Lessons From Growing Doist To 70+ Remote Employees With CTO Gonçalo Silva

07/23/19 • 50 min

The Pesto Podcast - The Latest In Startups, Remote Work, And Tech

Hey Pesto Podcast listeners, Today I’m incredibly excited to sit down with the CTO of Doist, Gonçalo Silva. Doist is the company behind a few of my favorites apps, Todoist and Twist and is one of the leading tech companies who are fully distributed. I’ve been a big fan of Doist for a while now their growth being fully bootstrapped has been quite impressive. Today’s interview is packed with insights of building a remote team, some of the many challenges startups face today, and how to improve internal communication. Here are a few things you’ll learn in today’s interview. How and why Doist became a 100% distributed team and the benefits of going “all in.” Why the Doist team created Twist and the importance of asynchronous communication when working remotely. The downside of having real-time chats all the time, and how to get deep work done. Why Doist has its leadership team channel open to everyone. The disadvantages of working remote and why facetime is crucial even when running a distributed team. What Doist learned from implementing “casual hangouts” and what they are doing now. How your remote work processes change as you scale and the keys to avoiding the biggest remote work mistakes. And much more. Whether you’re simply looking to become more productive at work or want to learn from one of the smartest leaders in tech today, I know you’ll get a ton out of today’s interview. Listen to my interview with Gonçalo Silva here. Andrew Linfoot Co-founder/Co-CEO @ Pesto

Previous Episode

How To Hire Great Engineers And Other Remote Work Hacks With Christina Kim

Hey Pesto Podcast listeners, First off, on behalf of the entire team, I want to say thank you so much for the comments and support for episode 1! We are incredibly excited to keep the momentum going, and I know you’re going to love today’s episode with Christina Kim, a founding engineer at Sourceress. Sourceressworks to help companies find the best candidates for your roles and writes thoughtful, personalized emails to them on your behalf. A lack of inbound hiring candidates is one of the biggest challenges startups face today. In today’s episode, we cover everything from how to hire the right employees to the secret to scaling your remote team. Here are just a few things you’ll learn in today’s episode. Why the hiring process for startups is so challenging, and how to improve your process. How to include team members who are not working on site. An inside look at some of the experiments Sourceress runs to improve productivity and internal communication. Why Sourceress finally decided to implement remote working. A better alternative to relying on DM’s to for internal communication. Christina’s best tips for effective remote working. How to avoid having a ‘strict’ working schedule while remaining productive. Why trust is so important when growing a remote team. And much more. If you’re thinking about going remote, or already have a remote team, you don’t want to miss today’s show.

Next Episode

The State of Remote Work With Liam Martin

About Today’s Guest

Liam Martin is the cofounder and CMO of TimeDoctor.com and Staff.com and runs Re
Liam’s Twitter

Hey Pesto Podcast listeners,

Today I’m stoked to sit down with the Liam Martin, cofounder of TimeDoctor.com and Staff.com.

He is also responsible for putting together one of the largest conferences devoted specifically to those who are working remotely.

Not only is Liam one of the nicest people I know (he’s Candian after all), he’s incredibly intune with the current state of remote work and how to achieve peak productivity.
Here are a few things you’ll learn in today’s interview.

The current state of ‘digital nomadism’ and what to expect over the next few years.

The essential tools needed to work effectively while remote.

How to build trust through transparency with your team

The sweet spot of how much you should work each day as a remote worker.

Liam’s thoughts on the difference between being productive vs busy.

The most important metrics to track when running or growing a remote team.

Documentation best practices to help you scale your remote team.

And much more.

It was a pleasure having Liam on the show, and we cover a ton of actionable tips on how to become more productive and scale your remote team.

Andrew Linfoot
Co-founder/Co-CEO @ Pesto