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This Week in Startups

E1060 AMA: Range CEO & Co-Founder Dan Pupius answers questions from founders: meeting & collaborating with Evan Williams, divvying up time while building a remote team, product development advice, benefits of co-founders & more

This Week in Startups

Jason Calacanis

Technology

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Range CEO & Co-Founder Dan Pupius answers questions from founders: meeting & collaborating with Evan Williams, divvying up time while building a remote team, product development advice, benefits of co-founders & more

Join the TWiST Slack: https://launchevents.typeform.com/to/kLq5Bi

Check out Range: https://www.range.co/

Questions:

0:50 Laura: Interested in learning more about what made you want to build a company that focused on remote work? Do you personally find it challenging not to be in the same physical space as your team/the companies you work for?

2:46 Knyck: What advice would you give around developing and sticking to a product development roadmap as a first-time founder? What’s a good way to establish and calibrate sprint lengths when looking at various aspects of the build?

5:48 Henry: What are best practices around building a tight mission-driven culture when working remotely given people are not interacting face to face physically on a daily basis and focus may be impaired?

8:10 Kevin: Have you received any downstream investor interest since the start of mass quarantine across the US? Do investors see this as an opportunity?

8:57 Ciara: Can you share a little about where you want to be in 18-24 months with Range? How are you planning on scaling and what does your product roadmap look like?

10:51 Nick/Presh: How did you meet Evan Williams, what’s the story of you leaving Google for Medium, and what are some amazing insights/lessons you learned from working with him? What makes him stand out as a founder?

13:41 James: Really like the use of daily check-ins and achievement tracking within Range to keep people on track. How can we encourage these actions in important areas outside of work, where people aren't directly incentivized/forced to do so (fitness, eating, learning)?

15:52 Charles: What do you look for in a co-founder and what advice would you give to founders looking for one? Do they even need to? Also, Marmite, love it or hate it?

18:23 Lizette: What should self-funded startups be thinking about right now and 24-36 months out?

20:45 Sean: Any tips on joining a (small) tech team as a new leader? Especially fully remote?

23:24 Amanda: How did Google change in the 7 years you were there in terms of culture and product roadmap? What was it like when you joined and when you left?

25:41 Ian: How has being an Industrial designer and software developer given you insights for Range and remote working? Are you a leader or a co-founder, can you be both.

28:58 Ian: What are people expecting from a question about "culture", what are they expecting others to give them. For me, If you don't know what culture you want, you simply don't know what you want or where you are going.

32:20 Sanford: How do you split up your day starting a remote company? Do you have days when you do certain work?

34:36 Jason: What do we lose by being remote and how do we get it back if we stay remote?

37:25 Nick: You said you met Evan Williams at The Grove, what’s your go-to meal? (My favorite breakfast burrito in SF)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Today on this week in startups, we haven't asked me anything featuring Ranged CEO and

0:06.2

co-founder Dan Pupias. This AMA was recorded live in our Twist Slack channel to participate in weekly amas and

0:16.4

discuss all aspects of startup life with Jason and our community of 25,000

0:22.4

founders join us at this and our community of 25,000 founders,

0:23.4

join us at this week in startups.com slash Slack.

0:28.5

This episode is brought to you ad free.

0:31.6

Thanks to our partners Dell Silicon Valley Bank and Clavio.

0:37.0

Well, hi everyone, I'm happy to be here. My name is Dan Bupias, co-founder of Range.

0:42.0

In past lives, I worked at Google and Medium. CEO and co-founder of Range.

0:42.5

Past Lives, I worked at Google and Medium,

0:46.4

and excited to answer some of the questions.

0:48.6

So I guess I'll just jump straight in.

0:51.1

So Laura asks, interested in learning more about what made you want to build a company that focused on remote work.

0:57.0

Do you find it personally challenging not to be the same physical space with your team and the companies you work for?

1:02.0

So we actually didn't start raising. with your team and the companies you work for.

1:08.0

So we actually didn't start range to be remote first or a remote work company. We were mostly interested in making work better for everyone and we did a lot of research into some of the challenges organizations face as they scale.

1:18.0

And what we noticed was that remote companies are generally more intentional about how they set up their processes and they also, the problems that the remote companies face are essentially amplified versions of the problems that you face in person. the how they were in collaborate, it resonated most with remote companies.

1:44.4

So our early customer base is around 80% distributed.

1:47.5

They were in multiple time zones.

1:50.8

So and then I think we did predict the advent of remote work becoming more popular and then obviously the COVID situation has really pushed that to the forefront and everyone's been accelerated into that that mode of operation.

2:06.2

And then from a personal point of view around the not not being in the same physical space

2:10.0

I actually don't find it challenging. I do like working in an office I like having a desk I like having a

...

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