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Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#251

Post by Aachen »

gwbas1c wrote: post #53

> No plans to be in person Figure out how to have some kind of face-to-face relationship. This could be an annual all-hands trip, or otherwise take a week to fly out and spend time with the person you work with. You learn A LOT about each other when you interact face-to-face. I once worked with two developers in India, and assumed that the shy one was just so-so, and the talkative one was brilliant. After some deep d…

I've also met someone who was so different in real life, not their funny and exuberant selves at all, that I had trouble seeing them the same way when we later met back online. This wasn't work-related but a formerly multi-year friend I met in a video game and talked to daily about anything and everything. It was a strange experience for teenage me, but so this can go both ways (nearly all of my "first IRL meetup" experiences were good, though). If someone is great in online communication, I wouldn't say that there is a reason to meet up unless both parties want to. But you're probably right that, for a company, you need to decide to invite everyone or not to have this type of meeting. You can't exclude some of them so the point is probably moot

For the meetups my company does, one thing I like a lot is that we mix it up. Different countries, different settings, different events. Beyond that not everyone enjoys the same environment, the change itself also makes it interesting and creates talking points. People share more tips or explore something together because nobody is already familiar with the place and/or activity

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#253

Post by Aachen »

travisb wrote: post #4

Video calls. If you aren't having at least one video call a day something is probably wrong. Configure it such that starting a video call takes no more than 4 clicks. Have a company-wide General/Coffee chat where people talk about arbitrary things. It's better if this chat has history which expires in 24 hours. Write lots of short documents -- especially for designs. Review them much like you would review code. This…

Note that not everyone likes being filmed. I somehow find it quite different to meet irl compared to being on camera, perhaps because then I can observe what they're looking at. Video calling is like being on stage. (I don't mind being on stage much, just like how video is not a big deal either, but the feeling is similar)

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#255

Post by Aachen »

littlestymaar wrote: post #24

Like an MMORPG guild. which in 2024 means Discord. (No “professional” solution is even close to gamer tech for remote communication)

I find Discord clunky, speaking as both a gamer (perhaps I'm getting too old for this) and employee who used it with a customer. What does it do that nothing else does, or where is the friction lower in your experience?

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#256

Post by Aachen »

oc_elder wrote: post #64

Regular group discussions (not standup) are important. My team meets 30-60 minutes four days a week to discuss technical details and long term strategy. It plays two important roles 1. establish rapport between team members 2. gives known space for issues. Leads to Better balance of focus time and group convo This is the most important meeting of the day. Create doc to people can add things to the agenda. Managers jo…

> My team meets 30-60 minutes four days a week to discuss technical details and long term strategy.

Long term strategy needs to be decided on four times a week? Each instance taking ~10% of the working day's time? I expect I'm misunderstanding you but I'm not sure in what way

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#257

Post by zikduruqe »

em-bee wrote: post #192
zikduruqe wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

♫ ♪ ♬ It was the dark of the moon On the sixth of June In a Kenworth, pullin' logs Cabover Pete with a reefer on And a Jimmy haulin' hogs We was headin' for bear On 'I-1-0 'Bout a mile out Shakey Town I says, Pig Pen this here's the Rubber Duck And I'm about to put the hammer down ♫ ♪ ♬

oh you mean this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UAAwTlCp3OE :-)

Oh no. I meant this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87r0CPQbFds

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#258

Post by andrei_says_ »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #154
andrei_says_ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basecamp is incredible for this. Encourages grouping people by projects, with all communication on a project being public. All activity on a project listed in one place. Catching up with work takes minimal effort, including when someone goes on vacation or leaves the team. All it takes is skimming through the project. Slack is built around chat with high has its limitations when applied to the context of a longer ter…

While Slack - if you pay for it - permanently stores all communications and makes it archivable, it's also ephemeral and anything said more than a day ago is effectively gone. They do have an AI summary tool to catch up though, if you pay for it, which is alright.

To me the difference is in the affordances and mental model.

Basecamp - groups all communication, assets, participants, tasks in a project space. I open the project which establishes context for everything and everyone. This predefined context makes short efficient communication very powerful.

It’s incredibly simple and sophisticated at the same time - allowing grouping activity by people projects tasks etc.

The ephemeral nature of chat-centered systems makes me incredibly nervous about missing things or being unable to find them.

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#259

Post by o999 »

why-el wrote: post #123

I learned the following: - Everything public in Slack. Create a fun-sounding moto that discourages DMs. Even if a DM happens, and the back and forth resulted in a consensus, share that consensus in a public channel (which makes it searchable). - Record your team meetings, preferably with software that can AI-summarize. Folks on vacation / leave can get the rundown easily. - Encourage the sharing of solutions to vario…

> Discourage the over-sharing of screenshots (of your application and other things). Again, not searchable. If one must be shared, describe it. For instance, many devs share a picture of a stack-trace. Not super helpful for others. Grab the text and dump it to Slack.

I was recently surprised to find it is actually searchable in slack, apparently Slack OCRs the screenshots and even photos of text and you can find screenshots in the results if the keyword can be found in them.

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#260

Post by FactKnower69 »

switch007 wrote: post #166
lvspiff wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm at a company now where we are trying to do this but the CIO/CEO keep weighing in on EVERY conversation where they disagree with the approaach. The whole reason we are having the open conversation is for ideation and good communication but when a high level person comes along and says "well thats not the way I would do it" everyone decides to go back to 1:1s, direct messaging, and calls so as not to document anyth…

You need a private channel with everyone except the C-level. We find this very, very effective at our 2500+ person org

Incredible. Every point of data shows the highest compensated members of a firm doing the least work / being the most harmful to productivity lmfao. Wonder what the takeaway here is
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