#2 AppFollow’s journey with remote work, expansion, and building simple human connections

Remote work really is a love-and-hate thing. On the one hand, there’s so much freedom for the team to enjoy, and on the other, genuine connections are made in person. AppFollow has always been a remote-first company, and it wasn’t easy getting to where we are now: having the best of both worlds.

In this short article, you’ll learn how we managed, especially during COVID, and how remote work, we think, should be arranged in IT companies.

Our journey to building a remote team

We began in 2015 with three founders and a vision to create a remote-first company. We had more ambition than resources, and renting an office and hiring staff in a single city was beyond our reasonable capabilities.?

The concept of a remote team is ideal for a start-up or a small team consisting of no more than 20 people. In this size range, it's feasible for the founders to maintain regular, meaningful communication with everyone within a span of 1-2 weeks.?

Projects at this scale are also manageable and less complex. But as AppFollow has grown to a team of 80 individuals from 27 diverse nations stretching from the Americas to Asia, the scenario has changed, however.

The pandemic

Pre-pandemic, our team was flourishing. We had managed to grow to a size of 60 individuals, working harmoniously across just three countries and communicating in a single language, which wasn’t English. We had established a rhythm, regularly organizing offline meetings for sync-ups.

The pandemic changed everything.

Suddenly, every company was racing to go remote.?

While we were prepared for this transition as a company, it was a new personal challenge for each of us. This issue did not stifle our growth, though. We successfully raised our Series A round and further expanded our team and business. But we were forced to hit pause on our regular offline meetings.

As 2021 unfolded, we noticed that newcomers needed help to adapt to our remote culture, which heavily relied on tools like Slack and Zoom for online collaboration. Our team size ballooned to 110, spread across even more countries. We also transitioned our primary language of communication to English, adding to the strain on our remote communications.

Trying to organize offline meetings became increasingly difficult as we couldn't bring everyone together in one place. The absence of these in-person interactions began to slow us down. We made some attempts to invest in offline meetings, but the results were negligible, unfortunately.

In 2022, amidst the throes of the war, our focus was diverted toward relocation, and the concept of offline meetings took a backseat. Our team members relocated to various countries, extending our reach far beyond our initial hubs.?

This sudden increase in geographical diversity further strained our communications. For instance, one development team alone might have members living in five different countries, grappling with an 8-hour time zone difference, making in-person meetings practically impossible.

Recognizing this issue in 2023, we decided to invest more in offline meetings and develop more concentrated hubs.

Doing remote work culture the right way

In an ideal world, the perfect balance would be to live and work in the same city, having the opportunity to physically meet with colleagues. Unfortunately for us, this human connection is unattainable. The times are hard for everyone. We value our work-life balance, and many of us have families and children. Naturally, we wouldn’t rehire an entire team or relocate everyone to a single city; that would be inhumane.

That being said, we remain committed to the remote work model and intend to continue as a remote team in the future, but we recognize that we need to be more efficient.

The solution

The key to a successful remote team, we believe, is striking a balance between online and offline interactions, such as:

• Regular in-person leadership meetings.
• Asynchronous functional team meetings in person.
• Company-wide gatherings in real life at least once or twice a year.

It is absolutely worth it, despite having to allocate a sizable budget for an activity of this sort.

We have developed hubs in several locations, including Finland, Georgia, Armenia, the UK, and the USA. Now, the goal is to hire and relocate people around these hubs and make regular in-person meetings happen when possible.?

That’s how you can connect with your team, even if it is in part and every now and then.?

For example, we now have a rule that everyone around a hub should attend monthly all-hands meetings in person.

We also prioritize knowledge sharing in both asynchronous (via Slack) and synchronous (via Zoom) modes. Sharing shouldn't be postponed until a meeting; rather, new ideas and insights should flow freely as they come.

Regarding our Slack usage, we aim for more transparency: recapping meetings and key decisions, encouraging more communication in channels rather than direct messages, creating multiple channels according to team, project, and personal needs, and reacting promptly to messages.

Finally, we value downtime.?

We encourage regular vacations and days off to truly maintain a work-life balance. We are confident in our ability to adapt to ensure our team's success. It’s all about a human connection, but reasonable and kind to your team.

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Thanks for reading! How do you manage your remote team? What sage advice you’d offer us that works for you?