Mastering Remote

For our first episode in 2020, we have Kieran Flanagan, VP of Marketing at HubSpot and host of the Growth TL;DR podcast!

In this episode, Kieran talked about how remote work had helped him in his life, why he thinks career opportunities should not be limited by geographical location, and one of the hardest parts of being a distributed team leader.

Kieran also shares his insights on why remote hiring is one of the best things you can do for growth, avoiding too many processes in distributed teams, and the “goldfish face” problem in remote meetings.

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please consider leaving a review on iTunes!

This week on Outside The Valley we have Tammy Bjelland, CEO and Founder of Workplaceless, a company that helps remote professionals, managers, and organizations to thrive in a remote setting.

Tammy shares about how she got into advocating for remote work, what fascinates her the most about remote work, and why she thinks remote work can improve the education sector.

We also talked about the specifics of how Workplaceless helps companies transform into remote-friendly organizations, and whether it’s possible to “hire for potential” in a remote organization.

We’re taking an end-of-year hiatus after this episode and will be back next year with more cool discussions with other remote leaders! Until then, see you and have a great holiday season!

This week on the show, we have Liam Martin, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Time Doctor and Staff.com. He is also the co-organizer of the Running Remote conference, the biggest conference on distributed teams and remote work.

Liam shares his insights on growing into an “executive” role by “letting the entrepreneur inside you die,” how to help other people work with you, and the literal million-dollar mistakes that Liam and his co-founder Rob made when running their company.

We also talk about why he started the Running Remote conference, the unspoken truths about running a large scale event, and what’s in store for next year’s conference in Austin, Texas.

If you want to learn from the best of remote leaders, you can buy early bird tickets for next year’s Running Remote Conference here: https://ti.to/running-remote/2020

This week we are joined by Eddie Zaneski, Manager of Developer Relations at DigitalOcean!

This episode is quite special, because we’re focusing on one single job position, which is, you guessed it: Developer Relations.

We talk about how Developer Relations is a position that most of the time only makes sense when it’s a remote position, and how the rise of remote work affects this particular position. We also talk about The Remote Developer Experience report released by DigitalOcean this year, and the life of remote workers at DigitalOcean.

Today on Outside The Valley we have Megan Chinburg, VP of Engineering at Help Scout!

We talked about Help Scout’s hiring and onboarding process from start to finish, with a discussion around the “value screening” stage, and how Help Scout makes sure to reduce biases in the interview process.

Megan also shared the one thing that Help Scout did in the early days that made them grow solidly, and her top two pieces of advice for engineering managers everywhere.

Today on Outside The Valley we have Hailley Griffis, Head of Public Relations at Buffer.

We discuss the culture of transparency and openness within Buffer, including how it affects the company’s marketing and hiring, how remote work affects Hailley’s productivity, and more.

We also dive into Buffer’s internal processes and talk about the most unique parts of them. This includes “internal applications” for new job openings, asynchronous all-hands meetings, why Buffer started offering paid sabbaticals, and more. Finally, we also talk about Buffer’s annual State of Remote Work Survey!

Today on the show, we have the CEO and Founder of Credo, John Doherty. Credo is a platform where you can hire reliable, vetted marketing professionals. This week’s episode is less about remote work itself, but more about managing and communicating expectations — whether you're a leader of a company, a client, or a freelance consultant.

We also talk about managing communities affiliated with a marketplace-style business, and John’s thoughts on building a bootstrapped, profitable company outside of Silicon Valley.

John is also one of the happy users of Codementor, an Arc product, and it really was a pleasure to have him on the podcast. Enjoy the episode!

Today I’m joined by Giacomo “Peldi” Guilizzoni, the CEO of Balsamiq. In this episode, we talked about Balsamiq’s culture (specifically around the core value of continuous learning and the importance of experiments), the growing pains Peldi experienced as a leader, and more.

We also had a quick peek into Balsamiq’s hiring and onboarding process. We also talked about why Peldi strongly prefers to employ remote team members, rather than have them as contractors (which is a common practice amongst remote/distributed companies).

I really admire the self-aware nature of Balsamiq, which is a byproduct of Peldi’s personality as a founder and a leader. Hope you enjoy it too!

Today on the show we have Hiten Shah, founder and CEO of FYI. Hiten was also the founder of tech startups like Kissmetrics, Crazy Egg, and Quick Sprout. We talked about how Hiten has been leading remote teams since 2003, FYI’s Remote Work report, the importance of figuring out your remote work structure, and why hiring is about “opting-in.”

An interesting theme in this interview is Hiten’s core message: “Figure out what works for you.” You can easily find articles about remote work best practices, remote work management, and so on. However, Hiten strongly recommends that you figure it out yourself. If your personality, management style, and team structure are not ideal for remote work, admit it and find a solution that works for you.

Today I’m joined by Ho Yin Cheung, the founder, and CEO of Remo, a tool that helps you organize virtual events and office space, and Riotly Social Media, an Instagram social media agency.

We discussed the challenges Ho Yin faced when he began transitioning to be a better remote startup leader, how his perceptions about remote hiring have changed from enabling cost-cutting to enlarging the talent pool, and how Remo help provides the right amount of transparency for remote teams.

Ho Yin also shared the resources and thought leaders that helped him to be a better remote startup leader. Make sure to check these out in the Learning Resources section below!

Since we recorded this episode, Remo organized several virtual webinar events, and has even more events coming up.