THE STARTUP CHAT

Steli Efti:

Hey everyone, this is Steli Efti.

Hiten Shah:

This is Hiten Shah, and today on the startup chat, we’re going to talk about how  to be productive when you’re working on a remote team, and you don’t get that  sort of office vibe or interaction in the same way as people do that go  into an office.

Steli Efti:

Yeah. We’ve talked about remote teams in the past, how to build them, how to  manage them. I think episode number 92, for those of you who are interested how  to build the kick ass remote team was all about like how to hire the  right people, how to communicate in a remote team and … But today we really  want to focus on the individual. If you are a remote worker, what kind of  habits, what kind of tactics, what kind of strategies can you use to be at  your optimal level of happiness and productivity. The reason why we wanted to talk about  this is because I increasingly I’m hearing this question. I had a few discussions within  our own team. We grew to 25 people are all working remote and just the  last two weeks had a few conversations with people that were struggling with their own  productivity being remote but also in the last two weeks I’ve heard this a lot,  talking to start up people on like how can I help others be more productive  when they’re remoted? How can I be it myself. I know you have a ton  of experience working remotely, building remote to use one of the pioneers in that space.  I want to just pick your brain and chit chat about that and share some  of our advice to people. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind if  I came to you and I told you “I’ve worked in a remote team. I’m  a remote worker. What are some of the best practices you’ve seen hidden that I  could apply and use to be really productive and happy although I am remote?”

Hiten Shah:

Yeah. What really comes to mind is more a discipline and the reason I say  that is when you go to an office everyday, you have all these people around  you that are working as well, usually. I’m kidding, it’s literally people around you that  are working, they’re sitting at their desk or getting on the phone, it’s like a  sales team and they’re really committed to getting the work done. You can feel that  in an office and there’s a lot of structure. The structure is you go in  at a certain time then you leave at a certain time, you eat at a  certain time, many times in a lot of offices, the food is catered for you  or other people are also going so you have all this structure. All the structure  is what leads to what we consider making us productive in a office environment, because  there’s a time for doing different things. When you’re working remotely, you have a lot  more choices. You can decide to start working earlier or later. You can go stop  in the middle of the day and go do whatever you want. The amount of freedom you have is ridiculous, because nobody is watching over you and there’s no specific  norm that you have to follow. This is every remote team I know of. I  know there are like morning meetings and all this stuff and remote this, remote that  and schedule this schedule that, but at the end of the day, the amount of  flexibility you have is insanely high. Literally on most days, nobody would probably know if  you were sitting there in your underwear working and that’s probably my most extreme example  while in office environments, for the majority of offices out there, you just wouldn’t do  that. To me, it’s just you need this higher level of discipline to be able  to control your time, manage your time, bucket you time, whatever it is you want  to call it, so that you’re actually doing things and putting in the time to  work. I know, that sounds crazy.

Steli Efti:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Hiten Shah:

It’s the discipline to have the proper time management. I think just the first thing  that comes in my head. Everyone that I know that’s failed at it, they just  weren’t able to get that right. They weren’t able to get motivated to work on  things without having that office environment.

Steli Efti:

It’s crazy. It’s interesting that you mentioned discipline in here, because this kind of reminds  of a quote from a guy that a big guy in jujitsu and he’s actually  very small geeky looking person. Not physically imposing at all. He’s a very smart, intellectual  personality, but he strangles people for a living, right? He’s the master of the art  of getting you down on the floor and then taking over, no matter how strong  you think you are. He said a quote that will always stay with me which  is basically, “People think … People would never associate discipline with freedom, but the only  way to freedom is through discipline.” Right? When most people think about discipline it feels  like a chore or something that’s forced on my … I need to be this  very robotic character and I need to be doing and freedom seems like the ability  live life and do whatever you want. If you need have discipline you cannot do  the things you want. You want to write the book, but you don’t have the  discipline to write it so you don’t. You want to go travel. You want to  take a break and workout. You want to work on this project or you want to tell a friend something. You want to do things in life, but you never  have the follow through and the focus and the commitment to do these things that  you want to do. You’re always the victim of your own emotions and circumstance versus  being completely in control of what your direction and your destination and what you want. Thinking od discipline as the way to freedom, I find a very refreshing way of  thinking about it. I feel like the freedom that comes with remote work, which is  immense is only tapped into if you use discipline to unlock it. If you don’t  have discipline and you work remotely, your life is going to be harder and actually  much more miserable, right?

Hiten Shah:

Yeah. Totally agree. It’s like you won’t feel motivated. Discipline, motivation they’re go together, right?  It’s like the freedom a remote team member has, even a company that’s remote is  incredible. It’s like something, if you really think about it, it’s as close as you  get to before you have to go to school as a kid, any school, because  school is what created a structure.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

They’re your first real structure for most people is school. After that, is work, but  yet remote work is a lack of structure in terms of you get to decide  what you do with your time more often than not. I can’t stress this enough. I think that if you feel like you cannot manage your own time by yourself,  working in a remote team is going to be almost impossible.

Steli Efti:

Let’s say you are good at managing your time or you learn how to get  better at that. By the way, if somebody asked you, “How do I get better?  How do I learn? Today I’m struggling and I’m not that disciplined or I’m not  that good at managing my own time. I want to change that.” What the number  one piece of advise you would for somebody to get better at it?

Hiten Shah:

Most people just need to time box and say, “At these times, I’m going to  do these things.” You know? And schedule. Put it on the calendar that you’re going  to work. Instead of having an empty calendar time, put in the calendar when you’re  going to do what. Plan the day, the day before or right when you wake  up in the morning and actually see if you can stick to it. Get good  at that. Find your system, whether it’s Google Calendar or alarms on your phone or  whatever it is, so that you can stick to it. Look, in general, we aren’t  very structured, just as humans, we’re not structured. It’s not how most people think about  their day. Even, honestly, even if you’re good at it, you can probably get better  at it, especially in a remote environment. I think this applies to even your other question, to me al least. For example, sometimes I’ll just set alarms to know that,  “Oh, we have to do this at this time.” or “I have to do this  at this time.” and it’s some work thing, right? Another approach I had to use,  because for me setting these calendar things doesn’t always work. It hasn’t been very effective.  Between alarms on my phone and I literally am writing out the things I want  to do today on a to-do list early in the day. Right when I get started working, I write down first what I want to do. It’s just stupid, but  that feeling of crossing it off is just great.

Steli Efti:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Hiten Shah:

It’s just great. Then it’s like a game of how much can I cross off  of that list, right? There’s a lot of tactics there what they say about to-do  lists like, “Only do three, because you’re only going to get those three done.” I actually have a way longer to-do list I create every morning when I want to  be super hyper productive and don’t really know what I’m going to do that day.  This really applies, for me, on days where they feel less structured, I’ll create that  list. That list is really helpful. It even helps in an office environment to be  honest with you. It doesn’t really apply just to remote worker or remote work. Those  are my tips if you’re not good at it. Find the right way, whether it’s  a calendar, alarms on your phone or just starting your day or your work, every  time you sit down to work, with some list. The list is probably the most  powerful thing. That can also make you more productive even if you’re pretty good at  this.

Steli Efti:

What about human interaction, right? Let’s talk a little bit about that. When you’re remote  you don’t physically at least interact with the other humans you are working with, right?  So, your team members. There’s a lot of communications, it could be electronically, right? Email,  Slapchat, whatever the hell it is. You’re communicating a lot with your team members, but  you’re not seeing them, you’re not feeling them, you don’t have that visual stimulation of  them sitting around. You don’t get the energy from other people. Now, some people don’t  really care about that. I feel like some people are really good at just …  They’re at their best and at their most productive when they just go to their  home office and it’s just them and they work through everything and then they spend time with their families, with their friends for that human touch. There’s a lot of  people and I would venture to say people in marketing, in sales, in success in  other roles than pure engineers that might be just by design and by character trade  are better at not needing as much human interaction. A lot of these other people,  they might miss interacting with other people when they are working remote. Even if they’re  disciplined and they manage their time well and they don’t have a problem of being  productive, per say, in terms of work, but they might feel kind of down or  out right lonely at work, because during those eight hours of work, they’re just don’t  have enough human interaction. Do you seen … Do you think that that’s a real  problem? Do you think that that’s just people not used to that type of work?  What’s your take on that? Have you seen any interesting ways to deal with that?

Hiten Shah:

Yeah. I think you have to find your way culturally as a company. This is  not just a individual situation. This has a lot to do with he company culture.  For me, the things that I’ve seen work is eventually a personality or culture develops  in a remote company, whether it’s the things that happen in slack, if you’re using  slack, or the jokes that get thrown around in email, the sarcasm, things like that.  A lot of this has to do with the collective personality, I would say, as  I would call it, that develops over time. Some it is also has to do  with how the company likes to celebrate things as a remote team, which I think  is a really important piece of it. You might be thinking, “Oh, this is my  problem as a remote team member.” What I would tell you to do is just  look at the company you’re working at. Think about all the things you do that  are not really work, whether it’s the gifts that get flown around or, like I  said, the jokes that thrown around, the sarcasm, the personality. A real easy exercise here  is if you have to write out the personality of the company that you work  at, what would it be?

Steli Efti:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Hiten Shah:

That can be really valuable to help you understand. Look, in a remote team you’re  not working next to some body. You’re working next to the company. You’re actually working  in the company, but the company’s a personality, as a collective. I tend to think  of it more like that, because the company itself has a personality and it’s a  very internal. That’s the secret. That’s the key. That’s the thing that will help you  not feel so lonely, because, you have to remember that all comradery. It can be  done remotely. It is being done. Right now. Right now, even in your company style  there’s 25 people. It’s happening.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

Whether you know it or not, right? It’s just happening. It’s just two people talking,  laughing about something. It’s that … It’s happening, you know? You have to take joy  in that as a remote team member. Joy in the fact that you don’t need  to be physically next to somebody or in the same office in order to create  that. You are part of that. You get to create it. It’s actually a very  special thing compared to the office or a office in my opinion. It’s much different,  but I consider it special.

Steli Efti:

It’s awesome. I’ve never thought about … I love the phrasing of if you had  to write out the personality of the company, what would it be? I love that.  Thinking about the company, because a lot we ask that question in a different way,  like, “What’s the culture of the company?” I feel like if you humanize the entire  company, you ask for the personality of that, I feel like that totally changes the  framing and the way of thinking. I’ll use that question, try to answer it myself  and also ask other people about that. That’s awesome. I love that. Let me ask  you, because this is the first company that I’ve ever built that’s remote and we’ve  made of mistakes. We’ve made a lot of things right. We’re enjoying it. This is  exciting. I’m happy about this and it’s a journey, right? We’re constantly learning. I only  have experience in this based on what we have done and what I’ve read about  this. You’ve been around this for such a long time and you are actively involved  in the advising of some of the biggest remote companies in technology today, I would  say. You’ve just a lot of pattern recognition, a lot of data from the past.  In your experience, I’m curious, have people and companies gotten better at being great at  remote work and creating remote environments over the years? Or has it always been the  same, it’s just more tools? It is something where it’s just like the industrial age  where when people went from farming to working at factories? It was a lot of  learning somehow that shift has to happen and how people can be productive industrial workers  and how industrial companies can be good employers. Is it just a transitionaling phase where  we need to learn a lot and experiment and make mistakes? Or do you view  this in a different way? Do you think that the companies that saw the early  days work remote, when they were good at it, they were just as good and  they were doing the same fundamental things that the companies today that are good at  this?

Hiten Shah:

Yeah. That’s a loaded question. I really like it. Thanks for asking that. I’m sure  you have your thoughts. Mine’s pretty straight forward. It’s so early. It’s terribly early. It’s  just terribly early and I say terrible just because until maybe a year ago, two  years ago, let’s say one to two years ago, I’ll say until a year ago,  I hadn’t started seeing adoption of tools that were specifically designed for remote teams.

Steli Efti:

Hmm.

Hiten Shah:

That is a sign that we’re … I don’t think that’s a sign that this  is mature. I think that this is a sign that this is very early. I  invested in, I advised companies that are remote but also a few of these tools.  They’re very specifically noticing that there is a remote use case with their tool that  is the primary use case. An example, not a company I’m involved in, but one  that I found fascinating over the last year is Zoom. That company Z-O-O-M.

Steli Efti:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Hiten Shah:

I would call them the video conferencing company.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

So many teams with, have that thing on all the time or very often or  even do their remote team meetings with it, where you can see everyone’s face.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

You can share presentations. It was so much nicer than any other method you could  use. It’s way nicer than Google Hangouts. It’s not even that creative a product, to  be honest, be a product person, putting my product hat on. There’s all kinds of  issues with it. It’s not much better than WebEx in a lot of ways, but  a the end of the day, that fact that they let you have a heads  up display of humans and be able to see presentations at the same time, in  a way that Hangouts should have done and never did made it really amazing for  remote teams. I saw, so every remote team that I know uses that.

Steli Efti:

It’s crazy. We’re using that, too.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah. They’ve taken over, but that use case is really, in my opinion, one of  the key reasons that business even works. It’s because remote teams started adopting it and  then they started using for all their other use cases. Obviously, now it’s much more  mature has put money in. It’s a larger business. They’re going after other use cases,  but, at the end of the day, the thing that got them here is the  fact that you starting seeing all these remote teams using them and all these people  that have its use cases, even if their not fully remote teams. It’s still super early. I think the systems are off today, not Zoom, but just in general, not  the tools just the systems, the way we do this. Every remote company I see,  not every, but the majority of remote companies that I see are very inefficient. I  don’t mean inefficient compared to an office team, because that has different inefficiencies, but in  a lot of ways it’s just a whole different model. People don’t understand how to  work in a remote team. People don’t understand how to facilitate the work that needs  to happen. Now, all that means then if you think about all the software we  use today, regardless of whether you’re a remote team or not, especially inside of tech  companies or tech enabled companies, it’s all remote software. It’s all software that we can  use at our own desk. Which means, we can use it at our own homes,  right?

Steli Efti:

Yep.

Hiten Shah:

I see the world changing at a much faster clip right now than ever before.  Also, when you think about how many people are doing freelancing and the growth rate  in freelancing and side gigs and all these kind of things like that, it’s tremendous.  It is unlikely that in the future companies are going to get start without remote  team members. That’s the day I’m waiting for. At some point, this is just going  to be a norm. Especially, I know you and I are in the Bay area,  your team’s remote, all my teams are remote, too. The people around here have a  high high high resistance to it. What I mean by around here is venture back,  funded companies tend to hate having remote team members. It’s just a general rule, but  if you look around most of these companies don’t have it. Even Yahoo!, when Melissa  Mayer or Meyer came in, she basically the whole remote work stuff at Yahoo!.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

That was a massive hit on the whole company as the whole, because they were  built on that in a lot of ways. Right or wrong, doesn’t matter, but this  is what happens, because there are people out there that don’t believe remote can be  done well. That goes back to the point of “No, it’s not being done well.”  Yes, we’ve improved, but it’s ridiculously awful as to how little we know about even  phycology and humans and how remote work impacts them, right? The thing we just talked about, the loneliness, we don’t know anything about that yet. I haven’t seen a single  study on it.

Steli Efti:

That’s interesting. You’re right. There’s not a lot research on remote work and how it  affects phycology and bichemistry of humans and all that type of stuff, because it’s the  way we feel-

Hiten Shah:

Yeah, we don’t know how it changes us.

Steli Efti:

Yeah, and it’s so niche-

Hiten Shah:

Yeah, I mean-

Steli Efti:

It’s still so niche that there’s not a lot of attention, a lot of energy,  but it’s increasing and there’s going to be a tipping point.

Hiten Shah:

One engineer that I’ve worked with for 12 years. I’ve seen him literally 10 times  in person.

Steli Efti:

Wow.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah, right? He’s an engineer. I’ve worked with him for 12 years. Worked on literally  75% of the products I’ve built. Only seen him 10 times.

Steli Efti:

That’s crazy. That would be insane for 99% of all the humans on this planet.  Even thinking about working with somebody intimately and closely for over 12 years on the  most important projects of your life and haven’t seen him two hand full to 10  times.

Hiten Shah:

Yep. 10 times, dude.

Steli Efti:

Right, or .

Hiten Shah:

10 times. Yep.

Steli Efti:

It’s crazy. All right, I can’t myself, right? I have at least one more question  that’s a little out there. I don’t know where this is going to lead us,  but that’s part of why we do this .

Hiten Shah:

That’s fine. Seems like an important episode. Let’s go for it.

Steli Efti:

We all know about office politics, right? When you put a good amount of humans  in one place and you have them spend every day together, often times they are  group building. Groups that are building sometimes it might that it’s based on the department  or this and that, but even within teams there’s going to be groups of people that like each other more and spend more time with each other. Maybe then, it  creates these tribal little groups or it creates these rumors. There’s also, I don’t know,  when you put a lot of people in one space over a long period of  time, it’s seems like it’s so much easier to have this casual conversation. Often times,  even about things that are not work related. The rumor mills and this person …  It also interpersonal things, this person at the famous Christmas party where people hook up  when they’re drunk and all that stuff. You take the office away. What does that  do for politics within remote teams? What have you seen, because I’m just curious about  that? Does that kill politics or does it just … Is it the same amount,  but different or is it a small amount? What’s your observations or your thoughts on  how does not having an office and completely remote, how does that affect the amount  of group building, politicing, rumors and all that type of stuff within a business?

Hiten Shah:

It’s definitely different. I would say it’s reduced. I’d say in many ways it’s harder  to decipher, find, discover.

Steli Efti:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Hiten Shah:

It’s especially if you’re not regularly asking people on your one on ones very critical  questions or entered around that. Like, “How are you feeling?” Right? “Did you have a  bad day this week at all? Was it something that someone else did?” These are  things you don’t ask people, right? You don’t even ask people in an office environment.  Usually an office environment, someone walks in the office and you know whether it’s going  to be a great day for them or not. While in a remote team, there’s  different cues you have to decipher, right? You’re always guessing, it’s actually another . For  example, if someone’s always on time to meetings and then three meetings in a row  they’re a little bit late or they don’t show up, like, “Something’s wrong.” Right? I  mean remote meetings.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

Right? In an office, usually you have way earlier indicators for that. Like, they’re just  not coming in, right? To the office or whatever, you don’t see them or whatever.  Another issue that comes up is when we listen to each other and when we  talk, we extenuate and we have … There’s just a lot more to your voice  than when you type. I know people say, “Oh, you know, a lot gets lost  in translation with typing.” That’s totally true. The remote teams have a huge issue with  that. That’s why I like video often. I like audio as well in remote teams.  I’m not a stickler in any way about any of that stuff. Those kind of  things help you understand how someone’s feeling. Because if you see them on video and  they look shitty, you know they’re having a shitty day and you can ask that.  I’ll stop a meeting and be like, “Are you okay? Everything okay? What’s going on?”  Then usually they spill and talk about it. I think we have an on these  teams that are remote to really pay attention when we get the opportunity. Because in  an office environment, we get the opportunity all the time and in a remote environment  we don’t. What end up happening … That’s more like personal, somebody personally having something  going on.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

In terms of politics, the rumors can spend then, right? Imagine if nobody said anything.  Some of the reasons I say something is everyone’s thinking it, that someone’s having a  bad day and nobody says it.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

Then there’s a rumor. Do you get what I mean?

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

There will be a rumor. I can guarantee it. As long as there’s like five  people on that call, there’d be like, “Oh, Ian looked like shit. What’ going on  with him?”, right? I’m like, “Let’s go ask him.” Usually, in the meeting I’ll go  ask him, right? For example, Ian, actually is one of our designers on one of  our teams. He has a beard going on. For the last four or five meetings,  I’m going to have one right after this actually, well, for the last four or  five meetings, this beard just keeps growing. So, right when we get on the co  … Ian has not had a beard in years. So, right when we get on  the call it’s like, ” Oh, damn, Ian! Look at that beard!” Then there’s three  minutes of, not making fun of his beard, but basically making fun of his beard,  right? We’re talking about it for those kind of things, in a way, is really  special, because you wouldn’t necessarily do it like that and have that collective comradery or team building happen that instantly in an office environment in the same way. It’s different.  It happens, but it’s different, right? I think that type of stuff builds the politics  ends up growing if someone just doesn’t point out things that you see, because, and  here’s the reason, the amount of in person, not in person, but face to face  in terms of remote face to face or video interactions you have in a remote  team are much less than seeing someone’s face in an office, right?

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

Every time you do that, I would spend the extra, I guess this is just  my tip on this, but I would spend extra time just watching for those cues,  because I think that’s one of the biggest issues I’ve seen, which you don’t get  that. It’s harder to understand how someone’s feeling if you start guessing. Then that can  lead to rumors and politics and all this other stuff. It’s just different types of  politics than an office environment. Office environment literally we can touch each other, I’m not saying we should, but we can, right?

Steli Efti:

Not saying we should, but we can.

Hiten Shah:

So that creates a whole different type of politics, a whole different type of cultural  environment compared to in a remote team when you have a lot of techs, a  lot of potential for misrepresentation, misinterpretation, things like that and a lot less interaction around  audio and video and non texts. Text is one of those things that is misinterpreted  the most. I include email in that.

Steli Efti:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Hiten Shah:

That email where you thought she was angry and she wasn’t, right?

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

Or you thought she was sad and she wasn’t or you thought he was getting  mad at you but he actually wasn’t, he was just being direct, because he was  in a rush to go pick up his kid from school, right?

Steli Efti:

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, this was a fascinating one. I didn’t know that we would  end up where we are, but those are my favorite episodes, where we don’t know  where we’re going until we’re there. That’s when you know we’re unpacking shit. I think  this topic is just-

Hiten Shah:

That’s right.

Steli Efti:

So important and it’s, again, I can sense the trend and the change. Every city  I go, I travel around the world and more and more people are asking me,  “How do you build the remote team? How do you make the culture great? How  can I be more productive as a freelancer or be remote?” This is a big,  very important topic looking into the future of how humans work and the quality of  life they create for themselves and the way that we are productive or the way  that we move the world forward. I feel there’s still a lot to learn. There’s  a kind of the pioneering days. This is super exciting. Part of why I want  to build a remote company is that I believe this is a better way of  doing things and the way that the world is moving towards. I want to be  part of that and I want to move it forward in the right direction. I  think that a lot of the things tips and thoughts that you shared today will  help others accomplish that. I’m not going to even attempt to add a tip to  this. We’re just going to wrap this beautifully up at this point. One thing that  I’ll say to the listeners out there, if you’re not on the email list yet,  make sure to go to the startupcheck.com, put in your email. We started sending out  more stuff and we’re going to do more interesting things moving forward, I promise to  you. I think that’s it from us for this episode and we’ll see you guys  very soon.

Hiten Shah:

Cheers!