5 ms·

I've thought about that, but as far as I can tell, it means about $10-$15k of equipment and a dedicated work room. I need a mobile-connected "smart" whiteboard

I've thought about that, but as far as I can tell, it means about $10-$15k of equipment and a dedicated work room. I need a mobile-connected "smart" whiteboard for every team member, a good microphone, webcam, speakers, a separate computer + monitor devoted to video conferencing, and a team that is geographically dispersed rather than partially-colocated. ...and hopefully, everyone has first class redundant internet, something not guaranteed across the nation.

timr 11y ago
I'm not suggesting that you have to have a distributed team -- though, you certainly can, and $10-$15k is trivial compared to the economic penalty of hiring good engineers in SF. I'm just saying: consider locating your company somewhere else. There are great engineers all over the world, and most of your customers are not here.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  They aren't in the valley for customer nor for techies, but for easy vc money access brought by locally connections. For now.
  - timr 11y ago
    Well, that's an aspect of it. But there's a heaping helping of cargo-cult superstition, too. For example, ask an entrepreneur to consider locating their office in Oakland: it's becoming more "acceptable" now that Uber has committed to a huge space over there, but a year or two ago, I had people telling me that locating in Oakland was the equivalent of wanting your company to die. For being a 20-minute BART ride from downtown SF. People have lost their minds. Also, of course, few around here believe that there are good programmers outside of the city. Mostly, though, I think it's about 20-somethings who want to feel like they've made it because they're running a startup in the most expensive city in the country. The cult is powerful, for such a group of disruptive, innovative thinkers.
im_down_w_otp 11y ago
The difference in competitive salary for me between SF and PDX (where I live) is ~$70k. Which you have to pay yearly, not as a one-time discounted cost. In fact even down at the very, very low-end of tech-related jobs (~$50k in PDX) the difference between SF and PDX is ~$18k. There is literally no shape of tech-oriented business you could operate where having to spend only $15k per employee when they're onboarded isn't a net financial benefit compared to having to pay SF-area competitive salaries for the same positions.
ksenzee 11y ago
The only hard requirements are a good headset and decent Internet. And when I say "decent," I don't mean "fabulous." I worked remote for five years, three time zones away from headquarters, and never even thought of getting a mobile-connected smart whiteboard. It might have been nifty, but it's by no means a requirement. The main requirement is that everyone communicate over the same channels. No planning sessions at the watercooler. Take it back to your desk and have the conversation in Slack instead.
bunderbunder 11y ago
I hope that by "mobile-connected smart whiteboard for every team member" you mean "laptop or tablet with touchscreen, and a stylus". You shouldn't need most of the rest of that, either. Make sure everyone has a 2nd monitor, and you'll need to buy a $30 webcam if they don't already have laptops. I wouldn't worry about the headset, either - cell phone headsets or earpods generally work fine and most everyone has a decent one nowadays. Wait for the folks who want something nicer to ask for one. Cheap internet is fine. I worked from home with rock bottom residential service, the cheapest they would give me, and my connectivity was fantastic, better than anything I've ever had from an office. The secret is that nobody's on the Internet from home during the day, so you've got infrastructure that was meant to handle the whole world watching Netflix at 8pm more-or-less to yourself. This is assuming a distributed team. mind. They have a tendency to self-assemble. Partial co-location is where things get messy and you start needing to worry about smart whiteboards and fancy videoconferencing equipment and all that crap. All that's really for is to make it an eensy bit more likely that the co-located folks will be willing to collaborate with the remote folks rather than forming a clique and forgetting that the rest of the team exists.
- ebiester 11y ago
  By the parent comment, I was assuming a distributed team. Speaking from far-too-much experience, partially colocated teams are a productivity suck. But I really do mean a fully distributed team needs a way to properly sketch things out. One of the biggest weaknesses I've seen is that people get limited by the equipment. So long as that's a separate piece of equipment from your video conferencing, it should be fine.
  - bunderbunder 11y ago
    Yea, with partial co-location you need to budget at least 25% of your person-hours to hostage negotiations and koombeya meetings about people's hurt feelings. 0/10, would not try again.
- ebiester 11y ago
  By the parent comment, I was assuming a distributed team. Speaking from far-too-much experience, partially colocated teams are a productivity suck. But I really do mean a fully distributed team needs a way to properly sketch things out. One of the biggest weaknesses I've seen is that people get limited by the equipment. So long as that's a separate piece of equipment from your video conferencing, it should be fine.
warfangle 11y ago
Funny story... A lot of places have more reliable internet than the bay area.

timr 11y ago

I'm not suggesting that you have to have a distributed team -- though, you certainly can, and $10-$15k is trivial compared to the economic penalty of hiring good engineers in SF. I'm just saying: consider locating your company somewhere else. There are great engineers all over the world, and most of your customers are not here.

LoSboccacc 11y ago
They aren't in the valley for customer nor for techies, but for easy vc money access brought by locally connections. For now.
- timr 11y ago
  Well, that's an aspect of it. But there's a heaping helping of cargo-cult superstition, too. For example, ask an entrepreneur to consider locating their office in Oakland: it's becoming more "acceptable" now that Uber has committed to a huge space over there, but a year or two ago, I had people telling me that locating in Oakland was the equivalent of wanting your company to die. For being a 20-minute BART ride from downtown SF. People have lost their minds. Also, of course, few around here believe that there are good programmers outside of the city. Mostly, though, I think it's about 20-somethings who want to feel like they've made it because they're running a startup in the most expensive city in the country. The cult is powerful, for such a group of disruptive, innovative thinkers.

im_down_w_otp 11y ago

The difference in competitive salary for me between SF and PDX (where I live) is ~$70k. Which you have to pay yearly, not as a one-time discounted cost. In fact even down at the very, very low-end of tech-related jobs (~$50k in PDX) the difference between SF and PDX is ~$18k. There is literally no shape of tech-oriented business you could operate where having to spend only $15k per employee when they're onboarded isn't a net financial benefit compared to having to pay SF-area competitive salaries for the same positions.

ksenzee 11y ago

The only hard requirements are a good headset and decent Internet. And when I say "decent," I don't mean "fabulous." I worked remote for five years, three time zones away from headquarters, and never even thought of getting a mobile-connected smart whiteboard. It might have been nifty, but it's by no means a requirement. The main requirement is that everyone communicate over the same channels. No planning sessions at the watercooler. Take it back to your desk and have the conversation in Slack instead.

bunderbunder 11y ago

I hope that by "mobile-connected smart whiteboard for every team member" you mean "laptop or tablet with touchscreen, and a stylus". You shouldn't need most of the rest of that, either. Make sure everyone has a 2nd monitor, and you'll need to buy a $30 webcam if they don't already have laptops. I wouldn't worry about the headset, either - cell phone headsets or earpods generally work fine and most everyone has a decent one nowadays. Wait for the folks who want something nicer to ask for one. Cheap internet is fine. I worked from home with rock bottom residential service, the cheapest they would give me, and my connectivity was fantastic, better than anything I've ever had from an office. The secret is that nobody's on the Internet from home during the day, so you've got infrastructure that was meant to handle the whole world watching Netflix at 8pm more-or-less to yourself. This is assuming a distributed team. mind. They have a tendency to self-assemble. Partial co-location is where things get messy and you start needing to worry about smart whiteboards and fancy videoconferencing equipment and all that crap. All that's really for is to make it an eensy bit more likely that the co-located folks will be willing to collaborate with the remote folks rather than forming a clique and forgetting that the rest of the team exists.

ebiester 11y ago
By the parent comment, I was assuming a distributed team. Speaking from far-too-much experience, partially colocated teams are a productivity suck. But I really do mean a fully distributed team needs a way to properly sketch things out. One of the biggest weaknesses I've seen is that people get limited by the equipment. So long as that's a separate piece of equipment from your video conferencing, it should be fine.
- bunderbunder 11y ago
  Yea, with partial co-location you need to budget at least 25% of your person-hours to hostage negotiations and koombeya meetings about people's hurt feelings. 0/10, would not try again.
ebiester 11y ago
By the parent comment, I was assuming a distributed team. Speaking from far-too-much experience, partially colocated teams are a productivity suck. But I really do mean a fully distributed team needs a way to properly sketch things out. One of the biggest weaknesses I've seen is that people get limited by the equipment. So long as that's a separate piece of equipment from your video conferencing, it should be fine.

warfangle 11y ago

Funny story... A lot of places have more reliable internet than the bay area.