Mike Knoop on Product and Design Processes for Remote Teams with Kevin Hale

Mike Knoop is cofounder and Chief Product Officer at Zapier, which was in the YC Summer 2012 batch. Zapier moves information between your web apps automatically. https://twitter.com/mikeknoop https://zapier.com Kevin Hale is a Visiting Partner at YC. Before YC Kevin was the cofounder of Wufoo, which was funded by YC in 2006 and acquired by SurveyMonkey in 2011. https://twitter.com/ilikevests The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon. https://twitter.com/craigcannon *** Topics 00:10 - Kevin's intro 00:30 - Mike's intro 1:30 - How Mike and Kevin met 3:30 - Market sizing for consumer software 4:40 - Zapier's growth strategy today vs 2012 5:55 - Jumpstarting a platform like Zapier 8:30 - Building an app directory before building a product 10:30 - Applying to YC twice 12:50 - Zapier after Demo Day 14:15 - Zapier's first remote hire 16:15 - Remote companies not being perceived as legitimate 18:15 - Noticing remote was working then committing 20:55 - Qualities to look for when hiring remote employees 23:55 - Nina Mehta asks - What’s the best way to share work and knowledge across designers working on different parts of product without distracting from focused working time? 25:25 - Remote mistakes in the early days 27:00 - When to change modes of communication to allow for deep work 28:55 - When to ask for someone's full attention 31:00 - Product and design practices at Zapier 34:05 - OKRs for teams vs individuals 39:15 - Tools for remote teams 43:15 - No internal email at Zapier 46:20 - Keeping morale high in a remote team 48:45 - What happens at a Zapier retreat 51:10 - Remote design critiques 56:10 - Serendipity and over optimizing for it 58:00 - Setting up a remote company for success