Rasa, a Berlin-based AI start-up, spoke to Transition Partners about adapting to remote working during COVID-19.

The ongoing Covid-19 crisis has seen the majority of Berlin’s startups allowing  their employees to work remotely. Rasa, a Berlin-based startup working in conversational AI, has moved all operations online in the past few weeks.

Transition Partners recently spoke to Linda Schuster, the Director of Operations at Rasa, about remote working, onboarding, and the longer-term implications of the Covid-19 crisis for the wider tech community. 

Linda seems to have adjusted well to this new arrangement, but admits that it was tense at first. “The first week was a bit stressful because of all of the uncertainty—how this affects the health of my  family, for example, but also how it affects things from an economic standpoint,” she said. 

“Adjusting to working from home was relatively easy for me. I’m looking forward  to going back to the office but I’m also not completely desperate yet,” Linda joked. 

Rasa offers an innovative open source framework used by developers to build  contextual AI assistants and chatbots. In Linda’s role, she is responsible for HR, talent acquisition, finance, office management, and legal. “So pretty much  everything that’s not product, marketing, sales, and development.” 

Berlin’s tech scene is booming, but despite this, Linda loves the fact that the scene still feels tight-knit, noting, “It’s really easy to approach people, even really successful and somewhat famous people in the scene, and they’re always open to help out or answer questions, or help you with your company or product. I think that’s really great.” 

While Rasa is based in San Francisco, they also have a second bigger office in Berlin. Linda admits the timezone difference can sometimes present  challenges, but they are well prepared, for the most part. Some employees already spend large parts of the year working abroad, in Australia or New Zealand, for example. 

Now that everybody is working remotely, one plus is equal representation in meetings. Linda says, “People who were always remote say that meetings are now much better for them because everybody has their own Zoom window. It’s not 5 people sitting in one room and then another 5 each in front of their own Mac.”

It is natural for companies to be concerned for the welfare of their employees in times of uncertainty. Like many other companies, Linda says that Friday  beers, Zoom chats, and lunch deliveries have helped to preserve the feeling of togetherness among the Rasa team. 

While many companies have stopped hiring for the time being, Rasa recently on-boarded 3 new employees remotely. Linda explained that they usually like to invite potential new team members to one of their offices, in Berlin or San Francisco, but circumstances prevented this. “There’s one session on Zoom most of the time anyway,” she said, “so, we were already prepared but it felt a bit weird. I had wished for a more fun experience for our new team members, but I think they still had a good start. It wasn’t a big issue I would say.” 

It is clear that Rasa puts their people first, and this is a large part of the company’s identity.  Referring to this recent onboarding, she added, “It’s more making an active effort to make sure that people don’t feel lost, but it’s also really good that people think about what they can do and contribute, and that they feel welcome at the company.” 

Linda says this was the first time they fully on-boarded people in this way. but that she feels that it was a success. 

Rasa has more than doubled in size since this time last year and look forward to continued growth in the next 12 months. Going forward, Linda says their priority is making sure that developers who will use Rasa’s product will have all of the tools and resources that they need to build great AI assistants. 

Linda concluded with 5 words she would use to describe Rasa: “honest, ambitious, caring, smart, and supportive”. I am sure that these values will carry Rasa through to bigger and better things in the year ahead.

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