SaaStr 282: The Ultimate Guide To Remote Work; All vs Part Remote Teams, How To Maintain Culture Across Teams, Should Compensation Be Location Adjusted, How To Structure Internal Processes with Remote Teams, How Remote Teams Impact Hiring, Sales and Fundr
Michael Pryor, Co-Founder & CEO @ Trello, now Head of Trello Product with Atlassian following their recent acquisition.
Kolton Andrus is the Founder & CEO @ Gremlin, the failure as a service startup finds weaknesses in your system before they cause problems.
Dylan Serota, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer @ Terminal, the startup that helps you create world-class technical teams through remote operations as a service.
Rachel Carlson, Co-Founder and CEO @ Guild Education, the leader in education benefits offering the single most scalable solution for preparing the workforce of today for the jobs of tomorrow.
Sid Sijbrandi, Founder & CEO @ Gitlab, a single application for the entire software development lifecycle.
Jeppe Rindom is the Founder & CEO @ Pleo, the simple spending solution for your company automating expense reports and simplifying company expenses.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
How should founders think about the debate between all remote vs part remote teams? How does life and operations change with each? What are the pros and cons? Is it possible to move between the two overtime?
What can one do to maintain culture with remote teams? What processes need to be in place to ensure a cohesive and streamlined communication process? What technical architecture needs to be in place? Where are the breakpoints when it comes to communication? How often does one need to do in person off-sites?
How does being remote or part remote impact fundraising? How do VCs think about this new structure of operations? What is the right way to present it? How does being outside a core tech hub impact one's ability to raise? How should one run a fundraising process if outside a core hub?
How important is it for your team to be near your customers? How does this change according to sector and customer base? How important is it for your team to be near your investors? Does having an exec and sales team in one place and the rest of the team elsewhere work?
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Read the full transcript on our blog.
SaaStr 169: The Secret To Ensure High Conversion On Trials, How To Start and Scale A Remote Team Successfully & Lessons From Amazon and Netflix on A Culture of Achievement and Goal-setting with Kolton Andrus, Founder & CEO @ Gremlin
Kolton Andrus is the Founder & CEO @ Gremlin, the failure as a service startup finds weaknesses in your system before they cause problems. To date, they have raised over $8m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including the likes of Mike Volpi @ Index Ventures and Mike Dauber @ Amplify Partners. Prior to Gremlin, Kolton was a Chaos Engineer at Netflix improving streaming reliability and operating the Edge services. Fun fact, Kolton also designed and built Netflix's failure injection service. Before that he improved the performance and reliability of the Amazon Retail website. At both companies he has served as a 'Call Leader', managing the resolution of company-wide incidents.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
How a conversation in the hallway of a conference with a VC gave Kolton the confidence that he could leave the corporate world of Netflix and Amazon and start a startup?
What were Kolton's biggest takeaways from seeing the first hand scaling of behemoths like Amazon and Netflix? How did they fundamentally alter how he views goal setting today? How does Kolton look to achieve the balance of ambitious goal setting without the team losing motivation if they do not hit the goals?
Why does Kolton believe that a decentralised workforce is merely an evolution in how we do business? What are the core fundamentals to achieving success in creating and scaling a remote workforce? What have been some of the biggest challenges in structuring the team this way?
What is the single biggest tip Kolton has for other founders in ensuring high conversion rates from trials? Where do most founders go wrong with this? Today, is engineering buy in the only necessity to succeed in a bottoms up sales world?
60 Second SaaStr?
What does Kolton know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
If an investor can provide one thing, what is most important for Kolton?
What are Kolton's favourite SaaS reading materials?
When is a stretch a stretch too far for a team member?
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Kolton Andrus
