In the last episode of Build, we exposed a number of myths about current augmented reality and virtual reality trends, and how new products are evolving by learning from predecessors like Google Glass.
If the episode piqued your curiosity and left you wondering how you can get started or where you can find more resources, today’s episode is for you!
Rose Haft the CEO and Founder of Lumenora is back. Together we’re going to share some the applications of augmented reality and virtual reality that are here to stay, and how you can get started tinkering with the technology.
You’ll learn:
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Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.
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Episode Transcript
Poornima Vijayashanker: In the previous episode of *Build*, we shared some of the most common myths and misconceptions related to augmented and virtual reality. If you missed the episode, I've included a link to it below. In today's episode, we're going to do a deeper dive into some of the applications of augmented and virtual reality, and talk about how you can get involved and your hands dirty using the technology. So, stay tuned.
Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker, the founder of Femgineer, In each episode, innovators and I debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech. In today's episode, we're back with Rose Halt, who is the CEO and founder of Lumenora, and we're gonna be doing a deeper dive into augmented and virtual reality, talking about some of the applications, as well as how you can get started using the technology. Thanks again for joining us Rose.
Rose Haft: Yeah, thanks for having me.
How 200+ Companies Are Using Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, so, let's go ahead and dive in. Last time, we talked about some of the myths. This time, I want to talk about some of the applications, so maybe you can walk us through what you're seeing in terms of use cases for AR and VR.
Rose Haft: Yeah, so even though people think that AR and VR is done. We talk about on the last episode, there are over 200 companies who are using it today.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Wow.
Rose Haft: Which is pretty significant. They're using it to help reduce errors in production lines, helping to provide instructions where people might not have a lot of experience in a job, and helping to make sure that everyone is doing what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to. So, a lot of optimization.
How Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality Is Helping The Healthcare Industry
There are companies starting to work on Healthcare, trying to help to improve the patient-doctor experience, and that's another prominent one that's starting to take off. And then also in gaming. I'm sure you guys have all seen a lot of gaming videos of your friends on the internet, and so that's another one that people really like, and enjoy.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, I think the gaming one has been going on since the 90's, right? So, that's definitely one that's sort of here to stay. So, are there any other applications? I know I've seen some stuff around simulating things like surgeries, anything else that comes to mind?
Rose Haft: Yeah, absolutely. So, on that surgery front, being able to train people and have the opportunity to practice something, before doing it in real life has been known to increase the likelihood of success. And so, people who are going into surgery it's really helpful to know the doctor has practiced a couple more times on a specific patient with similar body types, and expectations, and unique scenarios before they go in for a dangerous surgery. So we're really starting to see them being used to help humans make fewer errors in general, which is really interesting. As we're increasing the robotic technology to create machines, that can do things perfectly, we're also helping humans to do things perfectly.
Additional Applications And Use Cases For Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality
Poornima Vijayashanker: Well, I don't know if perfection is necessarily the goal, but that's good to hear that that's what they're aiming for. So, are these just trends, or are there more applications that you see coming down the pipeline?
Rose Haft: Yeah, these definitely aren't trends. There are people who are starting to get to know and understand, and the right tools are being built now, from software and the hardware perspective, that will allow people to start adopting them. Today, I just had an interview with somebody who has tried using it in a business setting, and there's still some issues that they're running into even with billions of dollars being put into developing headsets. And so, as an engineer, I'm trying to...they say laziness is one of the virtues of being an engineer, and trying to do things right the first time, so as a startup, after people have put a lot of money in, we're able to take a hard look at some of the reasons why people aren't able to use them, and be able to put them design to prevent those flaws, and make them more adoptable.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, so it's gotta be a really high cost of production right? And for people in the audience who want to play with the technology, it costs like several thousands of dollars just to get a headset, and then of course there's a software being developed, so how are you seeing the cost come down, or how companies trying to bring down those production costs?
Rose Haft: Yeah. So, companies like mine know the importance of these technologies. I've spent time in India and Peru, and I've seen how much a lack of similar tools has really made an impact on the world. And so, we're designing specifically to have a headset that can be used as functional, works great, and has a price point we can't fully disclose that yet, but ours won't take thousands of dollars to actually use and integrate with. We don't need to buy an expensive laptop in order to work with it. Our will be able to work out of the box, for about the cost of a cell phone, what you'd find now.
Software Languages And Platforms Compatible With Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality
Poornima Vijayashanker: And what about the software that goes in it? Since, nothing yet is standardized, are company's thinking about this? How can our audience develop applications?
Rose Haft: Yeah. So, Android is probably one of the easiest ways to get started. Android, if you know how to build apps, and there are a lot of tutorials, you can start to integrate with some of the same systems that will work on a phone, as well as a headset like ours. Most headset companies do integrate in that ecosystem. So, that really helps. Otherwise if you're more familiar with HTML or CSS, you can go to aframe.io, and there's also a Slack channel where you can get help learning how to use HTML and CSS to build applications using just regular web browser technology. It's a little more technical than that, but it's a good place to get started. And then, also Unity is another big skill that people can...another software platform that people can use in order to get started.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Oh, great. So, it's good to see that this same software platform is being leveraged, and it's not new languages or new frameworks that people have to adopt, except for maybe a couple things, like you mentioned, Unity.
Rose Haft: Yup. So, I know there's a lot of different software languages to learn, and that can be very overwhelming. For the most part, all of them will talk to each other in some sort of way. And so, if you are wanting a specific language to write in, usually C or C++ is pretty universal, it'll allow allow you to plug in with one platform or another. Java, as well.
How To Deploy Software Application On Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Headsets
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, and what about the actual way to sort of put the application into these headsets, is there...is it all internet enabled? How does that work?
Rose Haft: Yeah. So, every headset will have its own SDK that you can access and download, typically through the internet, and something you have to work directly with the company, and so it really depends on what you want to use. Android tends the easiest, because you can buy phones for less than $100, and you can start building and testing with that. And a lot of them are really functional and capable.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Maybe you can help us break down what SDK is.
Rose Haft: Oh yeah. So, SDK is our software development kits, and so it'll have standardized code that will help you to talk to the hardware, or talk to other pieces of software, to make sure everything is compatible. For instance, with the different display systems, there are specific ways in which the display will be changed, so it has a coherent image, and that will be part of an SDK.
There’s A Market Need For More Software Infrastructure To Support Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality Products
Poornima Vijayashanker: So, to draw an analogy to when mobile devices were first coming out. A lot of these platforms had emulators that you could put on your computer so that you didn't have to have every single device. You didn't have to have an Android phone, and a iPhone. Are there similar emulators being developed?
Rose Haft: There should be. I haven't developed specifically for other headset companies. I'm trying to keep the IP stuff differently, but Android does a really good job with emulators, and it should work standardly, and each headset company will have an easy way to integrate, make it look the same on their headset, as well.
Poornima Vijayashanker: OK, so maybe a market opportunity for some enterprising audience member out there.
Rose Haft: Yeah, absolutely.
Poornima Vijayashanker: But certainly, that opens the door for testing. I'm sure there's a lot of testing frameworks out there as well.
Rose Haft: Yup.
Resources To Help Early Adopters Like You Get Started Tinkering and Building Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality Applications
Poornima Vijayashanker: Wonderful. So, for those that want to get started, you already mentioned a few resources. Do you have any other resources out there that you can share with our audience?
Rose Haft: Yeah I think if you're wanting to get started, it is really great to you find a mentor, or somebody else in the space who has worked, joined Slack channels and communities, and also talked to people who have been in the industry for a while, and find out what's worked, and what hasn't worked, what they need help with, and a lot of people are very willing to take the time to share knowledge, and information to help you move forward and get started. So, never feel ashamed to clarify, to ask for help, and to make sure that you're getting started and doing things in the best way.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, wonderful. And we'll be sure to share those links with our audience out there. Thank you so much, Rose, for coming on the show today.
Rose Haft: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Poornima Vijayashanker: That's it for today's episode of *Build*. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive our next episode, and share this episode with your friends, your teammates, and your boss. And a special thanks to our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker for their help in producing this episode. Ciao for now. This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor Pivotal Tracker.
Remember Google Glass? Yeah it didn’t quite take off did it… It was just one example of a failed attempt to productize virtual reality. Its short lifespan along with a number of other products since the 90s has probably got you thinking that there is just a lot of buzz around augmented reality and virtual reality.
While the technologies seem exciting, you might be on the fence when it comes to investing your time and energy exploring the technology.
It doesn’t help that the cost associated with production and acquisition of the devices, and the limited toolset have made them both a challenge to tinker with.
But I have some good news for you: much of the market is changing! There some great applications that are disrupting businesses and industries like healthcare, and a number of resources making it easier to build.
In today’s Build episode we’re going to dive into the major differences and similarities between augmented reality (AR) versus virtual reality (VR). Then we’ll debunk the many myths around AR/VR. And in next week’s episode, we’ll share some of the cool applications that are coming on the market and a number of resources to help you get started!
To help us out, I’ve invited Rose Haft who is the CEO and Founder of Lumenora.
As you listen to today’s episode you’ll learn the following:
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Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.
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Episode Transcript
Poornima Vijayashanker: Wondering what all the buzz is about when it comes to augmented reality and virtual reality? Well, stay tuned to find out more. Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host Poornima Vijayashanker. In each episode of *Build*, innovators and I debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech. You've probably heard that augmented reality and virtual reality are the way of the future and maybe you're reluctant to join all the buzz. Well, I don't blame you. In today's episode we're going to debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to augmented reality and virtual reality and then in the future episode we're going to talk about some of its applications. To help us out, I've invited Rose Haft, who is the CEO and founder of Lumenora. Thanks for joining us today, Rose.
Rose Haft: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Are augmented reality and virtual reality the same?
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Why don't we just get started by introducing to our audience, in case they're not familiar, what exactly is the difference between augmented reality, AR, and virtual reality, VR?
Rose Haft: Absolutely. Yeah, so augmented reality and virtual reality are a way to have a computer interface that's very close to the eye that allows for there to be a different way to interact with the computer than what you're used to today. Augmented reality makes it possible to see what's happening in the real world that everyone else can see, with a little bit of image overlay that will help to display text, or data. If you've heard of Magic Leap, it'll also help to display holograms and things that look very lifelike. The difference between augmented and virtual reality is that in virtual reality you have your own environment and you're not able to access any of the exterior world, so you're completely immersed inside of that environment. It makes it a little bit more difficult to see what's happening elsewhere, but there are a lot of really useful applications for being fully immersed and reasons why people really enjoy using it.
Why Rose Haft (CEO and Founder of Lumenora) Got Interested In Augmented And Virtual Reality
Poornima Vijayashanker: Maybe you can tell us what got you interested in augmented and virtual reality and then we can talk about why you decided to start your company.
Rose Haft: I got interested in augmented and virtual reality in high school. I knew I wanted to be an engineer and I had an opportunity to work as an intern at one of the local prototyping facilities. At that facility we were working on building advanced headsets for the military. I really had a chance to see how having a hands-free tool that could be worn can really do anything from help to save lives, as well as help to communicate silently between people. I thought it was really interesting, a different way of interacting in technology, than had ever been there before.
Why Building Headsets for Augmented And Virtual Reality Was Challenging And Led To Limited Product Adoption
Poornima Vijayashanker: What inspired you to start your company Lumenora?
Rose Haft: Yeah. After working at several companies, including working at Meta helping to design the Meta II, I realized that there were a lot of logistical and engineering reasons why people weren't able to build the headsets that I felt like were ideal and also why those reasons are also part of the reasons why people don't want to adopt them. I was studying at Stanford a little bit of biomedical engineering and how to use sensors, like you would in surgery, and I thought it'd be great to incorporate them into a headset. Again, there were logistical reasons to doing that. After I found a partner company that could help solve one of the major problems in the area, and with my unique background in design, knowing how to design things differently, was really a great match to build something that is more advanced, more capable, and people actually want to wear it and use it.
How Businesses Are Applying Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality To Their Business Processes
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Do you mind sharing the application of what you're working on?
Rose Haft: Yeah. Right now, we're kind of fitting into the maintenance repair and operations space. There are over 200 companies internationally that are using it to do things like supply chain management, companies like BMW who build cars find it useful to make sure they're choosing the right parts and putting them together in the right way, and making sure that their quality process, you don't have to go back and double check work, they're doing it right and the first time.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Got it, so it's really a training platform—
Rose Haft: Yep.
Poornima Vijayashanker: For people, yeah.
Rose Haft: We're adding in extra features and we're doing some fun and cutting edge things that will help to even more improve those industries, especially training. In order for people to learn skills, and trade crafts, and the majority of Americans who hold the same job title need to go to school to learn these things, and how to work on specific machines, and machine types. We'll be integrating a real-time training system where you can learn a new skill or a craft in real-time and you don't need to have the several years of school, so we'll be able to adopt robots faster, and self-driving cars, and those sort of things.
Why People Have Been Reluctant To Adopt Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality Products
Poornima Vijayashanker: Very nice. You mentioned early on that there's been a lot of reluctance to adopting this new technology, AR and VR. Why is that?
Rose Haft: There's a lot of reluctance for a variety of reasons. People haven't found that they're stylish enough, or cool enough, and also really haven't found the benefits. They've really only seen the detriments and pullbacks as far as feeling like their security is being threatened or their privacy would be threatened because of the ability to record and take in information. I think the use cases are just now starting to be developed. One of my favorites is there's a 3D graphing app, and so you can use it for calculus. I know we're doing some fun and cutting edge things that really will help the average everyday person meet typical goals and those sort of things and it'll make it better and easier to adopt once those use cases are there.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, and we'll hold that thought. We're going to dive into those use cases in the next episode. There's also a lot of myths being propagated right now and I think one of them, because of the lack of adoption, people just are saying that AR/VR is dead and there's not much going on. Is that true? Are people not building these headsets anymore? Are they no longer investing in the technology infrastructure?
Rose Haft: Yeah, that's absolutely not true—
Poornima Vijayashanker: OK.
Rose Haft: Whatsoever.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah.
Why You Haven’t Heard From Companies That Are Actually Making A Mark In The Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality Market
Rose Haft: There's still a lot of investing to try to find the right solutions and the right designs, so people can actually wear them and adopt them. I know companies like mine have tried to stay as much out of the media as possible, because people have spent billions of dollars trying to find the right solution, and as soon as you put something out there, people feel like they can help themselves. Working on companies like mine who are working on very proprietary things, or making sure that they're developing and building strength, and so we're doing a lot of things in the background that can't be seen quite yet, and eventually will come to mainstream once we really feel like we'll be able to offer something that people really want.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Are there any other myths that are being propagated, aside from the one around it being dead?
Rose Haft: Yeah. People think they're ugly.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Right.
What Led To The Demise Of The Google Glass And How New Products Are Learning From Its Failures
Rose Haft: The glass hole is the scared term that's used and we're building something that will be a lot more sleek and stylish and have a lot more options in order to wear it and have it look different. I think the use cases that we're developing will be cool enough and necessary enough that people will want to adopt it anyways.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. You're seeing a lot of friction just in terms of the adoption because of change of behavior because people don't see this as prevalent, so that makes sense. There's already a number of big players in the market today. Facebook has Oculus. Google, like you mentioned, used to have Google Glass. What exactly is the difference between some of these big players, and maybe what you're building, and what you see other people building?
Rose Haft: The main differences between each of the companies are the form factor and the tech-
Poornima Vijayashanker: OK.
Rose Haft: The technology that's being used to develop them. There are several different optical technologies that are used and those really make a big difference in what a headset looks like. Most of the virtual reality headsets have a screen like your cell phone that's in front of the eyes and there are lenses that help you to see an image clearly. That's one type of technology. Companies like Google have something called a beam splitter inside the Google Glass and while it's a smaller form factor, it has limited capabilities. Companies like Vuzix have something called a wave guide that has limitations around it as far as the brightness of the image, and the amount of the screen that's able to be filmed. That might be a very technical explanation, but-
Poornima Vijayashanker: That's OK, we have a very technical audience.
Rose Haft: Well, this is...I'm hoping to share-
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah.
Rose Haft: Relevant information. The biggest difference between each of the systems is the way the computer image is generated so somebody can see it. Those are really the big three ones that you see right now. Meta has a direct reflection. I helped to come up with that design. I built a...Meta hired me because I had built a prototype and they thought my prototype was cool and they hired me on to help with that.
How You Can Separate The Fact From Fiction Around Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, that's awesome. When our audience out there is trying to evaluate between fact and fiction when it comes down to augmented reality and virtual reality, what would you say to kind of arm them?
Rose Haft: Yeah. In order to help understand the difference between fact and fiction in an augmented and virtual reality environment, a lot of companies are going out and giving a lot of information and showing pictures and those sort of things, without actually having a product. It's really important to look at how close is whatever is seen actually able to go out and be used in the world.
Also, companies that have a lot of hype, where they are getting the most press and it seems most exciting, aren't necessarily the ones who are building the most useful tools. I think it's kind of...Companies can be like people. If they're kind of showing off a whole lot, but not really putting anything behind the game, then there's probably a problem with it.
Otherwise, I encourage your audience, everyone out there, to really learn the science behind what's happening. Part of the reason why we've been able to do things differently at Lumenora is because I knew the science, and I was able to go through and do things differently, because I knew the limitations of the methods trying to be implemented. Science, and also fact check, and double check if something's actually ready, or usable, or wearable.
Why Big Companies Like Facebook Are Investing In A More Long Term Strategy Around Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality
Companies like Facebook who have a five-year plan in order to build something and they've talked about that at F8 and those sort of things, they haven't necessarily released anything publicly to show what they're working on, and those are the companies that are more genuinely putting an effort into creating something useful before they go out and get credit for something they've not yet done.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Well thank you so much, Rose. This has been really eye opening for us. I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing.
Rose Haft: Absolutely.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Rose and I want to know, do you have any questions related to augmented reality and virtual reality? Let us know what they are in the comments below. That's it for today's episode of *Build*. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next episode where we'll do a deeper dive into talking about some of the applications on augmented and virtual reality. Chow for now.
This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.
All this month we’ve been talking about remote working as it relates to recruiting, training, and retaining remote works. We started out by tackling how to recruit remote workers for people who may be new to it. Then we discussed how to train, hold accountable, and retain remote workers.
In the final episode for this month, we’re going to address a BIG concern that often holds people back from recruiting and managing a remote team: the nature of the work that needs to be done.
Most hiring managers we talk to are OK with hiring a virtual assistant to handle day-to-day tasks. But when it comes to a mission critical project like launching a startup or handling very important client or customers, going remote seems too risky, and people opt for hiring a team on-site.
In today’s episode, we’ll talk about why it boils down changing your process depending on the nature of work your remote workers are doing.
Holly Cardew the Founder of Pixc is back to help us out. Holly has grown and scaled her team across Australia and Asia. And has done so in a number of job functions spanning both the business side with roles such as virtual assistants and marketers, to the technical side hiring software developers and designers to build the product.
As you listen to today’s episode you’ll learn:
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Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.
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## What A Remote Team Needs To Be Successful When Working On A Mission Critical Project Transcript
Poornima Vijayashanker: In the last two episodes of *Build*, we shared a lot of the benefits of remote working. We also shared some best practices when it comes to recruiting and retaining employees and the processes you want to put in place to keep everybody productive.
In today's episode we're going to share how these processes will change depending on the nature of work so stay tuned.
Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host Poornima Vijayashanker. In each episode of *Build*, innovators and I debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech.
We're continuing our conversation with Holly Cardew who is the CEO and founder of Pixc on remote working. Thanks for joining us Holly.
Holly Cardew: Good to see you again.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Every episode of *Build* is inspired by amazing audience members like you, sharing your experiences and asking insightful questions. Today's episode is also inspired by an audience member, Kai. I want to start by reading an email that Kai sent me because I think it could help many of you who are out there.
How to manage a remote team that is working on a mission critical project
Kai wrote, "Hi Poornima, I've been following your show since the pilot episode with Ben Congleton on building a remote team and recently caught the one you did with your team mate Megan as well. Thanks for revisiting this topic of remote working over the years. One thing I've been curious about is how processes change when you're managing a critical project versus a normal day to day? I know for things like startups, or mission critical projects, coordination appears easier when everybody's in the same location. I say "appears" because it can also be a huge distraction. What do you see are the trade offs and how does a remote team dynamic change between a critical project versus normal day to day tasks? Sincerely Kai."
This is a great question Kai, and Holly and I are going to tackle it. So, if you're watching this episode, thank you for writing in. OK Holly, let's start with Kai's first question, which is, what are the trade offs when it comes to these mission critical tasks versus sort of the day to day?
Have remote workers be within a few time zones for mission critical projects
Holly Cardew: I think mission critical tasks, you really need to understand what needs to be done and stick to that goal and that time zone. Also, understand that other people, aren't maybe in different time zones and you may need to stay up a bit late or go to bed, you know, I mean may not go to bed till 5 am. Whereas day to day tasks, it doesn't really matter when they happen in the week.
For us, what we've really done is we've kept all our tech and product in Europe. So they're not in the same location, but they are in a similar time zone, so the time difference is really 4-5 hours, five hours max. Which allows everybody to communicate, but I think it can be beneficial, again to have somebody in another location in case there is a customer issue with the technology side.
Categorize tasks as asynchronous versus synchronous tasks to help remote workers collaborate
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. So what we did early on was actually break this up into asynchronism, what we like to call sort of those day to day tasks that people can do whenever they have availability, and then synchronism, where it's like you said, something that's customer facing, something that's critical, or something that requires a lot of coordination and figuring out that 3-5 hour time difference where everyone's kind of, be in the same day versus you have a problem, someone's asleep, you don't necessarily want to wake them up, right?
If it's a customer facing issue than it can be a challenge, but I also like what you said about having people in different time zones in case it's a customer issue and then you've got more hands to kind of help out over the various time zones.
Holly Cardew: Definitely.
How customers and clients benefit from a team of remote workers
Poornima Vijayashanker: Do you have any, do you have a specific example you'd like to share with us?
Holly Cardew: So as I mentioned, we definitely have taken product in Europe. We do have a project manager in the Philippines but that's OK because she understands that the rest of them are in that time zone, so she will work with that time zone. For our content and marketing, it's kind of, Europe but Western Europe and then flows over into America. That works absolutely fine.
There's about, maximum there's eight hours difference, with social media included but they don't mind that because they've just set a time, each week to get the tasks done, but as you said, it's tasks that sort of come and flow. You don't need to do it at a certain time, it's not critical that you know, our social media post went up one hour difference, doesn't make that much difference to us as a B to B software company, but I think for customers, so customer service is really important because customers can not wait 12 hours. They can't wait eight, they need a response within 20 minutes.
Facetime is still important for remote teams—especially when kicking off a project
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Now I will say that even aside from the time zones, another thing that I've found helpful is when you're kicking off a project, or you do feel like it's something really mission critical, it can be helpful to have people at the start of the project, all working together. Early on I will do either a retreat or maybe coordinate with some subset of the team, do you do anything like that at Pixc?
Holly Cardew: We haven't yet. We've actually, we're talking at the moment about having our first meet up. Somewhere in Asia, so sent out a Google form with potential dates of what would work, but I think it would be really valuable for people. If you are located closely together, what we will do is try to meet up at conferences.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Oh perfect.
Holly Cardew: Or, you know other events, or you know if I'm traveling to Indonesia I'll try and meet up with a team member, but for us we haven't yet done the in person thing yet.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. I think it's also good that you said you meet up with your employees, right. So, even if it's just a one on one or kind of a smaller group getting together that can be really valuable.
Holly Cardew: Yeah, I've also said to them, like give them a budget to travel too. So if there's a lot of them in Asia, it's quite cheap to travel within Asia, so they could meet up for a dinner or lunch.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Oh, great.
Holly Cardew: So it doesn't necessarily mean it's just for the project, it's again, links back to the culture, because if you create a good culture and they have a social gathering together, then when they do go away they sort of understand each other a bit more.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Right and it stills helps to kind of elongate that process and they feel like they're part of team and not just somebody working somewhere in some part of the world.
Holly Cardew: Yeah. Definitely.
A simple first step for people who are on the fence about hiring remote workers
Poornima Vijayashanker: Wonderful. Any final words of wisdom for our audience out there when it comes to recruiting remote talent and retaining them?
Holly Cardew: I think when I speak to people and they're like I've never hired someone remote, what should I do? I think the first step is having a virtual assistant for yourself. So those tasks that you do every single day, that you could pass to someone else, just try it. Have someone 10 hours a week, or even five hours a week so it's one day a week, doing some of those tasks and you'll soon build a culture that works for them.
The other thing is I would really think about them as not outsourcing or part of someone else's company. I stick with hiring individuals and not agency's or outsourcing companies. Then I send them birthday cakes and cards just because it makes them feel included in the bigger vision and bigger company and picture rather than just doing a task at hand.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Oh yeah, they're definitely contributing to the overall company so that's good. That's good that you recognize them. Well these are all great tips Holly. Thank you so much for joining us.
Holly Cardew: Thank you.
Poornima Vijayashanker: That's it for this week's episode of *Build*. Be sure to share this with your friends, your teammates and your boss, if you are thinking about putting in place a remote working culture. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next episode. Ciao for now!
This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor PivotalTracker.
In last week’s episode of Build, we dove into the benefits and best practices around recruiting remote workers. But as you’ve learned from last month’s Build episodes, it’s not enough to hire talent, you also need to onboard new hires by training them!
Training someone to be on a remote team might seem like a challenge since they aren’t sitting next to you. Those who are new to setting up a remote team think that training face-to-face is just easier because you can answer questions as they come up. And it may seem easier when it training multiple hires. But rest assured you can train remote workers, and in a way that scales as you hire multiple people at once.
In today’s episode, we’re going to share a number of proven strategies that have worked across job roles.
Once you’ve trained your remote workers, you might be wondering how to hold them accountable and retain them long term. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered ;)
We’ll be share fool-proof techniques for holding remote workers accountable and how to retain them long-term.
One last thing to keep in mind—there is a difference between a remote-first versus a remote-friendly company. If you’re not familiar with the difference, we’re going to dive into it and talk about how it can impact long-term retention of your remote workers.
Holly Cardew the Founder of Pixc is back to help us out. Holly has grown and scaled her team across Australia and Asia. And has done so in a number of job functions spanning both the business side with roles such as virtual assistants and marketers, to the technical side hiring software developers and designers to build the product.
As you listen to today’s episode you’ll learn:
Check out these additional resources on remote working:
If you have a remote team, how do you train, retain, and hold your employees accountable? Let us know in the comments below.
--
Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.
## Proven Strategies For Training And Retaining Remote Workers Transcript
Poornima Vijayashanker: In the previous *Build* episode, we shared a number of strategies for recruiting remote workers. If you missed the episode, I've included the link to it below. Now, it's not enough to just recruit employees. You've also got to train them, hold them accountable, and retain them. In today's episode, we'll dive into how to do this, so stay tuned.
Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. In each episode, innovators and I debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech. As an employer, once you've recruited remote workers, you need to train them, you need to hold them accountable, and of course figure out ways to retain them. If you're wondering how, Holly Cardew, who's the CEO and Founder of Pixc, is back. Today we're going to be sharing a number of strategies on how to do this. Thanks for coming back, Holly.
Holly Cardew: Thanks for having me again.
Remote-first versus remote-friendly
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. OK, Holly, one of the biggest misconceptions around retaining remote workers is this idea of remote-first versus remote-friendly. Maybe you can explain what each of these are and how they impact retention.
Holly Cardew: Sure, so the difference...Well, what remote-first is means that everybody is remote. There is no head office. There is no main office. Everybody can work from home. They could work in a coworking space or a café.
Remote-friendly is that there is essentially an office, and then the office allows you to be at home or at the office when you would like. We've never had remote-friendly. We've always been remote-first.
Why remote working doesn’t work: communication and collaboration breaks down with remote-friendly
But the issue I see with remote-friendly is that there is a lot of miscommunication, because everybody is...You can either choose to be involved in the culture and be at the office, or you can be at home. It's kind of a little bit warped, whereas remote-first, because we were remote-first, we had to build a really strong culture from the beginning. There's no thing that I was at the office, or I was at wherever, a space, with three employees and not the other 20. That's where I think in terms of retaining, it's just really important to build a strong culture either way, but there is a little bit of miscommunication in the remote-friendly one.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Do you think people feel left out maybe?
Holly Cardew: Yes, definitely. Well, they may or they may just not want to get involved, which therefore impacts the team because the team feel like...The team who are in the office feel like they're doing more, and the person at home may not be.
What you need in place before you train remote workers
Poornima Vijayashanker: Got it. OK. We also know that in any company, in order to retain employees, you have to train them, but it can be a challenge to train people when they're not right in front of you. What are some best practices when it comes to training remote workers?
Holly Cardew: It's so important to document. At the beginning, I didn't document. I would get on Skype or Google Hangouts, and I would tell the same person the same thing. I realized that I was repeating myself.
Our best practice is really to document, but also make everybody responsible for documenting.
It's not my job to write everybody's roles. I always tell the next person I hire that they're going to be responsible for the next team member that joins. They need to keep their own documentation.
We've also started Google Sites, so we have Google Sites which also connects to Google Drive and Google Documents, but that place is like...Google Sites is really the place for us where we can talk about the culture, the values, and the missions of the company, but then have all the documentation in there. It's a one, sort of essential portal.
Best practices for training remote workers
Poornima Vijayashanker: Nice. Then what about when it comes to actually training people?
Holly Cardew: It depends on what team they're in. We usually have an onboarding process with their team lead, whether it's marketing or customer service or engineering. Then we have a weekly team meeting. They'll have an onboarding session, but we have check-ins, more check-ins I would say at the beginning than further on down the track.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Mm-hmm. A couple things that we do at Femgineer are I record all the videos, because like yourself, I got tired of saying the same thing over and over again. The other is I have screencasts, and I also have an employee handbook, and much like yourself, have people update that once a quarter. As we scale my training efforts, do you have any that you recommend?
Record training sessions
Holly Cardew: We actually do a lot of what you do. I think that you made a really good point. We do a lot of screencasts as well. I think we try and implement the philosophy that even if you're just doing a quick call...They may have been in the job for six months, but if you're doing a call with somebody via Google Hangouts, record it. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just put it in the folder with that question or showing that person how it's done, so the next person who comes along doesn't have to ask the same question.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. I also do it for our meetings, because sometimes people get sick.
Holly Cardew: Yeah, definitely.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Instead of having one person type up all the notes or play phone tag, it's easier to just say, "Hey, watch the recording. If you want, watch it, double the speed." It's a great way to stay efficient and keep everybody in sync.
Holly Cardew: Do you record every week or every meeting?
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yes, we do record all of our all-hands. Then if it's a particularly training meeting, if I'm walking somebody through it, then I'll also do the recording. Zoom has been great for us to do the recordings. It just automatically records it. Then I'll upload it to Google Drive and label it whatever the training was about.
Holly Cardew: Cool. Where do you put all your documentation?
Poornima Vijayashanker: In Google Drive.
Holly Cardew: OK.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah.
Holly Cardew: Sorry.
How to hold remote workers accountable
Poornima Vijayashanker: Similar. Yeah. On the flip side, there's also accountability. I know a lot of times managers feel like if somebody's just sitting right next to them or in the cubicle farm somewhere, they're a lot more present and they're getting work done. But I've been in environments where people spent that eight hours in their cube surfing the internet. How do you hold people accountable in a remote team when they're not even near you, you can't see them?
Holly Cardew: For us, it's really about the goal and the work that they achieve. We could be counting hours and minutes and what they're doing. Some days, I do get a little slightly frustrated, because I want the person to be...I expect them to be there and they're not, but at the same time, we're flexible with time. It's about getting the work done. If people have never hired online before, I actually suggest for them to use a time tracker. I know that platforms like Upwork have...What they do is they take a screenshot of the screen every 10 minutes, and you can check a work diary of what the person's doing.
How to divvy up tasks and set goals with remote workers
For us, it's really about trusting the person at the end of the day. I don't want to sit there and look over their shoulder every single minute on what they're doing online. I just want them to deliver high-quality output of their work and their goals for the month or for the quarter. What we've done is we've set up team goals. Instead of me setting goals for the team, we agree on them. They can say, "Holly, that's not achievable," or, "Yes, that is achievable," or, "That's a push goal," but we both agree before moving forward. Then they can't come back and say, "That was too much work," because they also agreed to it.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, but what about some of those nitty-gritty tasks like, "Oh, I thought so-and-so was going to write this blog post, but then they didn't, so it didn't get it done"?
Holly Cardew: No, we have everything documented in spreadsheets.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Good.
Holly Cardew: Like the task at hand and the person responsible and the due date.
Remote working and collaboration
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yup. Yeah, we actually do that as well at the beginning of the week when we do our all-hands. People are supposed to come in with their Trello already filled out—
Holly Cardew: Oh, that's interesting.
Poornima Vijayashanker: —on what the tasks are going to be. It's also a great way to then, if somebody can't do a task, to hand it off. The checklists and all the documentation is in there, and that way, if for whatever reason it doesn't get done, someone else can pick it up and run with it. We're still flexible within that. If it's really like, "Oh, this person had five tasks, and it was unreasonable that week," then it's OK, but if you look and see that none of the five tasks were done, then clearly something is up. I feel like the tools have evolved to a point now where it becomes very transparent on who's getting stuff done and who isn't.
Holly Cardew: Definitely. We have all the tasks listed out. We have used Trello depending on what the role is, again, so we're doing some new feature builds. It involves having the UX and the front-end engineer and the back-end, so we want to keep it all on track. We do use JIRA, too. We probably use one too many tools, but I think everything's well-documented, so we know who's doing what and if it's being achieved.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, and then just going back and kind of grooming that periodically to see if things are no longer a priority or aligned to your goals.
Holly Cardew: Yeah, definitely.
Why you need a communication escalation framework to keep your remote workers productive
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yes. As your team scales, communication obviously becomes a bottleneck. What would you recommend to keeping people in sync?
Holly Cardew: What we do is we've actually broken up in the teams into mini-teams, so tech and product, and then marketing and customer service, and then internal operations. The reason for that is we don't...The tech don't really need to know some of the details, and I don't want to confuse everybody. We have weekly meetings but in those sort of mini-meetings. Then it means that there's no miscommunication. It's quite easy for a small team of four to get together rather than a team of 23.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Sure, that makes sense. Another best practice that I have kind of discovered over time is communication escalation, because it's very easy for people to think that texting has to happen no matter what. I actually over time came up with a framework where, for example, email was for reference. Using a tool like Slack is great for daily communication, archiving messages, kind of going back and taking a look. You could even have a water cooler. Do you have anything like this in terms of communication escalation?
Holly Cardew: We do. I haven't put in a proper framework, but I think over time it's evolved that people do understand that, yeah, Slack is for daily chat. Email, we still quite like email, because it is a bit like to-do. For me personally, it's like a to-do list. Then if it's an ultimate emergency, WhatsApp. WhatsApp's the place.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
Holly Cardew: No matter where you are, it's handy. We actually have our groups on WhatsApp, so we have our tech and product, our marketing and customer service broken down, so when there is an issue, they can go to a different group. It's a little bit like Slack in that way.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, but it's good to have that breakdown. Otherwise, people feel like, "Why are you texting me all the time?"
Holly Cardew: Exactly.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Or, "why are you emailing me all the time?" Having that, I think, is important and figuring out what works for your team versus another team.
How to coach remote workers to be more resourceful
Holly Cardew: I think also as the leader, it's important that if somebody does email you something, and there is information out there, rather than giving them the answer, in a nice and polite way point them in the direction to say, "You didn't need to email me this for this question. You could have figured it out."
Poornima Vijayashanker: Right. Exactly. This is great advice, Holly. I know our audience out there is going to benefit from all this.
Holly Cardew: Thanks for having me again here.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Holly and I want to know. If you have a remote team, how do you train, retain, and hold your employees accountable? Let us know in the comments below this video. That's it for this week's episode. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next episode where we're going to talk about how a number of these processes will change depending on the nature of work, whether you've got a high-stakes project or just daily tasks. Ciao for now. This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.
Remember our fun live pilot episode back in January 2015? In case you forgot about it or missed it, it was on How To Build A Happy And Productive Remote Team with Ben Congleton the CEO and Co-Founder of Olark. In it, we debunked a number of remote working myths such as:
It was great for teams, but then we got questions from individuals who wanted to know how they could get started. So last December, we revisited remote working and focused the conversation around How to Succeed In Your First Remote Working Position with Femgineer’s very own Community Manager: Meghan Burgain.
And it seems like we have only scratched the surface because we still get a lot of questions and concerns on the topic from startup founders and hiring managers.
Most recently, we’ve received questions and concerns are around the hiring process like:
So this month we decided to revisit the theme and created three more episodes on the topic, focused on recruiting, training, retaining, and managing remote workers.
To help us out, I’ve invited a pro on the topic: Holly Cardew the CEO and Founder of Pixc. Holly has grown and scaled her team across Australia and Asia. And has done so in a number of job functions spanning both the business side with roles such as virtual assistants and marketers, to the technical side hiring software developers and designers to build the product.
As you listen to today’s episode you’ll learn:
Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.
## How To Recruit Remote Workers Transcript
Poornima Vijayashanker: We've covered a number of benefits when it comes to remote working in previous episodes. If you've missed any of them, I've included links below. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to actually go about recruiting for your remote team, so stay tuned.
Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. In each episode, innovators and I debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech.
Remote working is becoming the way of the future, and employers who have started embracing it are starting to see the competitive advantages. It's very attractive for employees. In today's episode, we're going to dive into the numerous benefits that employers and employees face when it comes to remote working, and we're going to talk about some of the best practices when it comes to recruiting and retaining employees. And to help us out, I've invited Holly Cardew, who is the CEO and founder of Pixc. Thanks for joining us.
Holly Cardew: Thanks for having me.
Remote working benefits for employers
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, thanks for joining us. You and I have experienced a number of benefits when it comes to running a remote team. For our audience out there, maybe you can share some of the benefits as an employer.
Holly Cardew: Running a company, a remote company, has been beneficial for us, or beneficial for any employer, because what you can do is, you can scale up and scale down depending on what task you need done. You can also hire from a remote pool...Sorry, global pool of talent, rather than a local one. We can also provide customer support 24/7, and in other languages, which is amazing. It's also great because as a company, we're flexible. If something goes down or something happens on the weekend, the employees or the team members can also jump online. They're not so constricted to a specific time.
Remote working benefits for employees
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, and I'm sure there's a number of benefits for the employees, so let's jump into those.
Holly Cardew: I think, for the employees, they love it because it is flexible. At the end of the day, they can live and travel and be wherever they want to. They can work the hours that they want to work. I don't expect someone to be there 9-5. I didn't want to build a company and be in an office 9-5. The employees don't have to necessarily spend an hour and a half in traffic each way every day. So, they can spend that time really focusing on their task at hand.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. Another thing I learned recently was that people who are disabled, or an elderly population, can stay in the workforce longer because of having the ability to work remotely. So, I think that's another great thing, if we can keep maintaining the size of the workforce.
Holly Cardew: Definitely, fantastic. I've also seen that with mothers. We've hired content writers, proofreaders. They're mothers in middle America, or the Philippines. It doesn't matter where they are, they're now able to be with their children before and after school, be really flexible at home.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, we've got one, Meghan, who's been on an episode before. So, yeah, I think it's great for motherhood as well. These are great benefits. Let's talk about the types of roles that are conducive to remote work.
Types of roles for remote workers
Holly Cardew: I actually think anything can be remote. I mean, there are definitely times when you need to be on the ground with the customer, or you need to build a physical product, if you're in hardware or other industries. But really, we have, I don't like to use the word "outsourced," but we have people doing legal, accounting, bookkeeping, engineering tasks, design tasks, customer service, marketing. You name it, it's been done with us. So, I think you can actually use a remote or distributed team for any job.
Poornima Vijayashanker: But I'm sure there's some employees who are better suited for remote work versus others, so tell us what somebody should be looking for in an employee.
Holly Cardew: Yeah, definitely. I find that the people who are most proactive and take initiative are the ones who are better off when they're remote, because they don't need the guidance or the team around them to keep them motivated. I also find that someone who is slightly entrepreneurial, like they may...I had someone who was in the Philippines, and I said, "What do you do in your free time?" And she said, "I import things from America and I sell them at the market on the weekend." And doing that, it makes them think outside the box, as well. You don't have to train them as much.
What to watch out for when recruiting remote workers
Poornima Vijayashanker: That makes sense. And are there signs that you want to watch out for?
Holly Cardew: The signs I would watch out for are people who do need to be around others, and they do need that guidance and training, and they're waiting for you to tell them the next thing to do.
Poornima Vijayashanker: So, people who maybe aren't as self-directed, or possess some of the self-leadership qualities.
Holly Cardew: Definitely.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Which I think is necessary for any employee, but...
Holly Cardew: Definitely, but there are people who are starting out, and they're not used to taking the initiative to go find something. They're used to turning to the person next to them at the office, or university, or wherever they're starting out, and finding the answer.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, that's a good point. So, being proactive about being resourceful, and getting the answers that you need on your own.
Holly Cardew: Especially if they're remote, and I'm sleeping, and another team member's not awake, so they can't get help that way.
Criteria for sourcing and filtering remote working candidates
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah, that's a good point. So, do you have a set of criteria for sourcing candidates that fit?
Holly Cardew: We have quite a, I wouldn't say strict, but a process that we follow every single time. Essentially, we always hire contractors straight away. The reason for that is that we don't have to onboard them for every single task.
So, what we do is, we put out simple things when we put out the job. People, nowadays, they're applying for absolutely everything. They just click the apply button. So, we'll put some sneaky question inside the job, even it's "start your cover letter with a smiley emoji."
And then you can clearly filter out the people who have read the job description. Because when you're remote, there's a lot of reading, rather than face-to-face conversation. So, that filters down some people.
Interview process for remote workers
And then we make a short list, and we interview, and just have a Skype call, about 10-15 minutes. In 10-15 minutes, you can figure out if you're going to...if they culturally fit with the company. I think that's really important. They may be the most amazing person on paper, but if they don't fit with your remote culture, it won't work. And then we give them a trial task, and then after that, if they're successful, we hire them for approximately two weeks to a month to figure out how it works with the company, and then we scale up from there.
How to setup a trial project to test candidates
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. The trial task is one that I do, too. I call it a "task project," and I time box it to about 5-10 hours. I limit it to maybe the two people that I feel have gone through the interview and done a good job, and I actually end up paying them for that trial time.
Holly Cardew: Yeah, that's exactly what we do. Exactly the same. We also do a trial task, about 5-10, depending on the role. If it's a social media thing, it might be, give me 20 posts that you would post up, or some advice on what you would change on our current social media. But if it's an engineering project, yeah, it would be 5-10 hours, maybe a page, and pay for that task, and then decide from there.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah. And how do you communicate that to them? Because I know some people are immediately like, "I'm not doing this," and then some people actually take the effort, and I can tell just based on that, who's going to be a good employee versus, OK, clearly you're not interested. So, do you start to see signals like that?
Holly Cardew: We've definitely had the same thing.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Yeah? OK.
Why a trial project helps filter candidates
Holly Cardew: It's sort of like a self-filtering mechanism for us. I think most people who have already...If they're local and they haven't had a remote job yet, they're probably a bit standoffish. But most people who are freelance, or have worked remote, they are used to that.
Poornima Vijayashanker: And then there are some people that think remote working is for them, even though they've never done it before. Like you said, someone who is new to remote working, and they might not know the criteria. Do you have any filters, or ways in which you recruit them?
How you can spot signs that a remote worker can be self-directed and resourceful
Holly Cardew: I think, what we have looked at is that if people are entrepreneurial, they usually have done some small task by themselves. The other one is, I've asked if they've done any side projects, and I ask them to show me their side projects. Like, what do they do in their free time on the weekend? If they don't do something that is slightly work-related...engineers may build something. Marketing people might start their own website to self-promote. So, I look for those things before hiring someone who hasn't had a remote job.
If they have started, it's really about trial and error, and talking to them, talking through. I have friends who are definitely, they say straight up, "I need to be around people." The other option is, you can actually provide them with co-working space.
How to provide remote workers opportunities to be around other people
In some situations, I've either provided them with co-working space, or there was another situation where I had someone in Manila, and I knew the people at the Uber office in Manila, so I made a connection for her to go meet with the community manager at Manila, so she could learn from them. And then, it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to have the people in your company around them, they just need inspiration from other people.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Nice. Yeah. And that's a good point, because it does get lonesome, and coffee shops don't always have the best internet. The co-working could be great. Hiring sight unseen can be challenging. I know, when I initially did it, I wasn't as good, but over the years, I've gotten better. How have you managed to get the best candidates out of the pool?
What to watch out for—red flags to spot early on when hiring remote workers
Holly Cardew: I think, going back to my previous answer, is that really it's about the cultural fit of the person. If your values and the culture doesn't fit, it won't work. I had someone who I was interviewing, and they were so good. I really wanted them. They were an early employee at a huge company that's IPOed. They would have been...It would have been really beneficial to the company, but we didn't see eye-to-eye on hiring, growing the team. We discussed how we would grow the team, and how we would go about it, and it did not fit. Even though it wasn't an issue then and there, I could foresee, going forward, that it would be a huge issue when we wanted to expand the team. So, it was really about the values.
The other thing is that you really need to trust your gut. At the beginning, you're early on, you're starry-eyed. You think everything is amazing, and you just want to get these people on board, but deep down, if you know that it's not going to work, don't do it.
Crucial conversations to have with candidates
Poornima Vijayashanker: One nugget in there was having these crucial conversations, right? You said that you had the conversation about how they were going to approach hiring, and you didn't start to see eye-to-eye. So, maybe when it comes to the tasks, or whatever the next milestone is, have those conversations, and that way, you start to uncover what their philosophy is, to see if there's alignment and a good fit.
Holly Cardew: Yeah, definitely. I think, it's like any relationship. You need to be able to have a hard conversation. And sometimes, you don't...As a CEO, what's really challenging is, you don't actually get along with everyone perfectly. But as long as you can have a hard conversation, and come to a conclusion, then it's OK. But if something really doesn't fit in your values...
Poornima Vijayashanker: Better to expose that early on.
Holly Cardew: Yeah, exactly. Move on, rather than try and make it fit at the beginning.
Poornima Vijayashanker: Well, these are great practices, Holly. Thanks for sharing them with us.
Holly Cardew: Thanks for having me.
Poornima Vijayashanker: So, now, Holly and I want to know, if you have put a remote team in place, what was your process for recruiting? Let us know in the comments below. And that's it for this week's episode of *Build*. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next episode, where we'll talk about how to hold employees accountable and retain them. Ciao for now.
This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.