Today, my guest is Meaghan Williams Meaghan is the Remote Work & Inclusion Program Manager at Hubspot, ranked #1 best place to work in 2020 by Glassdoor and is quickly scaling their remote workforce. Meaghan’s role is a relatively new one at HubSpot and she’s been tasked with creating company-wide guidelines and training at all levels related to remote work. In this episode, you’ll learn: The creative ways that HubSpot combats the trap of “transactional” communication among remote teams The office upgrades HubSpot has made to better connect co-located and remote team members What Hubspot is doing to squash the “Social Media Effect” of Remote Work And with that I give you…Meaghan Williams 

Remote Well

Going Above and Beyond to Empower Your Remote Workers with Meaghan Williams (EP 12)

Today, my guest is Laurel Farrer Laurel is the CEO and Founder of Distribute Consulting, a consulting agency that’s empowering governments and businesses to leverage a distributed model. Her work focuses on strengthening virtual communications, streamlining digital processes, and developing long-distance management strategies. She also writes about remote work for several educational platforms and online publications such as Forbes. In this episode, you’ll learn: Laurel’s experience operating a remote company of 500 distributed employees Laurel’s unique take on the isolation crisis that disproportionately impacts remote workers Tactical advice for training middle management in a distributed model How remote work is helping Economic Development in Rural America And with that I give you…Laurel Farrer 

Leveraging Remote Work for Economic Development with Laurel Farrer (EP 11)

Today, my guest is Tammy Bjelland Tammy is the Founder and CEO of Workplaceless, a startup that provides learning and development programs to remote professionals. Tammy has a deep background in developing educational programs and she is a highly-sought after keynote speaker at remote conferences around the world. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why companies are reluctant to advertise job openings as remote What kinds of companies should consider a transition to a distributed model The skills to look for when hiring for a remote position How the remote employment model is providing opportunities for refugees And with that I give you…Tammy Bjelland

What you should consider when building a remote team with Tammy Bjelland (EP 10)

Today, my guest is Amy Spurling Amy is the co-founder of Compt, a startup that creates fully-customizable programs for perks while eliminating the administrative burden on HR. Prior to founding Compt, Amy served in a variety of executive roles for Boston tech companies, having raised over $200M and managed two different acquisitions. In this episode, you’ll learn: Amy’s experience in a company that scaled from 100 to 650 employees How diversifying your employee benefits will help diversify your team The current state of work culture, and its evolution from authoritarian, to paternal, to autonomous Why Amy says the future of work is complete compensation transparency And with that I give you…Amy Spurling

Offering The Right Perks For Your Remote Team with Amy Spurling (EP 9)

Today, my guest is Hiten Shah Hiten is the co-founder of several software companies, including Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics, and most recently FYI. He is an early stage investor and advisor for over 120 different startups, including famously distributed teams like Buffer and Automattic. In this episode you will learn: How to manage your distributed team’s workflow at scale Why being spread out over multiple time zones becomes a massive strength for remote teams Why Hiten would actually avoid making in person team meetups about work at all Hiten's thoughts and predictions on future VC investment into remote companies The never before shared story behind Hiten’s Twitter handle And with that I give you…Hiten Shah

Why Work Is Work, Even If It's Remote With Hiten Shah (EP 8)

Today, my guest is Zack Gould Zack is the co-founder of BobbleOn and G&N Insurance, one of the fastest growing insurance agencies in Massachusetts, regularly outgrowing their peers by 10-15x every year and winning multiple Inc 5000 awards. G&N recently went through the process of transitioning from a co-located model to a distributed one in an industry where this is FAR from the norm. The single decision that he credits for creating explosive growth in his business How to define your core values (this is not what you’d expect) The decision making process for transitioning to a distributed model Why Zack intentionally excuses himself from the hiring process And with that I give you…Zack Gould

Transitioning From A Co-Located Model to a Distributed One in a Unique Industry with Zack Gould (EP 7)

Today, my guest is Michael Ly. Michael is the founder and CEO of Reconciled, an online bookkeeping service for Entrepreneurs. In this conversation we cover: -How Michael creatively funds his in-person company meet ups -Important tax considerations for hiring employees in different states -The power of transparency and vulnerability, especially with a remote team Michael is a talented entrepreneur who is building a really solid foundation for scaling a services company with a distributed model. And with that I give you…Michael Ly.

On Saving Entrepreneurs From Bookkeeping With Michael Ly (EP 6)

 Today, my guest is Jordan Husney.     Jordan is a former management consultant to Fortune 100 executives and has been issued multiple technical patents.     He is now the co-founder of a company called Parabol. Parabol is on a mission to build the operating system for distributed teams to work more effectively.     Jordan is one of the deepest, most critical thinkers I’ve met on this subject and he has written extensively around trends in the future of work.     But as an entrepreneur and operator he’s also practical.     So you’ll hear about his brilliant  approach to hiring, which includes:     -The one skill set that matters for remote work.     -Their open sourced project that attracts the best talent and pays “Equity for effort”     I love talking to early stage tech startups with massive vision and desire for impact. It feels like we’re looking into the future with this episode.     And with that I give you…Jordan Husney   Resources Parabol.co – Free Online Retrospectives Parabol’s Future of Work Database Parabol’s “Equity for Effort” initiative In the show: (17:34) Jordan’s “hack” for interviewing for a remote position (Do NOT miss this!) 

Building an Operating System for the Future of Work, With Jordan Husney (EP 5)

Today, my guest is Justin Cooke. Justin is the Co-founder of Empire Flippers. Empire Flippers is a global marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. It has grown to truly global team of 50 employees, spanning virtually every timezone. Justin and his team have seen virtually every side of the remote work model and have some really unique approaches to operations. We dive deep into their employee onboarding process, which involves 4 months of in-person apprenticeship. We talk through their twice annual, two week company meet up. And much, much more. These guys are constantly innovating to make sure that their business works optimally for their lifestyle. And with that I give you…Justin Cooke

Bootstrapping a Global Marketplace For M&A With Justin Cooke of Empire Flippers (EP 4)

Today, my guest is Beau Lebens. You guys are in for a real treat. Beau is the Head of Product Engineering for Jetpack at Automattic. Automattic is the company behind WordPress.com, which currently powers 1/3 of the web. Beau was employee #35 at a company that is now a staggering 855 team members and counting. Automattic is valued north of $1B and operates as a 100% distributed team. Beau started coding back as a teenager while growing up in a small town in Western Australia. But as his skills & experience continued to grow, his travels brought him to Hawaii, San Francisco, Brooklyn and now Denver, Colorado. He oversees what I believe to be one the most dynamic product teams in the world. And in this episode there’s a ton of takeaways, from understanding the seemingly “unscalable” hiring process all the way to what is arguably the most robust tech stack I’ve ever seen for a distributed team.

The Distributed $1B+ Company That Powers 1/3 of The Web With Beau Lebens (EP 3)

Today, my guest is Ryan Kuder. Ryan is the Managing Director at Techstars Anywhere. Techstars is a global startup accelerator with a combined market cap of over $18B. They’ve funded companies like DigitalOcean, ClassPass, Bench, Plated, Localytics and SendGrid, which was acquired for $3B. Traditionally, the Techstars accelerator programs are city specific, but Ryan is in year 3 of an experiment to operate the program remotely with the founders who are accepted. Ryan is a 17-year tech veteran, having served as both a founder of several startups, and an executive at many more, including ecoATM. To round out his career even more, Ryan previously held marketing and product roles at both Yahoo and eBay. Speaking personally, I can tell you that Ryan is like a poo poo platter of startup wisdom and experience and I’m thrilled share our conversation with you today.

The Man Behind Techstars’ Remote Startup Accelerator With Ryan Kuder (EP 2)

Today, my guest is Ryan Malone. Ryan is the Founder and CEO of SmartBug Media SmartBug is the #1 rated inbound marketing agency and a Diamond HubSpot partner. Ryan started the agency over 10 years ago when building a distributed team was something that most people thought was absolutely crazy. Now approaching 60 full time employees, Ryan and his team are redefining what a successful agency looks like. In this episode, we cover: -The terrible former boss that influenced Ryan’s future cultural values -How SmartBug has scaled their recruiting while running a distributed team -How SmartBug completely shuts down 1x per quarter to crush professional development And much more

Building an Award-Winning Diamond Inbound Agency 100% Distributed With Ryan Malone (EP 1)

The remote employment model is drastically changing the nature of work as we know it. In this show, we uncover what it takes to build a world class distributed team, where the office is optional.

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Remote Well

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