It was 3 years ago today that
@ericwryan and I started showing up full time to a real office to build Freeplay. š„³ I'm all for remote and know it can be great, but I can't shake the feeling that moving to IRL was foundational for bringing our company to life.
Since then we've had probably dozens of video call conversations that sound something like this:
Big company folks: "Wait, you all are in the same building in real life? We're jealous⦠We [gave up our office / no one comes in anymore].ā
Us: "Yep. We did remote for years and know it can work, but it's felt great to be together in person."
Here's what's worked for us:
ā±ļø Synchronous comms. Things move fast in startup life. Need to solve a problem? Tap someone on the shoulder. Pair on code, or go for a walk along Boulder Creek and talk through it.
⨠Serendipity. So many good ideas have come from discussion outside official channels like Slack or GitHub, where people just stumble onto a good topic together. NGL, the side chats / coffee chats / lunch chats / etc. matter.
š¤ Trust. Being together in person has helped us get to know each other. I keep hearing from people in remote teams who struggle to figure this out.
š Vibes. We walk out into the middle of downtown Boulder, have a space that belongs to us, friends from other companies stop by⦠Kinda hard to explain other than āit feels good.ā And Iād argue thatās ok.
What might surprise people too: Weāre very open to remote hires, and we have designated WFH days. Weāre not religious about being in office, but weāve been intentional about defining our team culture.
* For remote folks, we tell them up front weāre a synchronous culture and they pair as much as anyone else. We also have an open video call all day with a view to our office so folks can drop in. And we fly everyone to Boulder every six weeks to retro, plan, and spend time together. (3rd annual ski trip is in February!)
* And for anyone who lives locally but prefers to WFH sometimes, everyone has full flexibility Wednesday and Thursday. But we commit to start and end the week together in person. It creates a strong rhythm.
The balance has allowed us to hire some great people who donāt live close by, but the clarity on our approach to in-office vs. WFH has helped too. Remote folks know how we work up front, and they opt-in (which means they generally like it too).
Thatās whatās worked well for us so far⦠Curious to hear what you think, and what else has worked well in your context.
PS: If this sounds interesting letās talk, link is in the comments. š