On your homepage, right under the title, you claim to be "The #1 Boutique App & Web Development Company". What do you mean by this? Is this an award that some other organization granted you, is it just marketing fluff, or is it something in between? What sort of metrics were used? Can you tell me who the #2 boutique app and web development company is? My first reaction on seeing that line was "oh, they're willing to say anything to make a sale, I can't believe anything here."
Good morning! Just marketing fluff. Boutique App & Web Development Company is just a term we made up, to reflect our focus of being small, tailored and of high quality.
I'd say so. I think especially "management" (we're mostly a flat company, so management including founders is more of a counsel) are big proponents of using Asana.
Hi, Mobile Jazz co-founder here. I take care of GRC myself, since I used to work as a consultant in an "earlier life" (OMG, what a difference!). Usually our needs in this area are quite modest so I can take care of everything personally, but if you'd like to send us your CV, we can always keep an eye on future demand :)
Please feel free to check https://mobilejazz.com/jobs and use our API to submit an application
I haven't read your PDF yet, but I did just read 37 Signals new book, have you read it, and do you agree with any of their sentiments on remote working and managing a good life/work balance.
In one of our comments in the other thread, you state that some colleagues will log in on the weekend to get work done, how do you manage colleagues working more than they should?
Hi there! We do a couple of things around here: first, we plan ahead of time for the workload of each team member, according to the amount of availability they have, they might want to work on a side project, practice sports (lots of us do kitesurf, skiing, swimming,...) or whatever. We do not require a specific amount of hours.
During the week we track time using Harvest (https://www.getharvest.com/) and the next week we review the planned time vs. actual time spent on each project (and overall) and adjust the planning as necessary. It's not 100% precise, but it works most of the time.
Besides the planning vs. reviewing part, we're very open and encourage discussion on the remote work and with flexible schedule topic. Some team members have a lot of experience and some are doing this for the first time, so sharing is important. Having a routine is an important element into a good work-life balance.
I suggest you don't write down in gray on white "by the way, we will also store your email". Put it somewhere either prominent or maybe outright have and opt in button for that? It's an industry wide practice, but that does not automatically make it ok.
Plus... That GDPR thing across the pond.. we (on this side of the pond) don't appreciate this behaviour. Ask us politely to tick a (previously unchecked checkbox).
I started out thinking "whoah that should be a great company to work with/at" and then the marketing thingie happened...
This is really well done! I appreciate both the design, and the amount of thought and effort that went into laying all of this out and then honing it into a cohesive, well-written deck. I've been thinking and reading a good deal about distributed companies recently, and it's nice to see a perspective as solid as this.
I'm also curious for your take on one question: you describe yourself as "a remote team working all over the world", and also say that to keep the team cohesive, you try to overlap with other members of the team four days a week, and use CET as your "standard" time zone. The globe diagram makes it seem like all of your team members are relatively close to that time zone.
How would you support team members living in locations that are farther away (e.g. the west coast of the US), given that overlapping with central Europe would require those employees to work either very early in the morning, or very late at night?
Thank you very much. We actually did spend more than 6 months (not full time of course) working on this and are very proud to release it this week.
Currently the team is spread over Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Australia, UK. That said, 1/3 of the team is in Barcelona (where we started the company), but not necessarily Spanish. That said though, while we're quite diverse and from many countries and cultures, most of us do live in Europe though and once the summer is back we'll migrate back there.
So in summer it's quite easy for us, as we as a team sit closely together. However many of our customers are from the US West Coast and then the other extreme is a client in Australia. Winter time is then more difficult as some people go back home to Latin America or over to Asia. But so far we've always managed and actually sometimes it helps to have someone being in a different time zone. Makes it easier to monitor servers around the clock.
We do however require that team members do have a certain overlap with CET. Just in December I was myself in Brazil, so I simply started working at 6am and stopped around 2pm to go kitesurfing. Maybe not something everyone wants to do, but since our company is mostly about lifestyle everyone in our team appreciates that freedom, but also understands the responsibility that comes with it.
From your experience so far, do you think that the overlap requirement is essential to successfully running a distributed company? Did you have it right from the start, or is this something that you discovered you needed as you went along?
Before reading the comments I gave you my spam email and unsubscribed right away. I won't even read that book anyway.
Still - it felt soooo 2000's. Give us your e-mail, so you'll get 32 instead of 31 shitty e-mails you don't read anyway. And without your email we won't do anything for you.
To be honest, there were no bad intentions behind it other then updating people with updates to the book as written there. But we do get your (and other people's) point and have fixed it to a direct download. Thanks :-)
Currently the team is spread over Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Australia, UK. That said, 1/3 of the team is in Barcelona (where we started the company), but not necessarily Spanish.
Readit News
Alternative download (Google Drive) in case the server goes down: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16D90e7L7whbeRSCLxhZ_X3-K_3R...
EDIT: Added alternative download.
> Plan your day in Asana, then post your status update in Slack
If only you would be looking for Audit/Security/Compliance, you would have my CV in a heartbeat!!
And that makes me wonder how do you manage GRC in the Team and the processes...
In one of our comments in the other thread, you state that some colleagues will log in on the weekend to get work done, how do you manage colleagues working more than they should?
During the week we track time using Harvest (https://www.getharvest.com/) and the next week we review the planned time vs. actual time spent on each project (and overall) and adjust the planning as necessary. It's not 100% precise, but it works most of the time.
Besides the planning vs. reviewing part, we're very open and encourage discussion on the remote work and with flexible schedule topic. Some team members have a lot of experience and some are doing this for the first time, so sharing is important. Having a routine is an important element into a good work-life balance.
I suggest you don't write down in gray on white "by the way, we will also store your email". Put it somewhere either prominent or maybe outright have and opt in button for that? It's an industry wide practice, but that does not automatically make it ok.
I'm glad to hear your company is also incorporated in Estonia. How well has it been working for you?
I started out thinking "whoah that should be a great company to work with/at" and then the marketing thingie happened...
I'm also curious for your take on one question: you describe yourself as "a remote team working all over the world", and also say that to keep the team cohesive, you try to overlap with other members of the team four days a week, and use CET as your "standard" time zone. The globe diagram makes it seem like all of your team members are relatively close to that time zone.
How would you support team members living in locations that are farther away (e.g. the west coast of the US), given that overlapping with central Europe would require those employees to work either very early in the morning, or very late at night?
Currently the team is spread over Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Australia, UK. That said, 1/3 of the team is in Barcelona (where we started the company), but not necessarily Spanish. That said though, while we're quite diverse and from many countries and cultures, most of us do live in Europe though and once the summer is back we'll migrate back there.
So in summer it's quite easy for us, as we as a team sit closely together. However many of our customers are from the US West Coast and then the other extreme is a client in Australia. Winter time is then more difficult as some people go back home to Latin America or over to Asia. But so far we've always managed and actually sometimes it helps to have someone being in a different time zone. Makes it easier to monitor servers around the clock.
We do however require that team members do have a certain overlap with CET. Just in December I was myself in Brazil, so I simply started working at 6am and stopped around 2pm to go kitesurfing. Maybe not something everyone wants to do, but since our company is mostly about lifestyle everyone in our team appreciates that freedom, but also understands the responsibility that comes with it.
From your experience so far, do you think that the overlap requirement is essential to successfully running a distributed company? Did you have it right from the start, or is this something that you discovered you needed as you went along?
Still - it felt soooo 2000's. Give us your e-mail, so you'll get 32 instead of 31 shitty e-mails you don't read anyway. And without your email we won't do anything for you.
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