilling
- How the right training can enable older members of the workforce to get modern remote opportunities
- How can leaders help new remote workers develop their self-discipline (without micromanaging!)
Mentioned resources:
- Distribute Consulting
- Remote Work Association
- The Joe Rogan Experience podcast with Naval Ravikant
- Josh Pigford
- Baremetrics
- Could remote work be economic development’s new secret weapon
- Rural Online Initiative
- Liam Martin: How to Be a Remote Executive
- Laurel’s Twitter
- Laurel’s LinkedIn
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- How Ken and his spouse manage their children’s education while being digital nomads
- Why Hotjar decided to always default to asynchronous communication whenever possible
- How Hotjar realized that productivity was going down
- Hotjar’s meeting culture and requirements
- How Hotjar’s utilizes the “Tribes” system in project ownership
- Why being a self-starter is important as a remote worker
- Hotjar’s onboarding process and documentation principles
Mentioned resources:
- Hotjar
- Running Remote
- WeWorkRemotely
- Slido
- David Darmannin, CEO of Hotjar
- Trello
- Hotjar Team Manual
- Confluence
- Laura Roeder - Build a Company That Doesn’t Need You
- Hotjar is hiring!
- Ken’s LinkedIn
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- The challenges of developing a physical product as a 100% remote company
- How you can create an “epic place to work”
- How Fred applies the principle of “gentle guidance” as a remote leader
- Tortuga’s hiring process
- Signals to find out if someone can work remotely well
- Fred’s one million dollar mistake
- The importance of project post-mortems in remote teams
Mentioned resources:
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
- A Place to Do Epic Work
- David Heinemeier Hansson
- Basecamp
- Organizing Teams by Players and Coaches by Help Scout
- Laura Roeder of Meet Edgar: Build a Company That Doesn’t Need You
- Who by Geoff Smart
- Naval Ravikant
- Meetup.com
- Notion
- I F*cked Up (and You Can Too)
- Decentralized Decision Making
- Shape Up by Basecamp
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- How Jesse started YNAB back in 2004 and found his CTO remotely
- How Jesse delivers feedback and criticism as a remote CEO
- YNAB’s unique ritual for all-hands meetings
- YNAB’s hiring and onboarding process
- The growing pains experienced while scaling a remote company
- The unique interview questions that YNAB asks when hiring
- Jesse’s past mistake in hiring and how YNAB learned from it
- How remote work has influenced Jesse’s family life
Mentioned resources:
- Jesse Mecham
- You Need A Budget (YNAB)
- Hiten Shah: Figuring Out Your Own Remote Work Structure
- YNAB Podcasts Library
- Please Stop Talking About Company Culture
- Getting Things Done by David Allen
- YNAB cultural manifesto
- Jason Fried
- Basecamp
- Shape Up by Basecamp
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Follow us on Twitter to get updates.
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- How Max started in the world of robotics and helped created Roomba
- The very first prototype of Meeting Owl
- How Max and his co-founder found early adopters and gathered feedback
- How can a hardware startup vet their suppliers?
- Does a 100% distributed team need a Meeting Owl?
- Unique use-cases of Meeting Owl
- Max’s number one piece of advice for founders who want to be better at meetings
- The most important things Max learned when he was still the CEO
- Why Max had to record an apology video for customers
- How Max thinks remote work will affect the future
- What’s next for Owl Labs
Mentioned resources:
- Max Makeev
- iRobot
- Owl Labs co-founder Mark Schnittman
- Get Meeting Owl
- Y Combinator
- Foxconn
- Flextronics
- Zoom
- Lisette Sutherland
- Rebecca Corliss
- Collaborations Superpowers: Interview with Rebecca Corliss of Meeting Owl
- Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt
- Megan Chinburg of Help Scout: A Look Into Help Scout's Hiring Process
- 5 Ways to Have Killer Meetings
- 2019 State of Remote Work Report by Owl Labs
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Follow us on Twitter to get updates.
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- Laura’s current role and why MeetEdgar has a “President”
- Why Laura decided to create a company that can run without her
- Mistakes and challenges Laura made while growing MeetEdgar
- The importance of transparency
- Why you should not put criticism on Slack
- Why meetings are essential for remote teams
- Is MeetEdgar small by design?
- How MeetEdgar thinks about documentation
- Why MeetEdgar doesn’t have “managers” but “advocates”
- Why Laura doesn’t believe in deadlines
Mentioned resources:
- Laura’s blog
- MeetEdgar
- One free month of MeetEdgar (Code: PODCAST)
- Liam Martin of Time Doctor: How to be a “Remote Executive”
- MeetEdgar President Sarah Park
- Justin Mitchell of YAC Chat: Remote Team “High-Res” Communications
- “Away” controversy
- Krister Haav of Toggl: Creating a Playful Culture in Remote Teams
- David Heinemeier Hansson
- Dave Teare
- REWORK Podcast: Venture Capital and Control with Dave Teare
- Basecamp
- Tettra
- Holacracy
- Trello
- Asana
- The MeetEdgar Company Handbook
Note: Laura's new software for coaches, Paperbell, is now available!
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Breaker
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Follow us on Twitter to get updates.
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- How remote work helped Kieran in his career and personal life
- Why geographical boundaries shouldn't limit career opportunities
- The hardest part of remote leadership
- Why remote hiring is one of the best things you can do for company growth.
- Using "squads" in distributed teams
- Avoiding too many processes in distributed teams
- The "goldfish face" problem in meetings
- How presenting on Zoom can be awkward
- Things HubSpot do to recreate the “watercooler feeling”
- Kieran's advice to companies who want to hire remotely
Mentioned resources:
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Marketo
- Andreas Klinger of AngelList: Normalizing Hiring Outside Silicon Valley
- Kevan Lee
- Buffer
- Nicholas Holland
- How to Be a Remote Leader with Nicholas Holland
- Wade Foster
- Zapier
- How to set your growth team up for success
- Paul Thompson
- Megan Chinburg of HelpScout: A Look Into HelpScout’s Hiring Process
- Balsamiq
- Peldi Guilizzoni of Balsamiq: Continuous Learning as A Company’s DNA
- The GoldFish Face? 5 Truths about Remote Working
- Airtable
- Donut
- Growth TL;DR
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Breaker
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- 04:12 — How Tammy realized that working in an office is not really for her
- 07:00 — What fascinates Tammy the most about remote work
- 08:27 — How remote work can improve the education sector
- 13:30 — How Workplaceless started
- 16:46 — Why companies and managers need training to successfully become “remote”
- 21:51 — Why creating a career map is important for remote companies
- 24:54 — The #1 fear of companies who are trying to go remote
- 30:24 — The three pillars framework you can start with when proposing a remote initiative to your boss
- 32:37 — Is it possible to hire for potential?
Mentioned resources:
- Running Remote conference
- Workplaceless
- Zoom
- Andreas Klinger
- Andreas Klinger: Normalizing Hiring Outside Silicon Valley
- Goplaceless Remote Readiness Assessment
- Claire Lew
- Claire Lew: Building Social Trust in Remote Teams
- Why are American companies so bad at re-skilling?
- Jason Fried
- Asana
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Breaker
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Follow us on Twitter to get updates.
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- 04:10 — How Liam realized that overworking and hustle culture is dangerous
- 09:00 — The main difference between “entrepreneur” and “executive”
- 14:15 — The top two things that Liam needed to re-teach himself to be a better remote executive
- 24:14 — The million-dollar mistakes that Liam and his co-founder made
- 30:17 — Why it is crucial to extract the “sacred knowledge” of your key team members and document it
- 37:14 — How Liam created a document to help his direct reports work with him more effectively
- 41:39 — The most surprising feedback Liam received from his direct reports
- 44:45 — Why Liam and the team started Running Remote
- 48:37 — The unspoken difficulties about running a conference
Mentioned resources:
- Running Remote conference
- Time Doctor
- Staff.com
- “Karoshi” phenomenon
- Zero to One
- Mark Faggiano: Creating Remote Employee Culture
- “Dunbar’s number”
- Trainual
- Gitlab Handbook
- Dmitri Zaporozhets
- Rob Rawson
- Nick Francis
- Amir Salihefendić
- Twist
- Jing
- The Pesto Podcast with Liam Martin
- Myers-Briggs test
- Intercom
- Egor Borushko
- The 4-Hour Workweek
- Tim Ferriss
- Andrew Warner
- Andreas Klinger
- Andreas Klinger’s Running Remote keynote
- Hiten Shah: Figuring Out your Own Remote Work Structure
- Jennifer Aldrich
- Remote work is more than a job perk—for people with chronic illness, it’s life changing by Jennifer Aldrich
- Fiverr
- Wade Foster
- Zapier
- Lori McLeese
- Automattic
- John Eckman
- 10Up
- Sara Sutton
- FlexJobs
- Running Remote YouTube Channel
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Breaker
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Follow us on Twitter to get updates.
Topics also covered on the podcast episode:
- 03:31 — What makes DigitalOcean’s hybrid team model successful
- 06:42 — Examples of the “remote-first mindset” at DigitalOcean
- 08:03 — Early resource investments by DigitalOcean to make remote work run smoothly
- 09:16 — The growing pains of DigitalOcean’s remote processes
- 13:49 — Eddie’s most surprising finding in the DigitalOcean Remote Developer Experience Report
- 21:26 — How the rise of remote work helps foster communities of local developers
- 34:29 — Advice for developers who wants to start their own meetup
Mentioned Resources
- Digital Ocean
- IRC
- Currents: The Remote Developer Experience
- SendGrid
- Twilio
- THAT Conference
- Zoom
- Owl Labs
- Tulsa Remote
- Eddie’s Twitter
- Eddie’s GitHub
We covered:
- 02:31 — How Megan started her engineering leadership career
- 08:40 — The differences between managing a remote vs co-located engineering team
- 18:06 — How Help Scout screens for value alignment and technical competence
- 35:38 — Help Scout’s onboarding process for new hire
- 40:10 — Why documentation is important when onboarding new engineer
- 41:00 — One of the best things Help Scout did early on to grow a solid remote team
- 43:35 — How Megan sees her responsibilities as a VP of Engineering
- 49:30 — Top two pieces of advice Megan would give to other engineering managers
Mentioned resources:
- Help Scout
- Nick Francis
- Denny Swindle
- Andreas Klinger: Normalizing Hiring Outside Silicon Valley
- AngelList
- Basecamp
- Help Scout’s 12 Step Remote Hiring Process
- Leah Knobler
- How to Knock Your Virtual Job Interview Out of the Park
- Help Scout “Fika”
- Mark Faggiano: Creating Remote Employee Culture
- Mark Faggiano
- I, Me, We, Us - Creating team ownership with better language
- Megan’s LinkedIn
- Help Scout Blog
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Breaker
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Follow us on Twitter to get updates.
We covered:
- 04:25 — How Hailley convinced her previous company to allow remote work
- 06:33 — Advantages of remote work for Hailley’s productivity
- 11:30 — Why Buffer has a super transparent culture (and how this affects Buffer)
- 13:55 — Why Buffer gives internal team members opportunities to apply for new job openings
- 20:03 — Do you need to have experience in remote work to have a job at Buffer?
- 23:36 — Buffer’s onboarding process and what’s so special about it
- 28:50 — What are some unique internal communication processes within Buffer?
- 35:00 — Why Buffer started offering paid sabbaticals
- 41:12 — Buffer’s unique all-hands meeting
- 50:15 — Hailley’s most surprising finding from the last State of Remote Work survey
Mentioned resources:
- Buffer
- Joel Gascoigne
- Open Startup movement
- Transistor.fm
- Baremetrics
- Buffer Open Blog
- Todoist
- Hiten Shah: Figuring Out Your Own Remote Work Structure
- “Peldi” Guilizzoni: Continuous Learning as A Company’s DNA
- Balsamiq
- Loom
- Angel List
- Hailley’s Twitter
- Make Work Work podcast
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Breaker
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Follow us on Twitter to get updates.
We covered:
- 4:30 — How John keeps in touch with the Credo community.
- 7:00 — Has John's mindset about remote work changed over the years?
- 11:05 — The difference between managing a client vs managing a product.
- 14:30 — How a leader can be better at writing expectations, especially in a remote organization.
- 20:00 — What soft skills John looks for when hiring a remote contractor.
- 28:32 — How remote freelancers can "sell" themselves better.
- 32:28 — John's thoughts on building a profitable business outside of Silicon Valley.
- 35:06 — Can you build connections remotely?
Mentioned resources:
- Credo
- Codementor
- Credo team page
- Don’t Hire Remote Workers by John Doherty
- Claire Lew - Building Social Trust in Remote Teams
- John Mueller
- Matt Cutts
- Million Dollar Consulting
- Indie Hackers
- Basecamp
- Zillow
- Union Square Ventures
- Fred Wilson
- Pieter Levels
- Nomad List
- Brennan Dunn
- Double Your Freelancing
- Indie Hackers’ interview with John Doherty
- Jason Calacanis
- John Doherty's interview on This Week In Startups
- John Doherty’s Twitter
- John Doherty’s Instagram
Available now on your favorite podcast players:
- iTunes
- Google Podcast
- Breaker
- Castro
- Overcast
- Spotify
- Stitcher
- Player.fm
- Tune In
Follow us on Twitter to get updates!
We covered:
- 02:31 — Why Peldi moved back to Italy to build Balsamiq
- 07:26 — What Balsamiq does to maintain a self-aware and continuous learning culture
- 10:16 — Why “experiment culture” is important in Balsamiq
- 13:35 — Why Peldi prefers not placing too much weight on his own “voice” within the company
- 21:15 — The un-sexy part of remote hiring (legal challenges, paperwork, etc.)
- 28:05 — A peek into Balsamiq's hiring process
- 29:50 — Balsamiq's onboarding process and how it has evolved over time
- 32:46 — How Peldi moved away from doing the things he's good at
Mentioned resources:
- Balsamiq
- Peldi’s Indie Hackers Interview
- Balsamiq Career Page
- How TaxJar Creates a Remote Company Culture with Mark Faggiano
- Baremetrics
- Josh Pigford’s tweet
- Zapier
- Know Your Team: The Heartbeat podcast episode with Peldi
- Buffer
- Buffer’s co-founder Leo Widrich
- Peldi’s Twitter
- Peldi’s LinkedIn
We covered:
- 2:27 — How Hiten Shah started his very early internet business
- 4:00 — Why Hiten and his co-founder Marie Prokopets wrote the Remote Work Report
- 6:10 — The most surprising finding from the Remote Work Report
- 8:10 — How a remote manager can help remote team members figure out their ideal daily structure
- 10:10 — What exactly is “overcommunicating”?
- 12:37 — Why understanding people is the most important challenge remote companies need to tackle
- 14:00 — Hiten’s hiring process and the biggest differences in hiring remotely between then and now
- 24:00 — Questions people should ask themselves when they’re building a remote team.
- 29:09 — Where Hiten usually does his best work
Mentioned resources:
- FYI
- Kissmetrics
- Crazy Egg
- Quick Sprout
- The Remote Work Report
- The Startup Chat Podcast
- The Remote Show Podcast episode with Hiten Shah
- Notion
- Marie Prokopets
- 11 Best Practices for Working Remotely
- 58 Must-Read Remote Work Resources
- Automattic
- Buffer
- How To Build Social Connections and Trust in Remote Teams with Claire Lew
- Why Hiring Outside Silicon Valley is the New Normal with Andreas Klinger
- Hiten’s Twitter
We covered
- 05:54 — What fascinates Ho Yin the most about remote work
- 08:41 — Challenges and lessons Ho Yin faced while transforming to be a remote startup leader
- 13:08 — How Ho Yin’s hiring process changed
- 19:38 — Ho Yin’s “superpower” that helps him manage his remote team better
- 21:35 — Why recording is a powerful tool for creating processes in remote teams
- 24:59 — Resources that helped Ho Yin to be a better remote leader
- 26:54 — What is Remo?
- 34:21 — Use cases for Remo
- 40:58 — How Ho Yin’s transition to being a remote startup leader affects Remo’s product roadmap
- 49:11 — Advice to startups that want to start hiring remote team members
- 50:45 — Why it’s important for remote startup CEOs to have a deep bond with early remote team members
Learning resources:
- Remo’s Remote Company Transition Plan
- Workplaceless
- Lisette Sutherland
- Laurel Farrer
Mentioned resources:
- Remo
- Riotly Social Media
- Zapier
- Automattic
- Running Remote
- Running Remote Podcast with Ho Yin Cheung
- How TaxJar Creates a Remote Culture by Prioritizing Employee Experience
- Help Scout
- Loom
- Using Voice to Bring "High-Resolution Communication" to Remote Teams
- The Sims
- Remote Work Summit
Follow us on Twitter to get updates.
We covered:
- 01:02 — What is “Head of Remote” actually?
- 02:00 — Why remote work came naturally to Andreas
- 04:37 — How investors’ perceptions about remote work have changed over the years
- 06:24 — Why building an engineering team inside Silicon Valley is now questionable
- 11:08 — Is there such a thing as a “network effect” in remote work?
- 15:45 — Why Andreas wrote Managing Remote Teams - A Crash Course
- 19:48 — Systemizing “trust” inside a remote team
- 23:35 — Why onboarding is crucial for new hires
- 28:37 — Why you need to “refactor” your organization every few months
- 35:04 — The misperception of the “digital nomad” trend
- 40:30 — Is “remote readiness” is a thing?
- 43:40 — How to start transitioning into a remote team
- 47:12 — Andreas’ general advice to those who want to start/scale remote companies, especially regarding hiring
- 50:30 — Why pair programming is an underrated way to assess your remote candidates
Mentioned Resources:
- AngelList
- Product Hunt
- Ryan Hoover
- Seedcamp
- Running Remote
- Andreas Klinger’s talk at Running Remote
- Andrew Chen
- Mullet model
- Remotive
- Managing Remote Teams - A Crash Course by Andreas Klinger
- Zapier
- Creating a Fun and Playful Culture in Remote Teams with Krister Haav
- Toggl Startup Simulator
- “Your company should be your best product”
- Pieter Levels
- Pieter Levels tweet about ‘digital nomads’
- Nick Francis
- Help Scout
- Andreas Klinger's Twitter
We covered:
- 01:28 — How Justin got his first startup gig in high school
- 06:06 — What is YAC?
- 07:46 — Why voice communications are better than written documents
- 12:44 — Using voice for async communication and clarity
- 26:33 — How YAC launched via Product Hunt Maker’s Festival
- 33:29 — Why Silicon Valley companies are doing themselves a disservice by not hiring outside the valley
- 37:04 — Why remote work can create a ‘disconnect’ between the CEO and CTO
- 41:12 — Why high-resolution communication is crucial for remote startups
- 45:23 — The role of voice in the future of remote work and other aspects of daily life.
- 48:50 — Using voice communication to increase accessibility
Mentioned resources:
- SoFriendly
- YAC
- Hotjar
- Zapier
- Product Hunt
- The $400,000 Tweet
- Justin Jackson
- Roche Healthcare
- Zoom
- Makers Weekly episode with Justin Mitchell
- Request for Startups 1: Remote tools for remote teams by Tyler Tringas
- Twist
- Doist
We covered:
- 07:23 — Why “playfulness” is important to Toggl’s culture
- 11:51 — Does brand authenticity = a higher employee retention rate for Toggl?
- 13:51 — How Toggl “transfers the vibe” of team culture within the organization
- 20:45 — The hiring and onboarding process at Toggl
- 35:45 — Is it possible for remote teams to hire for potential?
- 40:13 — Krister’s advice for companies who want to start hiring remote employees
Mentioned Resources:
- Toggl
- Teamweek
- Hundred5
- Krister’s Toggl page
- Toggl Unicorn Startup Simulator
- 5 Ways to Have Killer Meetings
- What We’ve Learned Building a Remote Culture by Nick Francis
We covered:
- 03:00 — The 3 pillars of good leadership and how Claire codified these
- 08:40 — Attributes of a good remote team leader
- 10:05 — The importance of “affective trust” in a team
- 16:10 — Can empathy be trained?
- 19:40 — Asking the right questions as a leader
- 29:50 — Claire’s thoughts on hybrid teams (half remote, half co-located)
- 34:11 — How can employees “manage up” better?
Mentioned resources:
- Know Your Team
- The Heartbeat Podcast
- How To Build Social Connection in a remote team
- Basecamp
- The Watercooler
- Zapier
- Wade Foster
- MeetEdgar
We covered:
- 03:00 — Why Mark is passionate about remote work
- 06:30 — The point during company scaling when it started to become harder to convey the company’s core values 06:30
- 10:40 — The importance of employee onboarding, and why Mark decided to personally onboard new employees until the company grew to a team of 20
- 16:00 — The importance of the Employee Experience Team and People Ops to TaxJar
- 25:00 — How TaxJar’s transparency helped build trust among potential customers and new hires
- 31:00 — How remote job applicants can stand out
- 42:45 — Why it is now easier to raise money as a distributed startup
Mentioned resources:
- TaxJar
- Life at TaxJar
- SaaS Insider - Mark Faggiano episode
- Trello
- Jira
- Basecamp