Shane Pearlman is the CEO at Modern Tribe Inc, a fully distributed design and development company. A few years ago while on a company retreat, the owners looked at their vision and realized what they wanted out of the business required scale.

Five years later they've gone from 20-100 employees, and continue to ask the question how will this let me "live well and do good work".

Michelle Ardiel is the Director of Photographer Operations at Flytographer, the very first platform created for vacation photographers that now works with 500 photographers in 300 cities around the world.

Passionate about seeing the connections between travelers and local photographers, Michelle fosters community with intentional global retreats that build life-long friendships. 

Notes:

How creating a community allows for better retention

The importance of social, not just work-related tasks during an off-site/meetup

Booking a meetup depending on the busy/slow season of the business

Booking in a city that is most convenient to the majority of the home base

Why community is the most important thing

📷 Kimon K. for Flytographer

🎶 "1001 Nights" by Ouzo Bazooka

ouzobazooka.bandcamp.com

Melissa Ng is a digital nomad, Product UX Designer and the CEO & founder of Melewi, a fully remote design company that’s worked with clients such as McDonalds, Visa, and Samsung.

Melissa has been leading a remote and digital nomad lifestyle for 8+ years.

We sat down with her (remotely, of course) to ask about her beginnings as a remote worker, the struggles of founding a remote company, the importance of culture, how she hires, and more.

🎶 "1001 Nights" by Ouzo Bazooka

ouzobazooka.bandcamp.com

Today's guest is Kristi DePaul, the CEO of Founders Marketing, a company that creates bold content strategy for the future of learning and work.

Kristi is a regular contributor on Remote.co's blog, where' she's contributed over 160 blog posts.

I tried my best to get out of Kristi's way here, her view on remote work is one of empowerment and self-discovery that goes beyond the click-bait of digital nomad-ship. Let's get into it.

Shows notes:

- Kristi's favorite quote right now is from Set Godin, when looking at a meeting or a gathering of folks..."Who's not here might be the most important unasked question"

- Gaining agency over, not just your current job, but the trajectory of your career

- Remote work enables people to have a more productive and positive life

- Her article: The Future of Work Belongs to All of Us: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-work-belongs-all-us-were-writing-every-day-kristi-depaul/

🎶 "1001 Nights" by Ouzo Bazooka

ouzobazooka.bandcamp.com

We sat down with Darren Buckner, CEO and founder of Workfrom, to discuss remote work, coworking spaces, how an idea was born out of his own need and how remote workers can find better coworking spaces in the future.

Notes:

- We talk about the isolation of remote work and how, even though most of us work from home the majority of the time, we crave the energy of co-working spaces

- We talk about where people are working, and what community does to impact our passion and purpose in the workplace.

- Workfrom's new product Homebase allows co-working on demand. Revolutionizing co-working and empowering the next generation of workers.

🎶 "1001 Nights" by Ouzo Bazooka

ouzobazooka.bandcamp.com

There's an overwhelming agreement that culture impacts every corner of your business. 94% of executives and 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success.

But why is corporate culture so important?

We invited Marie Richter, VP of People at the fintech startup Billie, to talk about company culture - not the foosball table and free lunches kind, but the kind where people work together in an aligned and purpose-driven way.

Marie is the VP of People at Billie. Previously she spent time at Google where she scaled operations across EMEA,and Soundcloud where she built their People Operations team, implementing the processes & programs to reach their hyper-growth targets.

🎶 "1001 Nights" by Ouzo Bazooka

ouzobazooka.bandcamp.com

We’re excited for today’s interview with Liam Martin, a man so dedicated to the remote lifestyle that he:

⌛️ Built a tool called Time Doctor to help remote companies perform better

🌴 Founded a conference for remote company leaders

🌎 Worked remotely himself for over a decade

In episode #11 on the More Beach Meetings Podcast by Surf Office, Liam talks about how he started multiple successful remote companies and why people fail at remote work.

Welcome back to another episode of More Beach Meetings, where we discuss team retreats, awesome remote and distributed companies and the stories behind them. Our guest today is Mary Hartberg from Close.io, where she works as the Director of People Operations. We talk about company retreats and what they do to build a culture as a fully remote company.

Leaving life as you know it to travel the world and become a digital nomad can be a pretty scary thought.

What about doing the same, with your entire family?

Some might think he’s crazy, but that’s exactly what Ken Weary does. Working as VP of Operations for Hotjar, Ken’s been traveling the world with his wife and children for the past 4 years.

In today’s episode of More Beach Meetings podcast, Ken shares his experience on remote work, digital nomadism, traveling with his family and much more.

Take a listen!

Stephanie Lee is the Operation Manager in Buffer and we discussed their company culture, approach to transparency, core values, hiring process in a distributed company and company retreats.