How Hotjar Built A 100% Distributed Company

How Hotjar Built A 100% Distributed CompanyHow Hotjar Built A 100% Distributed CompanyIm a digital nomad, I work remotely 100% of the time. Nearly everyone I know would love this kind of life. But as much as it sounds exciting and easy, it comes with major challenges. From my own experience, bad internet connection which makes you repeat yourself endlessly is just the beginning.I wanted to know how 100% remote working companies handle these challenges. After doing some research, Hotjar kept coming up as an example. A few emails later, I was very excited that Ken, their VP of Operations, agreed to have a chat about how Hotjar mastered remote work.Somebody Needed to Make MoneyKens first week at Hotjar on a company retreat in Malta.At the interview, Ken was working from a standing desk at a Greenpoint Coworking in Cape Town, South Africa. (And the internet connection was exceptional) When asked how he started at Hotjar, he explained that 3 years ago he and his wife decided to change the ir lives and become nomadic. At that time, Ken was in a corporate world which he loved, but despite that, he took a year off and travelled from the US to Central America with the whole family. After a year they realized they loved it, but somebody needed to make money.Then, he saw an ad for a gig at Hotjar. It was a phenomenal match of his background, culture, and passions. When I asked about his first day, he started laughing and explained it was actually a retreat in Malta. He had just accepted the job a week prior while living in Belize. They flew him to Malta to meet his colleagues who hed never even seen in person.Ever since, Kens been leading the operations gruppe, thinking of ways to improve Hotjars company culture, internal processes, HR and, as he giggled, anything that David, our CEO, doesnt want to do.We then moved on to things that make Hotjar a successful remote company.Your work speaks for itself.Since its launch in 2014, the company has grown to 10 million Annual Rec urring Revenue (ARR) in 2017. Their team has grown from the five co-founders to over 40. Asked what makes Hotjar a successful remote company, he said One of the things that is so key and pivotal to make a remote company work is transparency.Hotjars team members know far more about their company than a typical employee, including 100% of the financials and company performance data. Put simply, Theres no hiding. That transparency also extends to all online communication. Whether its Hipchat, email, or Basecamp. Personalities and the way people work show through these tools. As a remote company, we understand that sitting behind a desk in an geschftszimmer together doesnt mean you do a better job. Your work speaks for itself. This transparency builds extraordinary trust and collaboration.In his study, Professor Noam Wasserman looked at 6,500 failed businesses, 65% of which failed as a result of co-founder conflict or a bad company culture. You could count Hotjar as true believers. They ve built their success on strong, well-defined company values.Related articlesPros and Cons of working in a startupThe key to Leanplums epic growth? Company cultureWhat I mastered about remote workingHow do you work? How do you communicate?Being a remote company, everything needs to be well established and thought through for Hotjar, especially the hiring process. As VP of Operations, Ken makes sure everything is well organized and grounded in their values. At different stages of the hiring process, they test those values in each candidate. For example, one of their values is giving and taking feedback. So, they embed tasks and evaluations into their hiring process to learn how each candidate responds to and gives feedback.Giving tasks as a part of hiring isnt that unique (we do it too), so I wanted to know how Hotjar approaches this in their own way. Ken put it simply We pay individuals to complete a task that simulates their role but also provides value to us. And we can turn arou nd and implement even if they arent the right person.Most interesting for me was the team involvement aspect of Hotjars hiring. Many of their hires have never worked remotely, so they often ask How do you work and communicate? Dont you get bored when youre working from home, not an office? Thats why Hotjar simulates remote working for them before they get hired. It helps candidates understand whether or not remote feels right for them. It also gives us the opposite a chance to see how they work in such environment. Are they quick to pick up the tools that we use, the jargon? It also exposes them to our team members and likewise, our team members get to interact with people who are checking us out. An onboarding process that rocksHotjars Trello board for an onboarding process.If Hotjar hires you, the onboarding process starts before your first day. The first thing that occurs is the team member from our operations team reaches out and introduces themselves. Together, they define wha t kind of office set-up or computer the individual needs. Hotjar provides an office allowance to purchase the tools that are necessary for the team members without any restrictions. Then all their accounts are set up and everythings shipped to the new team member.In addition to their new computer, we also send a welcome packet. It includes stuff such as t-shirts, stickers, Kindle, Fitbit, as well as a couple of books that are critical to some of our values.One of the books is Strengths 2.0, which each new hire reads within the first week, completing a survey to define their top strengths, and putting them into a spreadsheet. This helps their remote team to get to know each other better. Just because you see somebody, it doesnt mean you understand their personality type. This is a way to know more about others than youd traditionally know when you meet them for the first time.On their first day, new hires are welcomed with a self-service Trello board that gives them a series of tasks to get set up. This includes reaching out to certain team members to schedule onboarding calls, joining demo and training meetings, and introducing themselves by sharing 10 fun facts about yourself Ken added.If you want to be a successful remote companyMake everybody 100% remote. This was a surprising statement, something we hadnt considered at . We let employees work remotely whenever they like. Also, we have a Dublin office now, with two members(the rest of us are in Sofia). (Read Vessys story on how she mastered remote working). Ken continued, if half of your company works in an office and sees each other every day, and the other half doesnt, this other half will clearly miss the interactions that the others are having physically every single day. Because of that, it kind of creates 2 different company cultures, that are physical and those that are virtual.Hotjar has an official office in Malta where its founders are from, but they only use it for retreats and as a mailing addre ss. Their diverse team lives around the Americas, Europe, and Asia, enjoying a huge variety of lifestyles.We tell our potential hires if you join Hotjar, be preparedto travel 3-4 times a year. As a person who loves travelling, this would be music to my ears Hotjars team travels twice a year to all company meetups, which are usually a week long. They always choose a fun place with fun activities. The last two meetups were in Park City, Utah for a winter meetup and Marbella, Spain for a summer meetup. This brought back memories from our last retreat in Venice. Creating great memories for the team is something both Hotjar and us at are passionate about.Hotjar also organizes smaller meetups for their teams. Our DEV team would meet for hackathons, which are 3 days of heads down, cranking on critical stuff or new ideas. The operations team calls it a docuthon, which means we work strictly on documentation.Sometimes you can feel a bit isolatedEven though I love it so much, I do miss the ability to say Hey, lets go bestattungs a beer after work, or lets get our kids together. That doesnt exist unless you happen to live in the same town, which is pretty rare.Just as it is with our CSO whos alone in Dublin, Ken mentioned that sometimes you can feel a bit isolated. As a VP of operations, he tries to tackle such situations by coming up with different ideas. A new thing that we tried is encouraging team members to write in a chat Hey, in 15 minutes Im gonna have a coffee break. If youd like to join me, come to this google hangout and get your coffee ready. The last time 10 people showed up. Its important to always try new things and scratch the itch, he added.Ultimately, however, its all been worth it for Hotjar. They would be the first ones to tell you that being a 100% distributed company isnt for everyone. It takes incredible dedication. But the results have spoken for themselves. Today, Ken wouldnt work any other way.