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I run a 16 person 5 timezone startup cofounded in the valley. I moved to asia from SF. The best thing about this is lack of "startup-y things". All of those thi

I run a 16 person 5 timezone startup cofounded in the valley. I moved to asia from SF. The best thing about this is lack of "startup-y things". All of those things are huge distractions to getting things done. Many companies run remote fine. Schedules allow people to be home with their kids when needed, no commute over head for most. Emphasis is on self management. Communication is async. We have 1 stand up a week.

pryelluw 10y ago
Wow 5 timezones. That's gotta be pretty tough. Can you tell more about it?
- couac 10y ago
  Yes I'd be interested to hear more about that setup too!
  - agibsonccc 10y ago
    Basically all of us are async. A few of us in the bay area,a few on the east coast, 1 in australia, 1 in eastern europe, and a few in japan/korea. We have 1 weekly standup at 3:00 PM PST which is ~8am Japan Time (where I live). All of our messaging is async. Most people manage themselves. Tasks tend to be longer sprints. Half of our team has kids. Work is more independently scheduled. We all collaborate asynchronously. We use gitter for all of our communications. The reason for this is customer support, user support, team chat, all in 1 place. It works fairly nicely. All of our communication is remote first. This means most things happen via text or hangout. Our business development is split in 2 main time zones. "Asian timezone" and "US timezone". Many of us fly. Marketing material gets cross pollinated across language and time zone via 1 shared folder. (Language is important due to selling in japan,korea,china, and parts of the US). I usually come back to the US every few months for conferences to try to keep touch. I also get on a call every other day or so with my cofounder during his afternoon and my morning to make sure things stay in sync across time zones. We started as 2 people in San Francisco.
    - couac 10y ago
      Thanks for the reply and all the details!

pryelluw 10y ago

Wow 5 timezones. That's gotta be pretty tough. Can you tell more about it?

couac 10y ago
Yes I'd be interested to hear more about that setup too!
- agibsonccc 10y ago
  Basically all of us are async. A few of us in the bay area,a few on the east coast, 1 in australia, 1 in eastern europe, and a few in japan/korea. We have 1 weekly standup at 3:00 PM PST which is ~8am Japan Time (where I live). All of our messaging is async. Most people manage themselves. Tasks tend to be longer sprints. Half of our team has kids. Work is more independently scheduled. We all collaborate asynchronously. We use gitter for all of our communications. The reason for this is customer support, user support, team chat, all in 1 place. It works fairly nicely. All of our communication is remote first. This means most things happen via text or hangout. Our business development is split in 2 main time zones. "Asian timezone" and "US timezone". Many of us fly. Marketing material gets cross pollinated across language and time zone via 1 shared folder. (Language is important due to selling in japan,korea,china, and parts of the US). I usually come back to the US every few months for conferences to try to keep touch. I also get on a call every other day or so with my cofounder during his afternoon and my morning to make sure things stay in sync across time zones. We started as 2 people in San Francisco.
  - couac 10y ago
    Thanks for the reply and all the details!