The Remote Show

Kate is president of Global Workplace Analytics (GWA), a research and consulting firm that helps employers understand and prepare for the future of work. Her expertise is focused on workplace, workforce, technology, and other trends that are changing the who, what, when, where, and how of work. She has been helping public and private sector employers implement and optimize hybrid-remote work strategies for over 15 years.Working with some of the world's most respected product and service providers, GWA helps make the 'people, planet, and profit' business case for workplace change and collaborates to publish a wide range of original and secondary research.Kate is a highly regarded speaker and writer. She has written or co-authored five business books, numerous white papers, and scores of articles for major media outlets. Her firm’s research has been cited by hundreds of publications including the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and many others. She is a member of the strategic advisory board and leadership team of Workplace Evolutionaries (WE), a global group of leading workplace thinkers and doers who are dedicated to "changing the world one workplace at a time.” In July of 2020, Kate was one of three witnesses invited to testify before a congressional committee on the future of telework in government.As a resident of San Diego, Kate teases clients that she charges extra if she has to travel anywhere that's too hot, too cold, too wet, too humid, or too buggy.Links to Kate's stuff on the World Wide Web:LinkedInGlobal Workplace Analytics

Our guest today is Laurel Farrer. As the founder of Distribute Consulting and The Remote Work Association, she starts, strengthens and leverages virtual workforces to solve corporate and socio-economic concerns. A global thought leader on the topic of remote work, Laurel collaborates with the world's leading businesses and governments to eliminate virtual worker discrimination, prevent policy retraction, increased remote job assessability, train distributed leaders and design economic initiatives. Additionally, she also shares her expertise as a Forbes contributor, subject matter expert for business education curriculum, and virtual software product advisor.Links to Laurel's internet resources:Laurel on LinkedInLaurelFarrer.comLaurel's remote work blog on ForbesDistribute ConsultingRemote Work Association

Today's guest is Chris Herd, the CEO and founder of FirstbaseHQ. And of course, you already know him from his thought leadership on Twitter, LinkedIn, sending out those fire tweets, the massive threads about the future of living, future of remote working here in our world.Follow Chris Herd on TwitterConnect with Chris Herd on LinkedInLearn more about FirstBaseHQ at firstbasehq.com

Peep Laja is the founder and CEO of CXL, Wynter and Speero. He is originally from Estonia but lives in Austin, Texas, and he's a digital nomad that still spends his summers in Europe. He is an entrepreneur and a conversion optimization champion. He's passionate about driving change and growth through digital optimization. He was voted as number one, most influential conversion rate optimization expert in the world. He is devoted to growing the size and quality of the whole conversion optimization community. You can rely on him for help. He spends most of his time today on making top 1% marketing know-how available for everyone through the CXL Institute. And he's excited to share the learnings he's had in leading remote teams globally.Learn more about Peep at: https://peeplaja.com/follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/peeplaja or connect with him on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/peeplaja/

Our guest on today's show is Tyler Sellhorn. Tyler is a remote work advocate who is very active on LinkedIn and Twitter where he shares ideas, concepts, and learnings around remote work. He was also the Director of Customer Experience at Hubstaff, which helps organizations manage projects and teams profitably. This episode is trial and introduction to the podcast, as Tyler will be helping us out with the Remote Show moving forward as a host. Please enjoy.Start #LearningOutLoud with Tyler on LinkedIn, Twitter, and at https://www.tylersellhorn.tech/

Many of you know Matt Mullenweg, but what you may not know is that Wordpress (the open source blogging platform that he co-founded in 2003) now powers over 40% of the internet. You read that correctly -- 40% of the entire internet. After briefly reviewing the arc of Matt’s entrepreneurial journey, we discuss how remote work evolved with Wordpress, as well as his brief stint with a designated office space. Wordpress is one of the largest and most successful remote companies in the world, so digging into the beginnings of Wordpress and scaling was a particularly unique insight. One of the insights was the importance of a balanced work, and top down encouragement to lead healthy and balanced lifestyles. For example -- giving back and supporting your community is something Automatticians are encouraged to do. We also discuss at some length Open Source vs proprietary software, what this means for the future of the internet and freedom of speech and expression in an internet dominated society. That could likely have been its own. Hopefully it will be!This discussion was particularly interesting because of Matt’s success and notoriety as influence on the internet, but I was struck by how kind and thoughtful Matt was. The team at Automattic are aiming to democratize the internet, and they practice what they preach!Matt’s advice to Entrepreneurs: “you have to be very comfortable being misunderstood for a long time. And that long time could sometimes be a decade.”To look for openings at Automattic, see the positions on We Work Remotely, or go to they page for all of the live positions: https://automattic.com/work-with-us/

In this first episode of 2021, we’re excited to share our conversation with Steli Efti. Steli is a longstanding remote work advocate, and the team at Close has been fully remote for six years with 40 people in 13 different countries. Close is a leading sales automation CRM for inside sales teams. We talk about many things in this conversation, but the most important insights we get into are the details of leading a company through a crisis and how Steli and the management team responded and supported their co-workers. We are fortunate to be able to chat with leaders across many companies, but Close is certainly one of the companies that many of our many job seekers are always excited to work for and learn from. Chatting with Steli, it is clear that the team at Close took the right approach, didn’t make panic decisions and navigated thoughtfully. We dive into transparency, content production, leadership and much more. Steli’s recommended reading: “Wherever You Go, There You Are” from Jon Kabat-Zinn Close is hiring on WWR! Find them here: https://weworkremotely.com/company/close. We couldn’t recommend Close highly enough. They’re culture is based on these fundamental values:🏡 Build a house you want to live in🥇 Strive for greatness💪 Discipline equals freedom🚫 No BS🤝 Invest in each otherThanks so much for listening!

In this episode of The Remote Show Live, we were fortunate enough to chat with Dr. Tolonda Tolbert about the realities of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in remote work environments. We were fortunate enough to cover many different components of DE&I in remote teams, and companies more generally. This was a very important conversation, and we were happy to have hosted it. Dr T gave many important insights including practical teams and actionable projects for improving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We covered:• How an action based approach is needed, using analytics and metrics. • How remote work influences progress in corporate DE&I • Does diversity in the work place help spark innovation? Hint: Yes, it does. • How can remote companies improve their hiring and onboarding that optimize DE&I?• How can managers best support their underrepresented employees - especially during this time? We're aiming to help keep the momentum going with the recent spike in conversations about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion -- if you're a remote manager/leader/hiring manager, this one's for you!Interested in continuing this conversation within your organization? Check out https://eskalera.com/ for more information!Tolonda M. Tolbert, Ph.D., is the Co-Founder, and Head of Strategy and Culture at Eskalera, Inc. She comes to the role with almost two decades of hands-on experience in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) and culture change. Prior to that, she served as Senior Director of the Inclusive Leadership Initiative for Catalyst, partnering with global organizations to build their capacity to create and sustain inclusive workplaces, specializing in DEI strategy, curriculum design, and implementation. She also led the Employee Resource Leadership Initiative (ERLI) with a mission to engage and connect ERG leaders to share ideas and best practices while learning how to amplify inclusion. Previously she led special anti-bias projects at the Anti-Defamation League’s A World of Difference Institute and GLSEN(Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network). She was also a staff developer at Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility and a faculty member at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work teaching graduate and faculty courses on Inclusive Pedagogy. She holds a BA from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Rutgers University, she is a published writer, independent scholar and community activist.Connect with Tolonda here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tolonda-tolbert-phd/Listen to The Remote Show podcast: weworkremotely.com/the-remote-show-podcast

Mesh brings a fresh perspective here on the Remote Show. Unlike other operators/managers we've interviewed, Mesh focuses mostly on business education by way of storytelling, journalistic inquiry and content creation. It was particularly interesting diving into what Mesh believes New York could look like in five years post Covid19, and what remote work means from the perspective of an investor, rather than an operator.This is a bit different from our typical conversations, and I'm hoping you enjoy this perspective on technology, remote work and business. If you have any suggestions, or feedback -- reach out to us at [email protected]!Follow Mesh on Twitter @meshlakhani and visit his podcast page to learn more about Talk Money. I personally recommend Mesh's content to everyone wanting to learn more about personal finance, business and investing. The shows are informative and entertaining, trust us!Please enjoy our conversation! If you like the show, please remember, review, subscribe and tell a friend! We'd really appreciate it.

In this second episode of our Remote Show live, recorded earlier in June, were were able to dive deep into the nuances of remote education. Barb has an extensive work history that spans marketing, small business ownership, writing and finally teaching (or guiding, as Bard likes to say) students in the realm of communication and culture. We have been looking for some time to speak with someone in education about what remote learning looks and feels like, and we thought now is as good a time as any to explore the topic further. What's great about Barb is that she was able to expand on many of the things that remote companies struggle with -- how do you create a team and a company people want to be a part of? How do you communicate well when people's strengths are so varied? What does collaboration look and feel like?We go into this, and much more on our second episode of the remote show live.For those who want to participate in future events, please be sure to follow us on twitter when new webinars get announced! Connect with Barb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barb-collombin/Interested in learning about Royal Roads programs? (they come very highly recommended). Check out their course offerings here: https://www.royalroads.ca/I hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did!

Kate is a career coach and founder of The Remote Nomad. She has been profiled in a number of large publications for her expertise in all things remote work, and she helps clients around the world find remote jobs and excel in their careers.In light of the current environment, we wanted to create a more interactive show where we talked about finding a remote job and answered questions from our listeners directly.You'll notice that the audio sounds a bit different. Like many out there, we've had to adapt and were unable to use the studio setting for our recording session. Hopefully this session was helpful for listeners out there! I know I learned a lot from Kate and we hope you did too. Please check out the Remote Nomad from more information on Kate and to purchase one of her courses. She also has a free ebook for our listeners, find that here. More to come in this format! We'd love to hear your thoughts on how we can improve the show and be as helpful as possible. Send us an email at [email protected] -- we'd love to hear from you!Transcript:Matt Hollingsworth (00:00:07):Hello, everyone. My name is Matt Hollingsworth and welcome to another episode of The Remote Show where we discuss everything to do with remote work with the people who know it best. Thanks so much for listening. The Remote Show is brought to you by We Work Remotely, the largest community of remote workers in the world. With over 220,000 unique users per month, We Work Remotely is the most effective way to hire.Matt Hollingsworth (00:00:25):Welcome, everybody. We're going to get started here in a few seconds. I'm just going to allow people to get into the room here. So just as a quick introduction, again, we're going to give this a few seconds here for people to come on board. Participants are already climbing, which is awesome to see. Hopefully, that number keeps going up. So I'm going to kick this off. So this is technically part of The Remote Show Podcast. So welcome everybody to Remote Show Live. This is the first time we've ever actually done this. Hopefully, this is valuable. Again, we're new to this structure so we're figuring this out as we go. There's some chats in there as well. That's awesome.Matt Hollingsworth (00:01:14):I'm going to do a quick introduction to my guest today, Kate Smith. Some of you have probably seen Kate before or know of Kate already. She is a remote coach. She's the founder of The Remote Nomad. She's been on a number of high profile, different publications. She's been on CNN and Glassdoor. Kate, you can fill me in if I've missed any of those. But she's very prominent, a very knowledgeable person in the remote workspace so really happy to have her on. Kate, welcome to the podcast.Kate Smith (00:01:47):Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here today and just share a bunch of knowledge and information from what I know and from my experience and what's been working with my clients with everybody today.Matt Hollingsworth (00:01:58):Yeah. We're super excited about this and we're happy to have you on. I just wanted to start by talking a little bit about the context that we're doing this. I think, it's important for us all to recognize that this is a pretty unique time for everybody. I know that in a lot of circumstances, this is a very uncertain time, I know people have maybe lost their jobs or looking for work in a different space. I think we have all been there before in that level of uncertainty. I just wanted to start by saying that and I think we are all in this together. This is the reason why we're doing this, is to help people that are looking for work. That is the reason we're doing this. Again, we're happy that you all are here to share that with us.Matt Hollingsworth (00:02:50):Kate, I think, well, actually, before we get into the questions here. Because we don't necessarily know the stages of everybody's remote work experience where people are at generally speaking with their remote work, their journey and if they are, for example, if they just lost their job, for example, or looking from a standing start how to get a remote job. If they're already remote workers and potentially looking for a career change in a space that's still remote and just a career change in general, the latterly up, whatever stage of their own works, that journey they're in. We would like to know that just because it will give us a sense of how to be the most helpful we can possibly be here. This is the goal.Matt Hollingsworth (00:03:35):Obviously, this is a free webinar that we're doing to help people find work and we want to be as helpful as we possibly can. So if you could put that in the ... Actually what I'm going to do here ... This is so cool, the chat. I'm going to put that in the polling here a couple of questions, and hopefully we can get a sense of where people are out with it and be as helpful as we can. I'm going to launch this poll. Again, this is the first time I've ever done this, so bear with me if

Welcome to Season 2 of the Remote Show! We’re kicking off 2020 at The Remote Show with Scott Mathson, who runs Web Strategy, Growth, SEO at Netlify and also is the bootstrapped founder of Plink. We were super excited to chat with Scott, as he is an ever present name in the remote work and bootstrapped founder communities.We get into all kind of interesting topics from his background in woodworking, his experiences at Auth0 to taking on his new role at Netlify and bootstrapping his new startup Plink (Scott graciously created a free subscription Plink custom link for listeners of The Remote Show (and desktop Show Page, Episodes Page). Scott is another great example of someone who is insightful, honest and open about his work experience about burnout, career progression and the pros and cons of working remotely. Scott is a mentor at Lambda School and one of his initial mentors was Pete Sveen. For those of you interested in woodworking and DIY projects, you should check out Pete : -)Burn out resources mentioned: journaling, therapy, scheduling in self care time, mindfulness & meditation - Headspace, MacOS Aware App , Pomodoro techniques, Coworking, etc.Scott’s book he’d force everyone to read: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Find out more about Scott at: https://scottmathson.com/, https://twitter.com/scottmathson, https://linkedin.com/in/scottmathson and Mathson Design Co. You should all check out another project of Scott's: Makerviews, a place to share the stories of and advice from a variety of makers, designers, and artists. Please enjoy!

In this wide ranging conversation, Laïla and I dig into a number of relevant topics when it comes to remote work. What has been particularly interesting for me, as many of our listeners probably know, is the idea of company culture on a remote team and how best to optimize it. One of the key takeaways from our chat was the importance or one on one check-ins with team members, and what happens when someone is feeling off or not 100% in their work. Laila gave a unique perspective on this, as well as asynchronous communication, hiring, design thinking/collaboration on a distributed team. Mural is a leading digital whiteboard product that empower modern teams to visually explore complex challenges and collaborate on researching, brainstorming and designing ideas. Go to mural.co to find out more and start collaborating more effectively.Follow Laïla on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lailavon/ and Twitter at @lailavona, and her personal website at: lailavon.com

Career Coaching is something many people hear about, but not many of us get the chance to enjoy and benefit from. Prosper is looking to change that. They are bringing personalized 1-1 coaching to the masses by creating a online, scalable platform for coaching professionals into the next steps of their career.It was a pleasure to learn from Beckie’s backstory working in corporate environments and entrepreneurial endeavors, before she began Prosper. We discuss the shifting landscape of business, how Prosper came to be in its current form, what career coaching can do for professionals and organizations, and how to find and nurture mentorship type relationships.Beckie is a true professional in every sense, and I hope you get as much out of this conversation as I did!If you’re interested in trying Prosper and benefiting from their coaching services, or providing it for your organization, please go to https://helloprosper.com/ to find out more.Also, be sure to follow Beckie on Linkedin and Instagram at B. Thain BlonkBeckie’s book she’d force everyone to read: Think, Learn, Succeed by Dr. Caroline Leaf

Hubspot embraced remote work early, and continues to innovate on best practices and lead the charge in building a large business around a remote first mindset. It was great to dive into what a “remote first mindset” looks like for them, practically speaking. Meaghan is truly at the forefront of what a successful remote first company looks like, and I’m sure we’ll see other large remote companies follow in Hubspot’s footsteps in hiring for a similar positions to Meaghan's. This conversation was a wakeup call for us in the sense that leading technology companies are embedding remote work in their DNA. Anyone who is interested in promoting a healthy remote first culture, or is searching for tips and tricks on what to do first in building a successful remote team for companies with limited resources, should pay attention to what Meaghan has to say. We certainly are taking her lessons to heart! Hubspot is hiring remote workers all the time. If you’re interested, you should check out https://www.hubspot.com/jobsMake sure to follow Meaghan on Linkedin and make sure to check out hubspot.com and find out how their moving remote work forward!Meaghan's book she'd force everyone to read: The first Harry Potter book: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneThanks for listening!

This week we’re excited to share our conversation with Patrick Mckenzie. Patrick is many things, but at the moment is primarily a senior individual contributor working on Content and Community at Stripe. Prior to Stripe, Patrick was a successful entrepreneur who started four different SAAS businesses. His blog is a catalogue of knowledge (with 565 essays written) for anyone interested in technology, entrepreneurship, engineering or business. Find it here.To many (including yours truly), Patrick is an internet legend; he has started four software companies, is a prominent writer, software engineer, marketer and researcher who’s interest spans many fields. I encourage you all to follow Patrick on Twitter at @patio11 if you’re not already - he is one of the few people we can honestly say can make you a more successful entrepreneur just by reading their Twitter feed. Broadly, Patrick and the Stripe team are working on increasing the GDP of the internet. The crazy thing is, they’re succeeding in a big way. Patrick’s current role at Stripe is, as he says, “squishy” which means he works on many different things, including helping write the Stripe Atlas guides, contributing to marketing efforts, writing code, hiring and much more. Stripe recently announced that they were hiring remotely on a wider scale, so we were able to dig into that decision process and understand more of the internal workings of the remote culture at Stripe. There’s a lot to unpack here, I could talk to Patrick for an additional hour if it time would allow. Please enjoy our conversation!Stripe is hiring aggressively for remote roles. If you’re interested in working for Stripe (which you should be), please visit stripe.com/jobs.If you’re not already using Stripe for your online business, then I don’t know what you’re doing, but you should switch to them now by going to stripe.com and signing up for an account. Some people don’t know the extent of Stripe’s value to online businesses. If you’re an internet entrepreneur, you can benefit from the Stripe Atlas Guides, the Stripe Sigma business analytics and many other products they offer. Find them all at stripe.com.Follow Patrick on twitter: @patio11, or email him directly at [email protected] for listening!

Hopefully this was valuable to our listeners! If it was, please do continue to ask questions via our inbox [email protected] and we’ll collect questions for our next AMA. If not, we’ll be back with a new guest for our next episode! Thanks for listening!

Matteo has a long history of working remotely, beginning his distributed work journey at Shopify before taking the lessons learned there and applying them to Eli-Z group. Matteo began as a marketer in the company, and now overseas all departments in his role as Chief Operations Officer. One of the areas that I found interesting was Matteo’s approach to work life balance and how he keeps a pulse on how his employees are feeling in work and in life. With his background in Psychology, Matteo is particularly in tune with the nuances of a distributed workforce and its effect on employees well-being. This conversation will be particularly valuable for managers of a distributed work force! Please enjoy! Be sure to go to: https://www.elizeta.com/ for more information about their business and how they help e-commerce businesses. Find them on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/EliZGroup.Page/ Matteo’s book he’d force everyone to read: The Alchemist by Paul Coelho If you’re looking for help with remote work compliance, check out deel.com for payments to contractor, quaderno.com for EU tax compliance.

What struck me most when talking with Hiten was the clarity of his thinking and his honesty/transparency. The beginning of the conversation went in a unique direction, and I’m glad it did as it allowed us to discuss some of the more nuanced and complex dynamics that arise when building businesses from nothing. Hiten has been in this industry and creating products for many years; he spoke to the evolution of his thinking in many areas, including giving advice, pressure and removing mental/emotional road blocks instead of breaking them. We of course talked about remote work in depth. Having built many different distributed teams, both self-funded and vc backed, Hiten has some interesting and valuable insights when it comes to remote teams. This was one of our most interesting and in depth conversation with a leader in the remote work space. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! Hiten’s current company, FYI, is working to solve one of the major issues of remote work by making it easier to access and organize documents. You can check what he and his co-founder Marie Prokopets have built at usefyi.com. Also, be sure to check out their Remote Work Report, one of the most comprehensive handbooks to all things remote work, and one that we were lucky enough to contribute to! And of course, follow Hiten on Twitter: @hnshah The book that Hiten would force everyone to read: The Courage to be Disliked by Alfred Adler

A true generalist, Matt has his hand in everything from product, marketing, podcasting, design and partnerships at 1Password. He was kind enough to share his thoughts on everything from building remote teams, the public perception of online security, the motivations of data hackers, what you can do now to increase your online security and much more. Security online is a massively important component for everyone with an online presence, but even more so for people and companies working remotely. Matt was an absolute pleasure to speak with, and we’re glad to share the 1Password product and team insights with our community. To get yourself more secure in a user friendly way – check out https://1password.com/ now. Follow Matt on Twitter at @mattdavey Matt’s book everyone should read: “This is Going to Hurt” by Adam Kay Find 1Password on https://www.bugcrowd.com/ and https://www.hackerone.com/ to take part and claim their bounty on security vulnerabilities.

Z1 is a digital product studio with expertise in transforming business ideas into incredible digital products. Z1 helps founders and growing startups design and ship first iterations of a product to market, or polish the user experience of a V1 product ready for the next stage of growth. Working from beautiful Vancouver BC, Canada, Michelle leads the business development side of things for Z1 while the rest of the team works from Spain. We were able to dive into what creating solid relationships for global clients looks like, the importance of company culture in a semi distributed team, and much more. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did! Make sure to connect with Michelle on Linkedin at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michereid/ Also, check out Z1 Digital to see the great work they have done, and follow them on social! Michelle’s book she’d force everyone to read: Grit, by Angela Duckworth. Thanks for listening!

This week we’re excited to share our conversation with Jason Fried. As many of you know already, Jason is the Co-Founder of Basecamp – one of the world’s leading software applications for communication and team productivity. He is also the co-author of "Rework", "Getting Real", "Remote" and most recently "It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work". Jason is a brilliant communicator and was a pleasure to talk to. We dive into things like his decision making process, the state of tech as an industry, downsides of remote work and much, much more. One of the things I believe attracts people to Jason’s work is that he is honest, straightforward and clearly very knowledgeable. As a result, he’s got a refreshingly original take on most things. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Please make sure you follow Jason on Twitter at @jasonfried and check out his writing on the Basecamp Blog: Signal vs Noise. Also, check out their latest book – Shapeup, which is (in typical Basecamp fashion), available online for free. Find it here. If you want to make work feel like less work, check out Basecamp and try the product for free today.. What Jason’s reading regularly: Kottke.org by Jason Kottke dish.andrewsullivan.com by Andrew Sullivan daringfireball.net by John Gruber Berkshire Hathaway’s letter’s to Shareholders, by Warren Buffett. Compiled version, found here. Or for free on the Berkshire Hathaway Website

This week we were able to speak with Kristi DePaul, the Founder and CEO of Founders Marketing -- a marketing agency devoted specifically to the future of work and future of learning niches. Kristi is also a popular writer, speaker, startup mentor and has extensive experience in both executive roles in the remote work space and now through her role as CEO of Founders Marketing. Kristi was great to talk to and learn from. Like many of us in the technology space, she’s got an interesting background and took a relatively unconventional route in becoming a successful entrepreneur. We were able to dive into what makes her team unique in the crowded marketing agency landscape, her thoughts on team building and much more. Of the many things we discussed, I think my favourite was how her background and training has affected her work and her entrepreneurial journey. Thanks for listening! If you’re in need of marketing help, or interested in what Kristi and her team are up to, please check out https://www.founders.marketing/ for more information. Book Kristi recommends: “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed

Starting in academia, Tammy shifted to Ed tech and began her own business consulting. She then saw the gap in education and training related to remote work, and she has been building Workplaceless to fill that gap. Tammy is a true pro, and had some quality insights about remote work culture, communication and major pain points related to managing and building remote teams. What I really enjoyed about our conversation, however, was how genuine Tammy is. Her best advice: “Not taking yourself too seriously” is one of my favorites, and I think isn’t heeded as much in business and entrepreneurship. Check out workplaceless.com and check out their wonderful remote work training options! Follow Tammy on twitter: @TammyBjelland Tammy’s book she would make everyone read: “Behold the Dreamers” by Imbolo Mbue

David’s first foray into remote work was working for a Joseph Liemandt company called Versata, where he was a global operations manager. David then led to a number of other managerial roles in the software space before starting his own consulting firm called The Mega Agency and software company called Hubackup. He also is a Product and Marketing Lead for OntheGoSystems, is pursuing a PHD in Global Business and is working on his own podcast. My favourite part of the conversation was learning about David’s experience and his view that success can be achieved by jumping in, taking responsibilities for outcomes, and finding ways to be valuable. David has more energy than most, but the principles he talks about can be applied to anyone. David’s book he recommends everyone read: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Check out David at: imdavidpeterson.com and on Twitter at @imdavidpeterson Also check out themega.agency and www.hubackup.com

This week were were fortunate enough to chat with Sarah Park! Sarah is the President of MeetEdgar, a popular social media scheduling tool. Sarah was an absolute pleasure to chat with; we were able to dive into her career, how the company has evolved and what "culture" means at MeetEdgar! I found Sarah's career particularly interesting to learn about; she is a great example of what can happen when you take advantage of opportunities, and you can't help but be inspired by her story. We spoke about what it means to grow culture within a company and what that looks like on a daily basis, how she continues to refine her decision making skills and the importance of being able to have productive difficult conversations. I learned a lot from Sarah, and I'm sure you will too. MeetEdgar is a leader software tool for scheduling social media posts that enables you to focus your time and energy on more important aspects of your business. Check out https://meetedgar.com/ for more information. Also, follow Sarah on twitter at @itsmesarahp Sarah's book everyone should read: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most Other things mentioned on the show: The Knowledge Project, a podcast by Shane Parrish at Farnam Street: https://fs.blog/ I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!

In this episode we were able to talk with Liam Martin, the Co-Founder of Time Doctor, Staff.com and Running Remote. Liam is what we’d consider a "remote work expert". He has spent many years building successful remote companies and talking to remote founders. We were able to really dive into the data and discuss the current state of remote work, what the future might hold, and much more. Liam is the Co-Founder of Time Doctor, one of the leading time tracking software tools for remote teams. One of my favourite parts of talking to Liam was diving into the data he has aggregated with his work at Time Doctor, and the insights that we can pull from them regarding the remote work phenomenon. Things like: How many hours of productive work a day do we average? How many people are truly living the "digital nomad lifestyle"? What are the implications of mass data collection on remote workers? We also discuss in depth the conference he co-founded -- "Running Remote," which has become the world's #1 conference for remote work professionals. You can find more info on Running Remote at runningremote.com and youtube.com/runningremote. Also, if you want to track your teams productivity (or your own), check out https://www.timedoctor.com/ Find Liam's book everyone should read: Day of the Triffids

Max is originally from Siberia and worked for many years as a software engineer, including 2 years at The Washington Post, before developing his product and his team. He worked nights and weekends before moving full time, and now helps manage his remote company of over 15 people from his home in Maryland. This episode will be particularly interesting for you technical founders and software engineers looking to build a business around sophisticated technology, as Max has some really important insights. One in particular is their approach to accountability and ownership. Used by some of the world's top companies, Sympli is a collaboration tool for UI designers and developers that streamlines design handoff and makes design implementation easy. Also, check out their new "Versions", a top version control tool for designers. Max's book everyone should read: Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker.

Rebecca's career has been shaped by jumping at opportunities that were presented to her. As a singer and extrovert, working remotely was somewhat of a shift for her. For those extroverts and are concerned that working remotely will make them feel isolated and alone, Rebecca has some tips for you! It is certainly possible to thrive working remotely as an extrovert, and Rebecca is a wonderful example of that. Owl Labs’ mission is to solve a problem we’ve all experienced: meetings suck, and they are especially painful for the remote people on the other side of the call. Check out https://www.owllabs.com/ for more information about the Meeting owl tool. It truly is the next generation f hardware tools for remote workers. Be sure to check out Rebecca on Twitter at : @repcor Also, check out Rebecca's book she'd force everyone to read: Radical Candor, by Kim Scott Thanks for listening!

Workfrom is a platform connecting mobile workers and spaces to work. They're capturing the world’s workable spaces online and connecting a new generation of professionals with resources needed to thrive outside an office. With they're new Homebase feature, you can get access to a flexible co working solution that works best for you! Check it out here. Be sure to check out WorkFrom and join their community, and follow Darren on social at @darrenbuckner Darren's book he would force everyone to read: Essentialism, by Greg Mckgeown

In our wide ranging conversation, we cover the building of the initial product and finding product market fit, building a remote team while travelling, the pro's and cons of being as transparent as they are, and much more! Joel's journey is an inspiring one, and there are lots of lessons to be learned from the path that Buffer took to success. Joel is incredibly humble, intelligent and honest and it was a pleasure to hear him discuss his business. Find joel on Twitter: @joelgascoigne Check out his personal blog at joel.is And if you haven't already, check out buffer.com and make your social media scheduling a breeze! Also check out his book recommendation: Joy at Work by Dennis Bakke. Thanks for listening.

In this episode we were fortunate enough to talk to Wade Foster - Co-Founder and CEO of Zapier.com. Wade and his team have built a massively popular product that has helped many businesses (including ours) automate their processes. We discuss the ongoing process of building a positive and productive company culture, how to be a better manager, his YC experience, early iterations of Zapier and much much more. Like many successful entrepreneurs, Wade is a constant learner with a mindset that is focused on always improving. I particularly enjoyed our discussion around how his team manages feedback in an environment of kindness, and his humbleness when discussing his own journey of managing an ever expanding company. Wade is also an impressive writer and blogger, and we discuss the importance of writing as a CEO. Please check out Zapier.com and start a free trial if you haven't already tried the product. You won't be disappointed! Follow Wade on Twitter: @wadefoster Check out the Zapier blog: https://zapier.com/blog/ Thanks for listening!

This week we're excited to share our conversation with Claire Lew, the CEO of Know Your Team. We learned an incredible amount from Claire about management, remote work, entrepreneurship and much more. Claire is one of the leading voices on how to improve your management skills and become happier at work. You're going to want to take some notes for this one! We certainly did. Equally as interesting as the software itself, Claire's journey to where she is today is an inspiring one. From her early success to finding and developing a product that helps people, Claire has extensive experience yet remains incredibly humble. We think this is one of our better conversations, and we hope you do to. Know Your Team is a management software tool that offers best practices, guidance and a community of peers to help you become a more effective manager. It is particularly popular in remote teams, and we highly recommend that you check it out if you'd like to improve as a manager! Visit: https://knowyourteam.com/ and sign up for a free trial! Please check out Claire's blog, found here: https://knowyourteam.com/blog/ And follow her on Twitter: @clairejlew

This week we had the opportunity to chat with Adda Birnir, Founder and CEO of Skillcrush. Skillcrush is a leading online education platform specifically orientated towards women in the tech space, with courses in programming, design and much more. A fully distributed team from the beginning, Adda had some great insights into the scaling a remote team, culture and what it takes to build a business! We covered a variety of other topics including leading a mission driven business, how to hire the right people, technical education and much much more. Adda has an interesting back story from beginning her entrepreneurial adventure in the depths of the 2009 great recession, to building an original product (hint, it’s probably not what you think) and evolving the Skillcrush community to a team of 20+ people helping thousands of students find careers in the tech space. What struck me most about Adda is her passion for the day to day of building a business and her love of constant improvement. I hope you enjoy this half as much as I did! Be sure to check out Skillcrush’s Ultimate Guide to Getting a Remote Job You Love handbook, found here: https://skillcrush.com/go-remote Also, check out skillcrush.com and follow Adda on twitter at @addabjork

On today’s podcast, I’m excited to share with you my conversation with Cesar Abeid! Cesar is a Happiness Team Lead at Automattic - the folks behind Wordpress.com. It was fascinating learning about his processes and getting a sneak peek at the internal structure of Automattic. Something for everything in this one, as Cesar has a diverse background (podcast host, engineer, project management professional) and had insights and tips in many different areas. I found Automattic’s hiring process particularly interesting, as it is not one that I’ve heard of before (spoiler: they don’t actually talk to people they hire on a call until well into getting the job). Automattic is obviously doing something right, as they are one of the largest distributed teams around! Interested in a job at Automattic? You should be. Check out their hiring page: https://automattic.com/work-with-us/ Also check out Cesar’s podcast Project Management for the Masses: https://pmforthemasses.com/

In this episode we talk to Ben Nelson, the Co-Founder of Lambda School. Among the wide variety of topics, we discuss the future of education, the story of Lambda School from small code bootcamp beginnings to leading educational resource, building a team, and much much more! Lambda School is a revolutionary educational resource where students only pay a portion of their salary after they find a high paying job (over 50K annually), and the total amount charged is capped at 30K total. We talk about how the model has evolved and how this way or learning has enabled a huge group of people who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to study programming and online skills the resources to do exactly that. Along with this fascinating and effective approach to learning, Lambda School is innovating to ensure they are being as inclusive as possible by removing as many biases to and barriers to entry that typically exists for parts of the population in the technology space. Their Summer Hackers Program is a great example of that! Ben also had one of my favourite answers to our closing questions: "What is the best advice you've ever been given?" Please enjoy. For more on Lambda School, please visit: https://lambdaschool.com/ For their Summer Hackers Program, please visit: https://www.lambdaschool.com/summer-hackers/ Make sure to follow them on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin also!

In this episode we talk to Gonçalo Silva, the CTO of Doist -- the company behind the popular communications app Twist and the productivity app Todoist. We get into hiring, focused work and building the future you want to work in! Gonçalo had some wonderful insights on remote work from an engineer’s perspective, as well as what he looks for in people he hires (it might be different from what you’ve heard before). It was refreshing to hear an honest take on the struggles of working remotely, scaling a team and building a culture of innovation while not sharing an office; I think this was one of the best examples of the fact that even the most successful companies are still iterating on what it means to be a successful remote team. Doist is certainly one of the companies that is doing it right - their employee retention rate confirms that! Please check out doist.com and their blog “Ambition and Balance”. Also, follow them on twitter at @doist and Gonçalo at @goncalossilva.

Show Notes: This week it was our pleasure to talk to Field Marketing Extraordinaire, Design Evangelist and long time remote worker -- Max Lind! Max has extensive experience in design and creative work for some incredible teams. We discuss his career path from working in a design agency to becoming a senior business development specialist at Dribbble and his current role as Manager of Field Marketing at Abstract. Max had some great tips on working remotely, career advice for people wanting to get into the industry and much much more. Max is truly a gem, and we're happy we get to share his insights with you! Enjoy! Check out Abstract.com, and follow them on twitter at @abstract for the latest on what they're up to! It's worth it, trust us. Also follow Max on twitter: @maxlind for some high quality gifs and updates on his work with Abstract

In this first ever recording of the Remote Show, It was my privilege to chat with Zack Onisko - CEO of Dribbble. In this wide ranging conversation we discuss his career in design and growth, the progression of Dribbble as an online community and tips for hiring and managing remote workers. Zack had some great insights about culture building in remote teams, hiring/retaining top talent and the importance of Emojis. For those who don’t know - Dribbble is an online community for showcasing user-made artwork and serves as the go to resource for networking and feedback for web designers. They’re constantly looking for ways to showcase top talent from around the world and help great designers with employment opportunities, support and much more! Please check out Dribbble.com and follow them on social media! Also follow @zack415 to see what he’s up to. Thanks for listening! Transcript: Matt H.: Hello, everyone. My name is Matt Hollingsworth, and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the first episode of The Remote Show. On this show, we will talk to professionals in a variety of industries in positions around the world about their experiences working remotely. The pros, the cons, and everything in between. Along the way, we hope that we can provide some unique insights that will help you on your remote work journey. The Remote Show is brought to you by weworkremotely.com, the number one place to find and list remote jobs. Without 220,000 unique users per month, it is the best place to find your new qualified candidate. [00:00:39] My first guest on my show today is Zack Onisko. Zach is the CEO of Dribbble, which is an online community for showcasing design work from some of the best designers in the world. It has grown to become an inspiration destination for hundreds of millions of people, now a go to resource for discovering and connecting with designers and creative talent around the world. Check out dribbble.com, that's D-R-I-B-B-B-L-E.com if you haven't already checked that out. [00:01:07] Previously, Zack was Vice President of Growth and interim VP of Product at Hired, Inc. Dribbble is now a 100% remote team with over 40 employees. With all that said, Zack, thanks for being on the show today. I'm not sure if you're aware, but this is the very first recording of The Remote Show. [00:01:24]Zack Onisko: Well, cool. I hope to make it worth it. [00:01:26]Matt H.: Yeah, I'm sure it will be, for sure, and we're super excited to talk to you today, so that's great. Thank you so much for being on. [00:01:33]Zack Onisko: Thanks for having me. [00:01:34]Matt H.: I'm sure most of our listeners have heard of Dribbble or know about Dribbble, but why don't we start with what you do at Dribbble and how things are going, and we'll go from there. [00:01:43]Zack Onisko: Sure, yeah. So Dribbble is a global community for designers. We're gonna celebrate 10 years this summer, so we've been around for a while. It's a global brand. We have designers all over the world who come to Dribbble for inspiration, exposure, feedback, job opportunities, and yeah. I took over as CEO about two years ago. [00:02:08]Matt H.: Nice, nice. So were you part of the community before you came on as CEO, or were you- [00:02:15]Zack Onisko: Yeah. [00:02:15]Matt H.: Yeah? Okay, cool. [00:02:17]Zack Onisko: Yeah, I mean, so just a quick background on me, I started my career about 20 years ago as a web designer. I started a little freelance business for a couple of years, and then got a formal design degree and thought I was gonna go the agency route. Was really into Flash and motion design at the time and really loved that stuff. Then ended up taking a job at a startup and then my role kind of quickly moved out of design into product management and to more of a growth, executive roles at numerous startups over the course of the last two decades. [00:02:54] Along the way, for one reason or another, my career trajectory has landed in companies that were either in the recruitment space or the design space, and so Dribbble's kind of in the middle of those two worlds. So anyway, kind of full circle. [00:03:11]Matt H.: Yeah, that's great. I think it probably helps with getting the jobs in the executive and marketing and growth that you had, the background that you did. Correct me if I'm wrong there, but it seems likes these things tie all together, so. [00:03:24]Zack Onisko: Yeah, I mean, when I met Andrew Wilkinson from Tiny, that was kind of how he found me, where he's like, "Hey, I found, I have this opportunity to run by you that I think is a perfect meld of your background and so forth." So far so good. I took over the company. We were eight people. We're 47 today, fully remote. The company has grown kind of all of KPIs are up into the right. Our traffic is up 100%, our users are up, user growth as community is up 300%, and revenue's up 400%, so. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun, yeah. [00:04:05]Matt H.: Nice. So since you came out, or since you've