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Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

238 points aml183 | 2 comments | 15 Nov 24 19:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.44s | source

We are a remote company. Everything is going well. No plans to be in person, but I’d say we can do a better job at communicating. Any tips or articles to read?
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paxys ◴[15 Nov 24 20:51 UTC] No.42150868[source]▶
Make conversations public by default. If you use Slack, make team channels, project channels, announcement channels etc. all public. Discourage 1:1 and private communication unless really necessary, especially for engineering topics. This single change will have an immense impact on overall company culture.
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szszrk ◴[15 Nov 24 21:10 UTC] No.42151105[source]▶
How to find comfort for and include characters that don't like the spotlight? At least not during early phase/brainstorming.

I've worked with many great people that hate to handle things without their usual group first, and will stall until a reasonable approach can be presented. Which means creating shadow communication process - the more you push for "discouraging 1:1" the more they will hide.

What your organisation did with such "incompatible" people, relate them until the team left likes how they work, or were there better ideas?

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1. underwater ◴[15 Nov 24 22:58 UTC] No.42152238[source]▶
In my experience, most of the time this can be solved by resetting expectations. Once people learn that asking basic questions won’t open them up to mockery, things move a lot smoother for everyone.

After all, a culture on 1:1 communication has a lot of downsides. The same question gets asked repeatedly, replies don’t become searchable, the same people (usually the most experienced) end up being constantly tapped for answers

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2. swader999 ◴[19 Nov 24 20:22 UTC] No.42187681[source]▶
That's key, it has to be considered safe to ask questions. Anyone mocking or showing contempt to another on a channel would be immediately reprimanded in private by managers at my company.