Dear Founder: Things To Consider When Building a Remote Team

Every now and then a fellow founder approaches me looking for advice. The topics range from pricing, positioning products, to building and growing teams. Or in this case, they are questions about what to consider when you’re looking to go remote. A founder building a startup in Europe recently asked me for advice on building a remote team. I’ve been working in distributed teams for ten years now. Those teams have spanned from Europe to the US west coast. Sometimes they went beyond that, covering almost 24 hours of timezones.

On Drafting an Engineering Strategy

During the first weeks in a new role, one of the things I’ve most recently focused on is to assess the direction of the engineering department as a whole. At the time I started there was no explicit strategy in place. Which is also not an unusual thing for a young company, just to be clear. So I set out to draft one.

The Feedback Log

One thing I wanted to a better job at as I took on a new role last year is to be more deliberate in giving feedback. As a German, I tend to fall on the side of only focusing on negative, or constructive feedback. I tend to focus on pointing out what I think should be improved, or what isn’t conclusive. This is quite ingrained in the German work culture.

Why is my team not doing what I expect from them?

Leaders who find themselves wondering why their teams aren’t making important decisions on their own tend to be leaders who are constantly pulled into many different discussions. Their calendars are filled to the brim, leaving little time for longer term work. This can seem like you’re contributing as a manager, like you’re doing important work and keeping yourself busy. It also means that you’ll have less time to focus on strategic work.

Workflows That Help Me Stay (and Feel) Productive as a Manager

One of the greatest challenges for a manager is finding ways to channel the constant pulling into different directions. These days, that pull is likely also true, especially in a distributed team where it’s easy to get pulled into Slack discussions and lose track of priorities. At least that’s been my experience in the past and in the present too, amplified further by now having a management role.