October 18, 2022 • 44 mins
The whole Transistor team got together for a retreat in Montréal. Jon, Justin, Helen, and Jason chat about the experience.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon (00:12):
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the
behind the scenes story ofbuilding a web app in 2022. I'm
Jon Buddha, a software engineer.
Helen (00:21):
I'm Helen. I'm in charge of customer success.
Jason (00:23):
I'm Jason, and I'm a software engineer.
Justin (00:25):
And I'm Justin Jackson. I do product and marketing.
Follow along as we buildtransistor.fm. 2nd episode with
all of us together.
Jon (00:42):
Alright. Getting the Getting the team back.
Justin (00:44):
Got got the whole team on the call, and we just got
back from our first ever Teamretreat in Montreal. We we were
we were there about a week ago.Right? Yeah. It was a week ago.
Jon (01:01):
Yeah. I think we all came back a week ago or or so.
Justin (01:04):
So we're gonna talk a little bit about remote team
retreats. We're gonna talk aboutwhat we learned, our advice for
other teams. But maybe let'sstart with Everybody's highlight
or just one highlight. Doesn'thave to be your absolute top,
but who has, a highlight theywanna share To start.
Jason (01:24):
I would I'd say I was just trying to think of of 1 a
little bit ago. I I reallyenjoyed the hockey game. I don't
watch sports, like, at all. Sothat was like a a a fun thing
for me, especially hockey. But,it was like a whole like, a, it
was hockey.
B, it was In Canada and then seeeverybody speaks French. And,
(01:45):
like, the the national anthemwas, like, in French first. It
was just, like, a completelydifferent vibe and very fun
experience.
Jon (01:52):
Not not to mention the free food.
Justin (01:54):
Helen organized that one, and somehow she got us
tickets where all the food wasfree
Helen (01:59):
Yeah. How I managed to do that? I'm not quite sure, what
kind of Free free tea, we wereon there, but we managed to get
some free pizza and free hotdogs and things. That was good.
Justin (02:11):
I thought that dude was trolling us. When when we came
in, he was like, food is free.And I was like, is he just
making fun of us or something?And then we went to pay for the
food, and they're like, no. It'sall free.
We're like, what?
Jason (02:27):
It definitely explained the the extremely long lines.
Justin (02:31):
Yeah. Yeah. There's that's why that's pretty good.
How how how is that hockey gamedifferent than, watching a
football game back home, Helen?
Helen (02:39):
Very different. Very civilized, very relaxed.
Everybody seemed to be in goodspirits. It seemed to be like A
very family oriented, night out,really. Yeah.
It was it was good to see. I'mglad we kinda did that. I
enjoyed the hockey game too. Itwas kind of a good introduction
to Montreal because we did it atthe beginning of the week. Kinda
(03:03):
nice to take part in a localevent and, Yeah.
See 2 teams with a a longstanding rivalry, compete,
really. So, yeah, it'sinteresting.
Justin (03:15):
What what did you think of the fan reaction when
Montreal scored their one andonly goal?
Helen (03:19):
Yeah. You would think they had had won the entire Game
or some some major tournament,but no. It was just just one
goal, and, it made it worthWhile waiting till the end,
people were leaving, and, theystill haven't scored. So, I'm
glad they they got one in theend. Yeah.
Justin (03:37):
I think the score was Toronto. This is a preseason
game. So I think both teams weretrying out some of their
rookies, but, I think the finalscore was 71 or something for
Toronto. But, yeah, that wasthat was fun. 2 classic teams on
the ice at the same time, and wehad really good seats.
Drank some cheap Canadian beer.
Jon (03:57):
Got got to watch some Zambonis.
Justin (04:00):
Oh, yeah. Jay Jason, the Zambonis highlight. Hey?
Jason (04:03):
Absolutely the highlight of the game. Always always the
highlight of hockey.
Justin (04:07):
You didn't you didn't approve of their, the way that
they cleared the ice.
Jon (04:11):
You think
Justin (04:11):
be better.
Jason (04:12):
They could've optimized it. Most definitely.
Justin (04:16):
Alright. Let's keep going. Helen, do you have a
highlight? Yeah.
Helen (04:18):
I enjoyed the hockey game. But, So I think for me,
the walks that we took down tothe waterfront or the kind of
unstructured conversation timethat we had where we weren't
talking about a particulartopic, just kind of like the
dinner conversations and thingsthat we had where we had chance
to, yeah, just sort of connectOn a personal level, because I I
guess the purpose of a retreatis to build that connection,
(04:39):
that personal connection. And Ithink those kind of
conversations and just sharingjokes and just talking about the
day that we've had. Yeah. It wasjust a nice way to kind of end
each day, really.
Justin (04:50):
Have we even said where we went? We went to Montreal,
And we stayed in old Montreal,which is this amazing part of
Montreal that's right kind ofalong the water And it's
beautiful beautifularchitecture, but also we could,
like, walk 30 seconds, and wewere along the water. And, yeah,
(05:11):
we had some amazing walks there.Agreed. And the fall colors were
out.
We had, Warm weather every dayfor October. It was perfect.
Jon (05:20):
Weather was perfect.
Justin (05:21):
Really rolled out the welcome for us.
Helen (05:24):
I don't know who picked that week, but Whichever one of
us picked that week, picked thebest weather and the best time
of the year.
Justin (05:31):
Yeah. Hey. Yeah. We bumped it a few times, and then
I think we just ended up. Idon't I can't remember exactly
how we ended up on that week,but, yeah, that was great.
How, how about you, Jon? Any,any highlights off the top of
your head?
Jon (05:45):
Yeah, I think similar to Helen. I mean, I think it was,
you know, the meals we hadtogether and just Spending time
that wasn't necessarilyrevolving around work. And I, I
mean, because we do that All dayonline and, you know, the calls
we have remotely are around workand planning features. And it
was just nice to connect witheveryone in a more personal
(06:10):
level and get to know each othera little better. And.
Justin (06:13):
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason (06:14):
Totally. It was the,
Jon (06:15):
yeah, the unstructured time. We're just hanging out.
That's great.
Justin (06:19):
I I I think we all had this sense multiple times of
just It's weird being a remoteteam. You build up so much
rapport online. You gettogether, and it's almost as if
you've been friends for a longTime, but there's this whole
other dynamic of warmth andconnection and, kind of real
(06:43):
special Time together, that'sthat that's hard to explain and
is also, you definitely don'tget it just in Slack. Just
having time together, going forwalks together, having moments
where we're just sitting around,You know, maybe not talking, but
spending time in each other'spresence. Really, it it there's
(07:07):
really something special aboutit.
And I think for our team,because we like each other so
much, it was even just morespecial. Like, this this group
is, Yeah. I think we came awayfeeling like, wow. This group's
pretty special.
Helen (07:23):
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
Justin (07:25):
My my highlight was discovering that the shortest
member of the transistor team.Here, you
Jon (07:34):
know, on Zoom biggest presence.
Justin (07:36):
Oh, I see. Well, on Zoom, we're all the same height
and then show up and, you know,Helen's taller than me. Jason's
Quite a bit taller than me. Iknow I've always known Jon was
taller than me. It was you know,I'm okay with it, but that was
that was The, the first thingyou notice right away whenever
you meet remote team members is,oh, wow.
That's how tall everyone is.Alright.
Jon (07:58):
Then we probably have probably have an above average
Team height.
Justin (08:02):
Yeah. We probably do. We probably do. That's right. Yeah.
I I keep referencing this factthat I'm not sure if it's true,
which is that I'm 5 foot 8 isthe exact, height of the average
Canadian male, but I I I don'tknow. Don't look that up. It's
just let me live in my world. Ithink people will wanna know how
(08:23):
we planned and organized theretreat, our daily schedule,
what parts of the treat Theretreat worked well. What could
we improve for next time?
Maybe it would be fun for us togo through our our daily
schedule. This part was notsuper planned. Our our document
had, like, AM, afternoon, PM.But, You know, what was the
(08:47):
daily cadence that we we kind offell into? I try
Jon (08:49):
to run through it. Yeah. I I think it worked pretty well
with without really muchplanning. It's sort of planned.
It sort of worked itself out, Ithink.
And everybody was coming fromdifferent time zones except
Jason. So everyone sort of haddifferent, I don't know,
different sleeping schedulesmaybe, or levels of tiredness
(09:10):
depending on the time of day.But, I mean, generally we would
like everybody would wake up ontheir own. We all had our own
rooms. I think we get, we gotbreakfast in the room or
downstairs, A small breakfastsometimes together, sometimes
not.
And then we'd sort of just as agroup text each other and say
we're up and Couple people mightgo to get coffee next door if
(09:32):
they need more. Couple timespeople went for a run-in the
morning. So We were, we werealong the water. There was a
nice path to run on. And then wesort of lazily met up in the
penthouse area, which we had abig meeting area, couple
couches, some tables around 10in the morning.
(09:52):
Yeah. Kind of did our own thing,did some work Customer support,
you know, fixing some bugs orworking on a feature slowly.
And, I think we'd sort ofCasually sort of roll to the
couches and start a groupdiscussion for 1 or 2 hours
(10:14):
about a particular topic wewanted to, we wanted to kinda
get more in-depth on that wedidn't, you know, over over zoom
or our calls. And then at somepoint, we'd all just be like,
oh, we should eat. It's time forlunch.
Justin (10:30):
We got some great recommendations from people in
Montreal, by the way. I justremembering some I think the
first lunch we took was Was thefirst lunch we took that big
three course meal? Yeah.
Jason (10:42):
I think so.
Helen (10:43):
Yeah. I think that was Monday.
Justin (10:44):
It was at Bouillon?
Helen (10:45):
Yeah. Bouillon Bilk.
Justin (10:47):
Bouillon Bilk. That that that was, like, incredible
lunch.
Jon (10:51):
Seemed like predominantly business lunches.
Justin (10:53):
Yeah. Yeah. That place there.
Jon (10:55):
I mean, there was no dress code. I don't know if we were
underdressed, but it worked out.
Justin (10:58):
Yeah. Worked it did work good. And then after lunch, we'd
kind of Hang out, do whatever wewanted. Right? We kinda walk
around sometimes as a group.
Yeah. Nap time.
Jon (11:09):
Get some alone time, take a nap, Maybe go for a run, walk
around, find another coffee.
Justin (11:15):
Yeah. Jason and I were in the afternoon, run category.
Yeah.
Jason (11:21):
Yep. I did too.
Jon (11:21):
I always had intent. Well, I guess I ran once in the
morning, but my intention isalways to run before everything.
And then I just don't.
Justin (11:28):
Yeah. Yeah. And then in the evening, we'd have dinner
again. It was usually I mean, weate really well. I think Yeah.
The, I don't want Jon to look atthe, the expenses for this trip,
but I I felt like the money ondinner was well spent.
Jon (11:45):
Oh, I looked.
Justin (11:50):
And then usually after dinner, we'd come back, and
sometimes hang out in thepenthouse. You guys introduced
me to mister Robot. We watchedthat altogether.
Jon (11:59):
Yeah. That I think that was that was because you were
talking about how much you likedthe movie hackers.
Justin (12:03):
Yes. But I wanted to reedit it without I wanted to
make a fan edit. Yeah. MisterRobot's good. I've I've I've
since shown it to my kids sincewe got back.
We're we're we're on the misterRobot train now.
Jason (12:17):
Have you have you progressed beyond episode 1?
Justin (12:19):
Now because I showed them episode 1, and then and
tonight's Friday. So movienight, we'll we'll probably
watch episode 2. Nice. What whatwere some of your thoughts about
the schedule? I I really likedhow we had You know, you could
get some work done in themorning.
And it's also nice just workingalongside each other. You know?
(12:42):
You can see what Jason and Jonare chatting about back and 4th,
Helen and I can talk about aticket. There's just, like, this
this nice even if we're workingon our own things, it's Just
nice to sometimes be in thatopen office mode, you know, and
then to have a focuseddiscussion every day, I thought
(13:03):
it was great.
Jon (13:04):
We did have some discussions planned out that we
wanted we knew we wanted tocover, which we did.
Justin (13:09):
Yeah. And but before we get into that, any comments on
the schedule, Helen or Jason?Thoughts for other teams? Should
other people do that too?
Helen (13:18):
Yeah. It worked really well. It seemed to be quite
flexible. We had a little bit ofstructure in mind that we all
knew we would be Discussing aparticular topic each day. So,
we tried to kind of prioritizedoing the sort of business as
usual tasks first thing.
So, With me coming from adifferent time zone, I was
probably waking up a little bitearlier than usual. So, I had a
(13:41):
little bit of time before we gottogether to Sort some customer
success things out, which meantwe had the sort of morning to
discuss, remaining issues ortopics And, yeah, just sort of
have an opportunity that,allowed us to kind of come up
with new ideas and and talkabout future features as well.
Justin (14:00):
How about you, Jason? How what'd you think of the the
schedule?
Jason (14:03):
It's good. I mean, originally, we were talking
about, like, a 10 o'clock start,and I'm like, that's pretty
late. But, I I settled into thatpretty quickly. I have a toddler
at home, so the the opportunityto not get Woking up at some
ungodly hour was was prettypleasant. Yeah.
Couple days, I took theopportunity to wander about,
(14:24):
have a have a coffee, sit sitTime. So that was nice.
Justin (14:29):
I mean, it's a team retreat, but I think there's
also this other thing aboutgetting away from home As an
individual, that gives you time,you know, time to be by yourself
in a different place, time towalk around a beautiful
neighborhood or a beautifulsetting, Reflect on your life,
reflect on work. I I likedhaving those those times, you
(14:54):
know? Yeah.
Jon (14:55):
I think, I think it worked really well. I think, you know,
for other teams too, if you'replanning something like this,
like definitely plan somedowntime where people can either
do things by themselves or dothings in small groups or, it
doesn't, I don't think it has tobe planned, like, you know, 9
o'clock in the morning till 9o'clock at night is like a full
schedule of stuff for thecompany.
Justin (15:16):
Yeah. I'm so glad we didn't do that. It just felt
like It felt like every day wehad some work time together.
Every day we had a discussion.And then every day we had a
group activity, and that wasPerfect.
And there was, there was time inbetween to do what you need to
do.
Helen (15:32):
As a team, we're quite light on kind of the number of
meetings we have each week. So,Really, we had kind of a week of
all of those kind of meetingstogether, and also we had, all
of the possible Celebrationsthat we would have had as a team
together all in that one week aswell, whether that would be
holidays or birthdays. We'vecondensed everything into this
one Very sort of intense week,and having a bit of flexibility
(15:57):
really helps with, yeah, just asall have put in our opinion and
then deciding what things we'dlike to to fit into the week?
Justin (16:05):
Yeah. It's it's a good way to put it because you are
celebrating too. It's like, thisis the one time we get to get to
Get together and have a drink,you know, cheers each other,
just kind of celebrate whatwe've accomplished as a team, up
until that point. So I I'mreally glad we structured it
that way. I'd highly recommend asimilar structure unless Unless
(16:29):
your team is completelydifferent, but for our vibe, it
worked well.
So we did have before we went,we had some discussions that we
did each day. So the first daywas a company update. Where are
we at financially? Maybe lookover our direction, where are we
headed, what bigger things arewe trying to accomplish in the
(16:51):
company and in our lives. Wereviewed some of our values.
And then the next day, we had aproduct priorities discussion.
This kinda bled through thewhole the whole week. And,
actually, That was most of it.Product because we we started
with that product discussion,and then that became kind of,
(17:12):
most of the discussion thatweek. And then we also plan to
talk about marketing and salespriorities.
I also put this category calledopen air discussions, which was
Just to make time for people tobring up issues, things they'd
like to be more involved with,things they'd like to change,
things that need clarification.And I think that was kinda
sprinkled throughout the theweek. For for you folks, what
(17:37):
came out of the discussions?Like, what was good about it?
What, you know, What were someof the things that were helpful
about it, comments about it?
Jason (17:45):
I mean, for for me, a thing I'm always trying to
figure out it's like we're kindawhere we're headed as a company.
And there's There's a lot ofways to there's a lot of, I
guess, kinda end goals for thatand to and to really understand.
Like, it's hard to It's hard tohash that out in, like, small
(18:06):
bits and pieces. So, like,talking about that stuff deeply
with everybody and just, like,picking up, like, the vibe on,
like, how people are feelingabout things and what they wanna
do and was really useful and, agood way to understand where
everybody's at.
Justin (18:21):
And And and in high fidelity, like, I yeah. I'd say
a central issue at this point iswhere do we want this company to
go? Like, what is Is there is ais there a longer term
objective? And the centraltension there is probably, You
know, are are we gonna try tobuild this thing bigger in the
(18:42):
sense that it could be acquiredor bigger in the sense that we
could I don't know. I thinkacquisition is, like, the main
question.
And then on the other side ofthat tension is, especially for
Jon and I. But I think for allof us, we, you know, we we
created this company to have a abetter life and to really have a
(19:04):
calm life. And, yeah, I thinkfiguring out those things when
you when you're in person, it'slike one person can Speak, and
then the other person can speak,and there's just this high
bandwidth kind of conversation.And then later on, you're out
for drinks and you can keeptalking about it. It it can just
(19:26):
kinda flow and leak out as wewent along.
Do Do you feel like we do youfeel like we made progress on
that on that that tension atall?
Helen (19:35):
Yeah. I think one thing that you do Get to notice in
person more so than when we'reremotely is people's enthusiasm,
so when a particular topic comesup. I guess at the beginning of
the retreat, perhaps people areperhaps a little bit, starting
to introduce Themselves to eachother and the sort of more
(19:57):
detailed conversations perhapscome out later in the week. But
you kind of really pick up onthe enthusiasm people have
Particular topics, whetherthat's, certain features or
certain feature directions ofthe company, and that makes a
big difference to kind of Feelthat enthusiasm in real life?
Justin (20:14):
Yeah. Like, Jason, Jason, while we're having this
feature discussion, Jasonbrought up this idea of Kinda
how we're gonna organizenetworks and higher level
grouping, features withintransistor. And I think after
you pitched that, Jason, therewas, like, this kind of
(20:35):
palpable, like, enthusiasm aboutThat particular direction. Did
did you feel that too?
Jason (20:42):
Yeah. For sure.
Jon (20:42):
And it
Jason (20:43):
and it's like something, we've briefly talked about
before, but not like, I I don'tthink anybody sort of, like,
deeply thought about it. So,like, as soon as as soon as the
idea was out there, everybodywas kinda iterating on it and
throwing out things that couldbe done with it. And it felt
like, it didn't kind of becomeeverybody's feature that we
(21:08):
wanted to work on.
Jon (21:08):
Yeah. Yeah. The feature discussions, I think worked
really well In person. Like wehaven't, obviously we've never
done that before, but it felt,it felt quite a bit different
than us just planning thingsover zoom. And I don't know if
that's because you're just inpeople's presence and you can
pick up on like talent said theexcitement a little easier, But
(21:30):
also like, you know, you cankeep talking.
We kept talking about thosetopics later in the day. We
didn't just stop necessarily. Soyou can kind of keep the
discussion going. Whereas Ifyou're remote, you know, you
might throw some things inslack, but it's not in person.
It's not quite as detailed.
And I think it can like theexcitement. It can maybe fade
away easier if you're nottogether. So I, I I've, I really
(21:53):
enjoyed the product discussions.Like I haven't, I haven't had
that in a while on a team, youknow, Justin, you and I, like,
we got together and was itJanuary? Yeah.
Yeah. We did some of that andthat, that felt similar, but it
was a little, it was quite a bitdifferent with, you know, Helen
and Jason there as well. Kind ofjust Spit balling and throwing
ideas back and forth and likeriffing on each other and, oh,
(22:15):
what about this? And, kind ofget a better sense of Yeah. How,
how excited people are and justdifferent ideas of how the
future could work.
And yeah, it was, That was good.
Justin (22:29):
And I I think I mean, there's a few things. 1, for me,
I I mean, I've been workingremote, and then I worked
independent for quite a while.So I think my last job where I
was, like, in a room with peopleworking through ideas was
probably 2015 Or 16 maybe. Ican't remember. So it's been a
(22:51):
while since I've been in a room,You know, kind of all working on
something together.
And, I I mean, the this oldcynical version of me was like,
ah, like, All those meetings weused to do at those old
companies were such a waste, butthis was like a new version of
that that really felt good. Itit was like, Oh, wow. Like,
(23:12):
we've been missing this. And aswe try to figure out, like,
we're still, like, figuring outhow to work together, It became
so clear to me that for a remoteteam to really figure out how to
work together, they need tospend some time together,
because it kinda sifts out allof the the rough edges. It,
(23:33):
like, it it At the end of it,you have a a little bit better
sense of how you can work.
And then we did, I can'tremember if it was you, Helen,
that recommended this or, but weended up, changing our Our
weekly meeting our weekly Zoommeeting, do you wanna describe
(23:55):
what we changed, Helen?
Helen (23:57):
So, normally, we would have a Full meeting on a sales
deal that will be centeredaround customer success, whether
that will be feature requests orissues that we want to solve or
things that frustrating forcustomers that we want to
improve upon. And because wehave this kind of, This sort of
(24:17):
feature set that we want to workon as a team as well, we've
decided to kind of split thismeeting a little bit. So we have
a first part of customer successwhere we talk about the requests
people have asked for. And thenwe have the second part, which
is more focused on a particularfeature that we would like to
dive deeper into as a team andsort of shape and, move
(24:42):
something forward. I thinksometimes the meetings we have,
contain a lot of ideas, whereasthe the structure that we've
moved to now seems to be alittle bit more Laser focused on
one particular thing.
We move things forward better.And I think one of the benefits
of the retreat is Our remoteproduct discussions since seem
(25:04):
to flow a little bit better aswell.
Jon (25:07):
Mhmm.
Justin (25:08):
Yeah. I that was a big improvement. And even, there's
sometimes a disconnect. Again,maybe this is because it's been
a long time since I've worked ona team. Maybe because it started
out with just Jon and I, and itwas just Easy for us to just
keep throwing things over thefence to each other.
But I think once we had 2 morepeople, once there 4 of us. For
(25:32):
me, there's a bit of adisconnect between, like, we're
we've got ideas. And then one, Ithink, for Jon and Jason and
everyone else too. We've gotideas. And then how do those
ideas become a practical plan toactually build something?
And we've been loosely followingBasecamp's shape up process. But
(25:53):
often, it felt like in in Slack,the feedback was, we really need
to, like, nail down what What isare the first steps for us to
start working on this thing?Like, how do we get this thing
to the point where we can put itin our project management
software and start working onit. Would you agree with that,
(26:13):
Jon, Jason, Helen? Is that Yeah.
Jon (26:15):
Yeah. We have a, we have a lot of ideas in Slack and the
others. I don't know. I don'tknow if it's a lack of focus,
but it's, we have a lot ofideas, which is a good thing,
but we don't necessarily Tightenthose up often enough, I think.
Jason (26:28):
Some of it's sussing out our collective enthusiasm for
it. Like, they're you know,we're such a small team, and we
have So many ideas that we wouldlike to implement. It's very
difficult to figure out, like,what what we, as a group, like,
wanna tackle first. So It sortof all gets muddied up. But
talking about these things inperson, it's it's it was, like,
(26:51):
pretty clear, like which, whichthings folks had the most
interest in.
I think
Jon (26:56):
I had this out the other day and I don't know if people
agree with this, but like, Ifwe, if we were always in the
same room, like let's say we hadan office and we worked
together. Like, I don't know ifWe'd probably have more meetings
just because may maybe, butlike, I I feel like the these
discussions worked really wellin person because we knew we had
(27:18):
a limited time. Yeah. I don'tknow. I just, it just feels like
if we were in the same officeworking together, like maybe
Because we think we would haveall this time to get together
and talk, we maybe would do itless efficiently or less well.
Like, it just seemed like Yeah.There was something special
about it because it was it's nota frequent thing.
Justin (27:38):
Yeah. I agree. I agree. I think, It it it did almost
feel like we could probably dosomething like that twice a
year, but I definitely felt likewe had the time. We knew we only
had a week together, and and itwas also became clear, like, we
really only have time for, like,a focused One focused discussion
(27:59):
a day if we're gonna keep ourthis kind of schedule.
And so every morning, I waskinda like, okay. Yeah. We gotta
move over to the couches andtalk Because that's gonna be our
moment to have thatconversation. And if we don't do
it in the morning, it might nothappen. I I thought that was
great.
And the other thing I I feltlike was really great is we
(28:19):
really hammered kind of thesediscussions out, all these
feature ideas. We got to, like,what does an initial version
look like? And that seemed toreally clarify things. And when
we got home, we put that initialversion kind of in a shaping doc
and then worked, through ittogether they're just in Google
(28:40):
docs.
Jon (28:40):
Yeah. I mean, we definitely didn't finalize these ideas by
any means, but it was definitelya good jumping off point to
start shaping it and Try tofigure out what, you know, how
to build this thing in pieces orall at once if we need to or
whatever. But
Justin (28:55):
So let's, Quickly go through which parts of the
retreat worked well and whatcould we improve next time. I
thought the location was great.People ask us why we chose
Montreal. I think just becauseit's one of the most unique
cities in North America. It wasfirst time in Canada for Helen.
Is that right?
Helen (29:14):
Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Good introduction to
Canada.
Jon (29:17):
I think part of it was it was, like, centrally located for
all of us, sort of.
Jason (29:22):
Yep. Right.
Jon (29:23):
Like Helen's coming from the east. Justin's coming from
the west. Jason and I are comingfrom the Midwest. It was all
like, Kind of in the middle.
Jason (29:31):
Has anybody actually triangulated the the central
spot between I
Justin (29:36):
put it in a I did put it in a They have these online map
things like meet in the middle,and it's roughly you know,
Helen's flight and my flightwere roughly about the same. You
you folks were more well, Jason,you're east, and then, Jon,
you're more central. So, yeah, II John Young Fook, I think,
from, Bannerbear said Somebodyshould build just a tool, that
(30:00):
triangulates team retreats basedon a number of factors. So not
just distance, but, You know,maybe, you know, cultural cities
or attractions or, you know,time of year And, maybe other
events that are happening thesame time. I think that's a cool
(30:22):
idea.
I don't know if you can make abusiness out of it, but It'd be
a cool little tool that we woulddefinitely use.
Jon (30:27):
Yeah. I thought, yeah, that worked really well. I think the
city was perfect. I'd I'd neverbeen before, but I'd always
heard good things and I wouldtotally back to Montreal and
hang out there. I'm sure there'stons tons left to explore.
Justin (30:39):
Oh, man. I definitely wanna go back. And every person
that stayed Like, Helen and Istayed a day later, and we went
to that amazing light show inNotre Dame. And then Helen
stayed even later than me, andthen she she hiked Mount Royal
without us Yeah. And made usjealous with her her beautiful
photo.
Jason (30:57):
That was a nice photo.
Helen (30:59):
Yeah. I couldn't I couldn't leave without actually
going to, you know, see the parkand go to the mountain.
Justin (31:06):
What'd you folks think of the hotel? We stayed at Epic
Montreal right on, in downtownthere. Sorry. Old Montreal
there?
Helen (31:14):
Yeah. It was a great hotel. It's quite a small hotel,
which was kind of good for us.It kind of felt quite personal.
We were probably the biggestgroup that was staying there.
So, yeah, it was, very, verynice.
Jon (31:27):
And it felt like we were the only people there some days.
Jason (31:31):
I mean, there's, like, there was probably
Jon (31:33):
10 rooms total in that place, Maybe?
Justin (31:36):
Yeah. There wasn't very many rooms. It was nice and
small. And I think CarlAlexander from, from Mega Maker
is the one that that pointed methat direction. I just asked for
recommendations for hotels, and,he had a a friend at that hotel.
The penthouse was prettyawesome. It felt it like, it was
(31:59):
in terms of a place for us toall hang out in.
Jon (32:02):
Had some quirks.
Justin (32:04):
It had it had it had some quirks, but it was like,
the the one quirk was that it ithas a pitched ceiling. Right? Is
that the way you say it? Apitched ceiling?
Jason (32:18):
I think so.
Jon (32:19):
Yeah. Yeah. So
Justin (32:21):
Jason had to walk sideways sometimes to get around
there.
Jason (32:24):
Which is fun. It's it's not that unusual for me.
Justin (32:27):
Yeah. I had this cool loft And, dining table, kitchen,
separate area for TV watching,separate area for, like, couches
and hanging out. So there's,like, Some distinct areas. And
depending on our mood, sometimeswe would all hang out in the
kitchen just on the bar stools.Sometimes we were watching TV.
(32:48):
Sometimes we're at the diningtable. Sometimes we were in the
other kind of coffee place. Hadsome outdoor balconies.
Helen (32:57):
I think some of the recommendations that we had
really helped to Pointed us inthe right direction, whether
that was, restaurants, places tovisit, the hotel, things like
that. So having a city where wePerhaps have connections with
people who are already there,was helpful, and also to
arrange, like, meetups and in inperson Coffee chats, things like
(33:20):
that.
Justin (33:20):
I tweeted about our trip quite a bit and asked folks if
they were you know, hadrecommendations. I, found I I
emailed a list of customers whoare in Montreal and said, hey.
We're in Montreal for a week. Ifyou'd like to meet up, Let's
find a time, and then I justsent them to a reform form that
(33:42):
had a bunch of options. So Helenand I met with, a group of our
customers at MedPlan, which is acommunications agency in
Montreal.
That was really helpful. We cameback fired Fired up from
listening to all their productfeedback. And then, we did
another meetup. Jason and Jonhad left, unfortunately, but we
did one on Friday Afternoon, ata at a restaurant where just
(34:09):
anybody on our list or anybodywho knew that we were there
could come and hang out. So wehad some customers come.
We had some podcasters come,some indie hackers come. That
was that was really fun. Yeah. II love that part personally. I
love, Like, doing a few customerthings on top of, the the
meetup, and we had the space todo it.
(34:30):
So, Yeah. That was great. Ithink we're we probably wanna go
somewhere different every year,but that location was just
amazing. It really set a highbar.
Jason (34:38):
Yeah. I wonder I I have a very skewed view, I think, of
what Montreal looks like becausewe're in this really old,
beautiful area, and we sawVirtually nothing outside of it.
Justin (34:50):
So next time you wanna stay in the suburbs in an
Airbnb, Jason?
Jason (34:54):
That's right. If we could find, like, a Radisson or
Jon (34:59):
No. The neighborhood we were in was great and, you know,
old Montreal, but and we walkedaround a bit at night. We went
to a concert one night and kindawalked back and walked around a
different part of town. Youknow, I think the, the last
night we were there, we haddinner in What is actually,
like, a pretty cool neighborpretty cool neighborhood, but we
didn't really get to see itbecause it was evening. We
(35:20):
didn't really walk around, butapparently, that's a really cool
part of town.
Justin (35:23):
Yeah. I I think we could have even stayed in that in, Le
Plateau and and had a reallygood time. I I think, actually,
in this case, not every city islike this. But in this case, it
was actually nice not staying atan Airbnb. It was easy to
check-in.
(35:44):
It's easy for everybody to gettheir own room. We had we really
did have privacy as A team too.Like, each of us had our own
room we could go to. It feltlike that was money well spent.
Jason (35:56):
Yeah. I really enjoyed having, like, a shared space And
then our own our own separaterooms.
Justin (36:02):
Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was great. The meals
together, You know, that thatwas great. We did we already
said lunch and dinners.
We had just some awesome mealstogether, And I really like the
activities. This kinda happenedorganically. This is something I
wouldn't naturally think of,but, you folks did. So Helen was
(36:23):
like, oh, we should go see ahockey game, and she just booked
the tickets and, got it alldone. Jon was like, what's the
name of that band again?
It's
Jon (36:33):
Motorat.
Justin (36:35):
Motorat. Yes.
Jon (36:35):
So you
Justin (36:36):
were like Motorat. You just looked up to see what Bands
are playing? Yeah.
Jon (36:39):
It's, like, randomly found that, like, oh, this band's in
town. Cool. They're awesome.Maybe we maybe if everyone's
interested, we should go.
Justin (36:46):
Yeah. It was super fun. Like, I'd never heard even heard
them before, but, it was fungoing to that concert together.
The the venue is really neat.What else did we do?
We did the boat ride.
Jon (36:59):
Yeah. I
Justin (37:00):
love the boat ride. That was one of my highlights.
Jon (37:04):
Yeah. That was kinda we were we were trying to find,
like, one of those boats thatwas, like, more of a tour boat,
but we ended up on, like, thepublic transit boat Yeah.
Justin (37:12):
Down the river. Ferry.
Jon (37:13):
Yeah. The ferry.
Helen (37:14):
It was great, though.
Jon (37:15):
It was great. Yeah. And that
Jason (37:16):
thing was fast. It was a really fast boat.
Jon (37:19):
Yeah.
Justin (37:19):
It was super fast. I I got some great, like, sunset
photos on the way back on thewater.
Jon (37:24):
Justin got to practice his French.
Justin (37:26):
Oh, yeah. I cornered this old French couple and just
wouldn't let them I wouldn'tleave them alone. Just kept
practicing my French.
Jon (37:34):
I
Justin (37:34):
got a education in French politics, French history,
English, French relations, eastwest relations. We we covered it
all. The other thing that workedwell is I'm so glad that
everybody took time to takephotos. We have so many great
(37:55):
photos that we shared with eachother in a a shared album. And,
Especially I mean, I'm builtlike this because I'm a dad, but
I was trying to be deliberate insaying, oh, let's get a photo
taken.
And if we can find someone totake a picture for us, let's do
that. And so we got a few Imean, like, 70% of those photos
(38:16):
are not great, and then a fewworked out. And we just got this
great photo of us with theFerris wheel behind us and all
the fall colors, and we justlook fucking golden out there.
Jason (38:27):
That lady that lady was a pro. Total pro.
Justin (38:30):
We that that that lady we asked was a pro. I I really
like that part, and, everybodycontributed by taking photos,
and I I thought that was great.I do think at one point, Next
retreat, I wanna get aprofessional photographer to
come in and take some photosbecause those assets of us,
(38:51):
hanging out or doing work orhaving a discussion are just so
valuable from a marketingperspective, so valuable for
even just We could also doheadshots then. I think having a
professional photographer wouldhave been a nice addition and
probably not that much moremoney, just to have someone come
in for to do some nice reallynice photos that we can use in
(39:14):
press releases and blog postsand tweets and And, also, for us
to all have uniform headshots ifwe wanted. Yeah.
I I thought that would be goodtoo. Any other thoughts on what
we could improve for next timeor other advice we would give to
teams to to close this out?
Helen (39:32):
I guess I think one of the things That really worked
well was obviously you, Justin.You kind of, led the group in
terms of a lot of the productdiscussions. I guess if you have
a larger team, it might be niceto, perhaps rotate the response
who that responsibility falls toeach day. So there's an
(39:54):
opportunity for, like, eachperson to, step up and take
ownership of a particularfeature or a particular Talk for
the day so that you can alsoenjoy being part of those
discussions without having tolead them all the time.
Justin (40:10):
Oh, we should do that next time. We should just have
someone lead every day.
Helen (40:14):
You need to force us into the leadership position.
Justin (40:17):
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm gonna force you guys all
to go to organize 1 meetup, andI'm gonna force you all to I I
was definitely it felt like Iwas definitely the the one
extrovert in the group. We havea very introverted, group.
(40:39):
Anything else for for otherteams, advice, or things that we
should improve on next time?It's okay for us to get a little
bit, You know, you can be youcan be a little bit dangerous
and reveal something that youdidn't think worked well or that
we should do next time.
Jon (40:56):
I honestly can't think of anything that didn't work well.
I mean, it, you know, it mightbe nice next time to like change
up the, the venue to maybe asmaller city or outdoor
activities or which would betotally different, right? You're
not gonna go out to every day,and you're not gonna do this and
that, but, like Yeah. Could belike, go on we'll go on some
(41:19):
hikes or, like, hang out on aboat on a lake or, you know
Justin (41:22):
Yeah. So Yeah. Let's do the whole thing on a boat. Yeah.
Jon (41:26):
Okay.
Justin (41:29):
What kind of boat are you thinking of, Jon? Are you
thinking of, like, Sailboat or ahouseboat or a cruise ship. Are
we gonna go cruising next time?
Jon (41:35):
I don't know. Could do a houseboat. That might go a
little cramped.
Justin (41:40):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. I think it'd be fun to
mix up the venue.
Marie Poulin and her team didtheir retreat at the same time
in Banff, And I think they had,somebody cook the whole time.
And, so they didn't go out formeals as much, but they had
really amazing meals inside. Andthen they had all the hiking and
(42:02):
and other things to to dooutside. Yeah. I think that'd be
great.
If you have questions about theteam retreat we didn't cover,
reach out to us on Twitter. Allof our Twitter handles are in
This episode, you can also, ifyou're on the web, look at our
people profiles, which is a newfeature we just released. Every,
transistor customer gets to setup hosts and guests. And they
(42:25):
get a photo. They get a link.
They get a social media link. Soif you're looking for any of our
Twitter handles, They're allthere. Sass.transistor.afam. Jon
Buda. We have some people tothank who have been supporting
us for such a long time, evenwhen we don't release an episode
every week or every month even.
(42:47):
Big shout outs to these people.Jon, do you wanna go through the
list?
Jon (42:50):
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks to all of our supporters. We have
Jason Charnes, Michael Davisfrom recruitkit.com.au Marcel
Fale from we are bold.af Alexpain, bill condo, Anton Zoren
from prodcamp.com. Harris Kennyfrom the intro to CRM podcast,
(43:12):
Ole Kulik, Ethan Gunderson, WardSandler from member space,
Russell Brown from.
Fotivo.com.
Justin (43:21):
That's right. Yep.
Jon (43:23):
Noah Praill, Colin Gray, Austin Loveless, Michael Sitver,
Paul Jarvis, and Jack Ellis fromFathom, My brother Dan Buddha,
Darby Frey, Adam Devander, DaveJunta.
Justin (43:36):
Junta, who actually I forgot. He he's got his own
people profile. If you go tosas.transistor.fm/people,
there's Dave Giunta. You can seewhat he looks like. You can go
and click on his profile, hearthe episode he was in.
We gotta have Junta back, Ithink, on the show.
Jon (43:53):
Absolutely. We should. Yeah. And we have Kyle Fox from
get reward for dotcom and Simonand Vulcan. Can you explain this
one?
This is this looks different tome.
Justin (44:04):
Yeah. This is a new Bootstrapper podcast Simon and
Vulcan are doing, shipsaasfaster.com. Worth listening
to. If you like thebootstrappers talking to
bootstrappers every week format,kinda feels like an early Build
your SaaS podcast. Yeah.
Worth checking outshipsassfaster.com. Thanks
(44:28):
everyone for listening. Thanksto Jason, Helen, Jon for being
here, and we'll see you nexttime we record an episode. Glad
we got one out. Talk to youlater.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the
behind the scenes story ofbuilding a web app in 2022. I'm
Jon Buddha, a software engineer.
Helen (00:21):
I'm Helen. I'm in charge of customer success.
Jason (00:23):
I'm Jason, and I'm a software engineer.
Justin (00:25):
And I'm Justin Jackson. I do product and marketing.
Follow along as we buildtransistor.fm. 2nd episode with
all of us together.
Jon (00:42):
Alright. Getting the Getting the team back.
Justin (00:44):
Got got the whole team on the call, and we just got
back from our first ever Teamretreat in Montreal. We we were
we were there about a week ago.Right? Yeah. It was a week ago.
Jon (01:01):
Yeah. I think we all came back a week ago or or so.
Justin (01:04):
So we're gonna talk a little bit about remote team
retreats. We're gonna talk aboutwhat we learned, our advice for
other teams. But maybe let'sstart with Everybody's highlight
or just one highlight. Doesn'thave to be your absolute top,
but who has, a highlight theywanna share To start.
Jason (01:24):
I would I'd say I was just trying to think of of 1 a
little bit ago. I I reallyenjoyed the hockey game. I don't
watch sports, like, at all. Sothat was like a a a fun thing
for me, especially hockey. But,it was like a whole like, a, it
was hockey.
B, it was In Canada and then seeeverybody speaks French. And,
(01:45):
like, the the national anthemwas, like, in French first. It
was just, like, a completelydifferent vibe and very fun
experience.
Jon (01:52):
Not not to mention the free food.
Justin (01:54):
Helen organized that one, and somehow she got us
tickets where all the food wasfree
Helen (01:59):
Yeah. How I managed to do that? I'm not quite sure, what
kind of Free free tea, we wereon there, but we managed to get
some free pizza and free hotdogs and things. That was good.
Justin (02:11):
I thought that dude was trolling us. When when we came
in, he was like, food is free.And I was like, is he just
making fun of us or something?And then we went to pay for the
food, and they're like, no. It'sall free.
We're like, what?
Jason (02:27):
It definitely explained the the extremely long lines.
Justin (02:31):
Yeah. Yeah. There's that's why that's pretty good.
How how how is that hockey gamedifferent than, watching a
football game back home, Helen?
Helen (02:39):
Very different. Very civilized, very relaxed.
Everybody seemed to be in goodspirits. It seemed to be like A
very family oriented, night out,really. Yeah.
It was it was good to see. I'mglad we kinda did that. I
enjoyed the hockey game too. Itwas kind of a good introduction
to Montreal because we did it atthe beginning of the week. Kinda
(03:03):
nice to take part in a localevent and, Yeah.
See 2 teams with a a longstanding rivalry, compete,
really. So, yeah, it'sinteresting.
Justin (03:15):
What what did you think of the fan reaction when
Montreal scored their one andonly goal?
Helen (03:19):
Yeah. You would think they had had won the entire Game
or some some major tournament,but no. It was just just one
goal, and, it made it worthWhile waiting till the end,
people were leaving, and, theystill haven't scored. So, I'm
glad they they got one in theend. Yeah.
Justin (03:37):
I think the score was Toronto. This is a preseason
game. So I think both teams weretrying out some of their
rookies, but, I think the finalscore was 71 or something for
Toronto. But, yeah, that wasthat was fun. 2 classic teams on
the ice at the same time, and wehad really good seats.
Drank some cheap Canadian beer.
Jon (03:57):
Got got to watch some Zambonis.
Justin (04:00):
Oh, yeah. Jay Jason, the Zambonis highlight. Hey?
Jason (04:03):
Absolutely the highlight of the game. Always always the
highlight of hockey.
Justin (04:07):
You didn't you didn't approve of their, the way that
they cleared the ice.
Jon (04:11):
You think
Justin (04:11):
be better.
Jason (04:12):
They could've optimized it. Most definitely.
Justin (04:16):
Alright. Let's keep going. Helen, do you have a
highlight? Yeah.
Helen (04:18):
I enjoyed the hockey game. But, So I think for me,
the walks that we took down tothe waterfront or the kind of
unstructured conversation timethat we had where we weren't
talking about a particulartopic, just kind of like the
dinner conversations and thingsthat we had where we had chance
to, yeah, just sort of connectOn a personal level, because I I
guess the purpose of a retreatis to build that connection,
(04:39):
that personal connection. And Ithink those kind of
conversations and just sharingjokes and just talking about the
day that we've had. Yeah. It wasjust a nice way to kind of end
each day, really.
Justin (04:50):
Have we even said where we went? We went to Montreal,
And we stayed in old Montreal,which is this amazing part of
Montreal that's right kind ofalong the water And it's
beautiful beautifularchitecture, but also we could,
like, walk 30 seconds, and wewere along the water. And, yeah,
(05:11):
we had some amazing walks there.Agreed. And the fall colors were
out.
We had, Warm weather every dayfor October. It was perfect.
Jon (05:20):
Weather was perfect.
Justin (05:21):
Really rolled out the welcome for us.
Helen (05:24):
I don't know who picked that week, but Whichever one of
us picked that week, picked thebest weather and the best time
of the year.
Justin (05:31):
Yeah. Hey. Yeah. We bumped it a few times, and then
I think we just ended up. Idon't I can't remember exactly
how we ended up on that week,but, yeah, that was great.
How, how about you, Jon? Any,any highlights off the top of
your head?
Jon (05:45):
Yeah, I think similar to Helen. I mean, I think it was,
you know, the meals we hadtogether and just Spending time
that wasn't necessarilyrevolving around work. And I, I
mean, because we do that All dayonline and, you know, the calls
we have remotely are around workand planning features. And it
was just nice to connect witheveryone in a more personal
(06:10):
level and get to know each othera little better. And.
Justin (06:13):
Yeah. Yeah.
Jason (06:14):
Totally. It was the,
Jon (06:15):
yeah, the unstructured time. We're just hanging out.
That's great.
Justin (06:19):
I I I think we all had this sense multiple times of
just It's weird being a remoteteam. You build up so much
rapport online. You gettogether, and it's almost as if
you've been friends for a longTime, but there's this whole
other dynamic of warmth andconnection and, kind of real
(06:43):
special Time together, that'sthat that's hard to explain and
is also, you definitely don'tget it just in Slack. Just
having time together, going forwalks together, having moments
where we're just sitting around,You know, maybe not talking, but
spending time in each other'spresence. Really, it it there's
(07:07):
really something special aboutit.
And I think for our team,because we like each other so
much, it was even just morespecial. Like, this this group
is, Yeah. I think we came awayfeeling like, wow. This group's
pretty special.
Helen (07:23):
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
Justin (07:25):
My my highlight was discovering that the shortest
member of the transistor team.Here, you
Jon (07:34):
know, on Zoom biggest presence.
Justin (07:36):
Oh, I see. Well, on Zoom, we're all the same height
and then show up and, you know,Helen's taller than me. Jason's
Quite a bit taller than me. Iknow I've always known Jon was
taller than me. It was you know,I'm okay with it, but that was
that was The, the first thingyou notice right away whenever
you meet remote team members is,oh, wow.
That's how tall everyone is.Alright.
Jon (07:58):
Then we probably have probably have an above average
Team height.
Justin (08:02):
Yeah. We probably do. We probably do. That's right. Yeah.
I I keep referencing this factthat I'm not sure if it's true,
which is that I'm 5 foot 8 isthe exact, height of the average
Canadian male, but I I I don'tknow. Don't look that up. It's
just let me live in my world. Ithink people will wanna know how
(08:23):
we planned and organized theretreat, our daily schedule,
what parts of the treat Theretreat worked well. What could
we improve for next time?
Maybe it would be fun for us togo through our our daily
schedule. This part was notsuper planned. Our our document
had, like, AM, afternoon, PM.But, You know, what was the
(08:47):
daily cadence that we we kind offell into? I try
Jon (08:49):
to run through it. Yeah. I I think it worked pretty well
with without really muchplanning. It's sort of planned.
It sort of worked itself out, Ithink.
And everybody was coming fromdifferent time zones except
Jason. So everyone sort of haddifferent, I don't know,
different sleeping schedulesmaybe, or levels of tiredness
(09:10):
depending on the time of day.But, I mean, generally we would
like everybody would wake up ontheir own. We all had our own
rooms. I think we get, we gotbreakfast in the room or
downstairs, A small breakfastsometimes together, sometimes
not.
And then we'd sort of just as agroup text each other and say
we're up and Couple people mightgo to get coffee next door if
(09:32):
they need more. Couple timespeople went for a run-in the
morning. So We were, we werealong the water. There was a
nice path to run on. And then wesort of lazily met up in the
penthouse area, which we had abig meeting area, couple
couches, some tables around 10in the morning.
(09:52):
Yeah. Kind of did our own thing,did some work Customer support,
you know, fixing some bugs orworking on a feature slowly.
And, I think we'd sort ofCasually sort of roll to the
couches and start a groupdiscussion for 1 or 2 hours
(10:14):
about a particular topic wewanted to, we wanted to kinda
get more in-depth on that wedidn't, you know, over over zoom
or our calls. And then at somepoint, we'd all just be like,
oh, we should eat. It's time forlunch.
Justin (10:30):
We got some great recommendations from people in
Montreal, by the way. I justremembering some I think the
first lunch we took was Was thefirst lunch we took that big
three course meal? Yeah.
Jason (10:42):
I think so.
Helen (10:43):
Yeah. I think that was Monday.
Justin (10:44):
It was at Bouillon?
Helen (10:45):
Yeah. Bouillon Bilk.
Justin (10:47):
Bouillon Bilk. That that that was, like, incredible
lunch.
Jon (10:51):
Seemed like predominantly business lunches.
Justin (10:53):
Yeah. Yeah. That place there.
Jon (10:55):
I mean, there was no dress code. I don't know if we were
underdressed, but it worked out.
Justin (10:58):
Yeah. Worked it did work good. And then after lunch, we'd
kind of Hang out, do whatever wewanted. Right? We kinda walk
around sometimes as a group.
Yeah. Nap time.
Jon (11:09):
Get some alone time, take a nap, Maybe go for a run, walk
around, find another coffee.
Justin (11:15):
Yeah. Jason and I were in the afternoon, run category.
Yeah.
Jason (11:21):
Yep. I did too.
Jon (11:21):
I always had intent. Well, I guess I ran once in the
morning, but my intention isalways to run before everything.
And then I just don't.
Justin (11:28):
Yeah. Yeah. And then in the evening, we'd have dinner
again. It was usually I mean, weate really well. I think Yeah.
The, I don't want Jon to look atthe, the expenses for this trip,
but I I felt like the money ondinner was well spent.
Jon (11:45):
Oh, I looked.
Justin (11:50):
And then usually after dinner, we'd come back, and
sometimes hang out in thepenthouse. You guys introduced
me to mister Robot. We watchedthat altogether.
Jon (11:59):
Yeah. That I think that was that was because you were
talking about how much you likedthe movie hackers.
Justin (12:03):
Yes. But I wanted to reedit it without I wanted to
make a fan edit. Yeah. MisterRobot's good. I've I've I've
since shown it to my kids sincewe got back.
We're we're we're on the misterRobot train now.
Jason (12:17):
Have you have you progressed beyond episode 1?
Justin (12:19):
Now because I showed them episode 1, and then and
tonight's Friday. So movienight, we'll we'll probably
watch episode 2. Nice. What whatwere some of your thoughts about
the schedule? I I really likedhow we had You know, you could
get some work done in themorning.
And it's also nice just workingalongside each other. You know?
(12:42):
You can see what Jason and Jonare chatting about back and 4th,
Helen and I can talk about aticket. There's just, like, this
this nice even if we're workingon our own things, it's Just
nice to sometimes be in thatopen office mode, you know, and
then to have a focuseddiscussion every day, I thought
(13:03):
it was great.
Jon (13:04):
We did have some discussions planned out that we
wanted we knew we wanted tocover, which we did.
Justin (13:09):
Yeah. And but before we get into that, any comments on
the schedule, Helen or Jason?Thoughts for other teams? Should
other people do that too?
Helen (13:18):
Yeah. It worked really well. It seemed to be quite
flexible. We had a little bit ofstructure in mind that we all
knew we would be Discussing aparticular topic each day. So,
we tried to kind of prioritizedoing the sort of business as
usual tasks first thing.
So, With me coming from adifferent time zone, I was
probably waking up a little bitearlier than usual. So, I had a
(13:41):
little bit of time before we gottogether to Sort some customer
success things out, which meantwe had the sort of morning to
discuss, remaining issues ortopics And, yeah, just sort of
have an opportunity that,allowed us to kind of come up
with new ideas and and talkabout future features as well.
Justin (14:00):
How about you, Jason? How what'd you think of the the
schedule?
Jason (14:03):
It's good. I mean, originally, we were talking
about, like, a 10 o'clock start,and I'm like, that's pretty
late. But, I I settled into thatpretty quickly. I have a toddler
at home, so the the opportunityto not get Woking up at some
ungodly hour was was prettypleasant. Yeah.
Couple days, I took theopportunity to wander about,
(14:24):
have a have a coffee, sit sitTime. So that was nice.
Justin (14:29):
I mean, it's a team retreat, but I think there's
also this other thing aboutgetting away from home As an
individual, that gives you time,you know, time to be by yourself
in a different place, time towalk around a beautiful
neighborhood or a beautifulsetting, Reflect on your life,
reflect on work. I I likedhaving those those times, you
(14:54):
know? Yeah.
Jon (14:55):
I think, I think it worked really well. I think, you know,
for other teams too, if you'replanning something like this,
like definitely plan somedowntime where people can either
do things by themselves or dothings in small groups or, it
doesn't, I don't think it has tobe planned, like, you know, 9
o'clock in the morning till 9o'clock at night is like a full
schedule of stuff for thecompany.
Justin (15:16):
Yeah. I'm so glad we didn't do that. It just felt
like It felt like every day wehad some work time together.
Every day we had a discussion.And then every day we had a
group activity, and that wasPerfect.
And there was, there was time inbetween to do what you need to
do.
Helen (15:32):
As a team, we're quite light on kind of the number of
meetings we have each week. So,Really, we had kind of a week of
all of those kind of meetingstogether, and also we had, all
of the possible Celebrationsthat we would have had as a team
together all in that one week aswell, whether that would be
holidays or birthdays. We'vecondensed everything into this
one Very sort of intense week,and having a bit of flexibility
(15:57):
really helps with, yeah, just asall have put in our opinion and
then deciding what things we'dlike to to fit into the week?
Justin (16:05):
Yeah. It's it's a good way to put it because you are
celebrating too. It's like, thisis the one time we get to get to
Get together and have a drink,you know, cheers each other,
just kind of celebrate whatwe've accomplished as a team, up
until that point. So I I'mreally glad we structured it
that way. I'd highly recommend asimilar structure unless Unless
(16:29):
your team is completelydifferent, but for our vibe, it
worked well.
So we did have before we went,we had some discussions that we
did each day. So the first daywas a company update. Where are
we at financially? Maybe lookover our direction, where are we
headed, what bigger things arewe trying to accomplish in the
(16:51):
company and in our lives. Wereviewed some of our values.
And then the next day, we had aproduct priorities discussion.
This kinda bled through thewhole the whole week. And,
actually, That was most of it.Product because we we started
with that product discussion,and then that became kind of,
(17:12):
most of the discussion thatweek. And then we also plan to
talk about marketing and salespriorities.
I also put this category calledopen air discussions, which was
Just to make time for people tobring up issues, things they'd
like to be more involved with,things they'd like to change,
things that need clarification.And I think that was kinda
sprinkled throughout the theweek. For for you folks, what
(17:37):
came out of the discussions?Like, what was good about it?
What, you know, What were someof the things that were helpful
about it, comments about it?
Jason (17:45):
I mean, for for me, a thing I'm always trying to
figure out it's like we're kindawhere we're headed as a company.
And there's There's a lot ofways to there's a lot of, I
guess, kinda end goals for thatand to and to really understand.
Like, it's hard to It's hard tohash that out in, like, small
(18:06):
bits and pieces. So, like,talking about that stuff deeply
with everybody and just, like,picking up, like, the vibe on,
like, how people are feelingabout things and what they wanna
do and was really useful and, agood way to understand where
everybody's at.
Justin (18:21):
And And and in high fidelity, like, I yeah. I'd say
a central issue at this point iswhere do we want this company to
go? Like, what is Is there is ais there a longer term
objective? And the centraltension there is probably, You
know, are are we gonna try tobuild this thing bigger in the
(18:42):
sense that it could be acquiredor bigger in the sense that we
could I don't know. I thinkacquisition is, like, the main
question.
And then on the other side ofthat tension is, especially for
Jon and I. But I think for allof us, we, you know, we we
created this company to have a abetter life and to really have a
(19:04):
calm life. And, yeah, I thinkfiguring out those things when
you when you're in person, it'slike one person can Speak, and
then the other person can speak,and there's just this high
bandwidth kind of conversation.And then later on, you're out
for drinks and you can keeptalking about it. It it can just
(19:26):
kinda flow and leak out as wewent along.
Do Do you feel like we do youfeel like we made progress on
that on that that tension atall?
Helen (19:35):
Yeah. I think one thing that you do Get to notice in
person more so than when we'reremotely is people's enthusiasm,
so when a particular topic comesup. I guess at the beginning of
the retreat, perhaps people areperhaps a little bit, starting
to introduce Themselves to eachother and the sort of more
(19:57):
detailed conversations perhapscome out later in the week. But
you kind of really pick up onthe enthusiasm people have
Particular topics, whetherthat's, certain features or
certain feature directions ofthe company, and that makes a
big difference to kind of Feelthat enthusiasm in real life?
Justin (20:14):
Yeah. Like, Jason, Jason, while we're having this
feature discussion, Jasonbrought up this idea of Kinda
how we're gonna organizenetworks and higher level
grouping, features withintransistor. And I think after
you pitched that, Jason, therewas, like, this kind of
(20:35):
palpable, like, enthusiasm aboutThat particular direction. Did
did you feel that too?
Jason (20:42):
Yeah. For sure.
Jon (20:42):
And it
Jason (20:43):
and it's like something, we've briefly talked about
before, but not like, I I don'tthink anybody sort of, like,
deeply thought about it. So,like, as soon as as soon as the
idea was out there, everybodywas kinda iterating on it and
throwing out things that couldbe done with it. And it felt
like, it didn't kind of becomeeverybody's feature that we
(21:08):
wanted to work on.
Jon (21:08):
Yeah. Yeah. The feature discussions, I think worked
really well In person. Like wehaven't, obviously we've never
done that before, but it felt,it felt quite a bit different
than us just planning thingsover zoom. And I don't know if
that's because you're just inpeople's presence and you can
pick up on like talent said theexcitement a little easier, But
(21:30):
also like, you know, you cankeep talking.
We kept talking about thosetopics later in the day. We
didn't just stop necessarily. Soyou can kind of keep the
discussion going. Whereas Ifyou're remote, you know, you
might throw some things inslack, but it's not in person.
It's not quite as detailed.
And I think it can like theexcitement. It can maybe fade
away easier if you're nottogether. So I, I I've, I really
(21:53):
enjoyed the product discussions.Like I haven't, I haven't had
that in a while on a team, youknow, Justin, you and I, like,
we got together and was itJanuary? Yeah.
Yeah. We did some of that andthat, that felt similar, but it
was a little, it was quite a bitdifferent with, you know, Helen
and Jason there as well. Kind ofjust Spit balling and throwing
ideas back and forth and likeriffing on each other and, oh,
(22:15):
what about this? And, kind ofget a better sense of Yeah. How,
how excited people are and justdifferent ideas of how the
future could work.
And yeah, it was, That was good.
Justin (22:29):
And I I think I mean, there's a few things. 1, for me,
I I mean, I've been workingremote, and then I worked
independent for quite a while.So I think my last job where I
was, like, in a room with peopleworking through ideas was
probably 2015 Or 16 maybe. Ican't remember. So it's been a
(22:51):
while since I've been in a room,You know, kind of all working on
something together.
And, I I mean, the this oldcynical version of me was like,
ah, like, All those meetings weused to do at those old
companies were such a waste, butthis was like a new version of
that that really felt good. Itit was like, Oh, wow. Like,
(23:12):
we've been missing this. And aswe try to figure out, like,
we're still, like, figuring outhow to work together, It became
so clear to me that for a remoteteam to really figure out how to
work together, they need tospend some time together,
because it kinda sifts out allof the the rough edges. It,
(23:33):
like, it it At the end of it,you have a a little bit better
sense of how you can work.
And then we did, I can'tremember if it was you, Helen,
that recommended this or, but weended up, changing our Our
weekly meeting our weekly Zoommeeting, do you wanna describe
(23:55):
what we changed, Helen?
Helen (23:57):
So, normally, we would have a Full meeting on a sales
deal that will be centeredaround customer success, whether
that will be feature requests orissues that we want to solve or
things that frustrating forcustomers that we want to
improve upon. And because wehave this kind of, This sort of
(24:17):
feature set that we want to workon as a team as well, we've
decided to kind of split thismeeting a little bit. So we have
a first part of customer successwhere we talk about the requests
people have asked for. And thenwe have the second part, which
is more focused on a particularfeature that we would like to
dive deeper into as a team andsort of shape and, move
(24:42):
something forward. I thinksometimes the meetings we have,
contain a lot of ideas, whereasthe the structure that we've
moved to now seems to be alittle bit more Laser focused on
one particular thing.
We move things forward better.And I think one of the benefits
of the retreat is Our remoteproduct discussions since seem
(25:04):
to flow a little bit better aswell.
Jon (25:07):
Mhmm.
Justin (25:08):
Yeah. I that was a big improvement. And even, there's
sometimes a disconnect. Again,maybe this is because it's been
a long time since I've worked ona team. Maybe because it started
out with just Jon and I, and itwas just Easy for us to just
keep throwing things over thefence to each other.
But I think once we had 2 morepeople, once there 4 of us. For
(25:32):
me, there's a bit of adisconnect between, like, we're
we've got ideas. And then one, Ithink, for Jon and Jason and
everyone else too. We've gotideas. And then how do those
ideas become a practical plan toactually build something?
And we've been loosely followingBasecamp's shape up process. But
(25:53):
often, it felt like in in Slack,the feedback was, we really need
to, like, nail down what What isare the first steps for us to
start working on this thing?Like, how do we get this thing
to the point where we can put itin our project management
software and start working onit. Would you agree with that,
(26:13):
Jon, Jason, Helen? Is that Yeah.
Jon (26:15):
Yeah. We have a, we have a lot of ideas in Slack and the
others. I don't know. I don'tknow if it's a lack of focus,
but it's, we have a lot ofideas, which is a good thing,
but we don't necessarily Tightenthose up often enough, I think.
Jason (26:28):
Some of it's sussing out our collective enthusiasm for
it. Like, they're you know,we're such a small team, and we
have So many ideas that we wouldlike to implement. It's very
difficult to figure out, like,what what we, as a group, like,
wanna tackle first. So It sortof all gets muddied up. But
talking about these things inperson, it's it's it was, like,
(26:51):
pretty clear, like which, whichthings folks had the most
interest in.
I think
Jon (26:56):
I had this out the other day and I don't know if people
agree with this, but like, Ifwe, if we were always in the
same room, like let's say we hadan office and we worked
together. Like, I don't know ifWe'd probably have more meetings
just because may maybe, butlike, I I feel like the these
discussions worked really wellin person because we knew we had
(27:18):
a limited time. Yeah. I don'tknow. I just, it just feels like
if we were in the same officeworking together, like maybe
Because we think we would haveall this time to get together
and talk, we maybe would do itless efficiently or less well.
Like, it just seemed like Yeah.There was something special
about it because it was it's nota frequent thing.
Justin (27:38):
Yeah. I agree. I agree. I think, It it it did almost
feel like we could probably dosomething like that twice a
year, but I definitely felt likewe had the time. We knew we only
had a week together, and and itwas also became clear, like, we
really only have time for, like,a focused One focused discussion
(27:59):
a day if we're gonna keep ourthis kind of schedule.
And so every morning, I waskinda like, okay. Yeah. We gotta
move over to the couches andtalk Because that's gonna be our
moment to have thatconversation. And if we don't do
it in the morning, it might nothappen. I I thought that was
great.
And the other thing I I feltlike was really great is we
(28:19):
really hammered kind of thesediscussions out, all these
feature ideas. We got to, like,what does an initial version
look like? And that seemed toreally clarify things. And when
we got home, we put that initialversion kind of in a shaping doc
and then worked, through ittogether they're just in Google
(28:40):
docs.
Jon (28:40):
Yeah. I mean, we definitely didn't finalize these ideas by
any means, but it was definitelya good jumping off point to
start shaping it and Try tofigure out what, you know, how
to build this thing in pieces orall at once if we need to or
whatever. But
Justin (28:55):
So let's, Quickly go through which parts of the
retreat worked well and whatcould we improve next time. I
thought the location was great.People ask us why we chose
Montreal. I think just becauseit's one of the most unique
cities in North America. It wasfirst time in Canada for Helen.
Is that right?
Helen (29:14):
Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Good introduction to
Canada.
Jon (29:17):
I think part of it was it was, like, centrally located for
all of us, sort of.
Jason (29:22):
Yep. Right.
Jon (29:23):
Like Helen's coming from the east. Justin's coming from
the west. Jason and I are comingfrom the Midwest. It was all
like, Kind of in the middle.
Jason (29:31):
Has anybody actually triangulated the the central
spot between I
Justin (29:36):
put it in a I did put it in a They have these online map
things like meet in the middle,and it's roughly you know,
Helen's flight and my flightwere roughly about the same. You
you folks were more well, Jason,you're east, and then, Jon,
you're more central. So, yeah, II John Young Fook, I think,
from, Bannerbear said Somebodyshould build just a tool, that
(30:00):
triangulates team retreats basedon a number of factors. So not
just distance, but, You know,maybe, you know, cultural cities
or attractions or, you know,time of year And, maybe other
events that are happening thesame time. I think that's a cool
(30:22):
idea.
I don't know if you can make abusiness out of it, but It'd be
a cool little tool that we woulddefinitely use.
Jon (30:27):
Yeah. I thought, yeah, that worked really well. I think the
city was perfect. I'd I'd neverbeen before, but I'd always
heard good things and I wouldtotally back to Montreal and
hang out there. I'm sure there'stons tons left to explore.
Justin (30:39):
Oh, man. I definitely wanna go back. And every person
that stayed Like, Helen and Istayed a day later, and we went
to that amazing light show inNotre Dame. And then Helen
stayed even later than me, andthen she she hiked Mount Royal
without us Yeah. And made usjealous with her her beautiful
photo.
Jason (30:57):
That was a nice photo.
Helen (30:59):
Yeah. I couldn't I couldn't leave without actually
going to, you know, see the parkand go to the mountain.
Justin (31:06):
What'd you folks think of the hotel? We stayed at Epic
Montreal right on, in downtownthere. Sorry. Old Montreal
there?
Helen (31:14):
Yeah. It was a great hotel. It's quite a small hotel,
which was kind of good for us.It kind of felt quite personal.
We were probably the biggestgroup that was staying there.
So, yeah, it was, very, verynice.
Jon (31:27):
And it felt like we were the only people there some days.
Jason (31:31):
I mean, there's, like, there was probably
Jon (31:33):
10 rooms total in that place, Maybe?
Justin (31:36):
Yeah. There wasn't very many rooms. It was nice and
small. And I think CarlAlexander from, from Mega Maker
is the one that that pointed methat direction. I just asked for
recommendations for hotels, and,he had a a friend at that hotel.
The penthouse was prettyawesome. It felt it like, it was
(31:59):
in terms of a place for us toall hang out in.
Jon (32:02):
Had some quirks.
Justin (32:04):
It had it had it had some quirks, but it was like,
the the one quirk was that it ithas a pitched ceiling. Right? Is
that the way you say it? Apitched ceiling?
Jason (32:18):
I think so.
Jon (32:19):
Yeah. Yeah. So
Justin (32:21):
Jason had to walk sideways sometimes to get around
there.
Jason (32:24):
Which is fun. It's it's not that unusual for me.
Justin (32:27):
Yeah. I had this cool loft And, dining table, kitchen,
separate area for TV watching,separate area for, like, couches
and hanging out. So there's,like, Some distinct areas. And
depending on our mood, sometimeswe would all hang out in the
kitchen just on the bar stools.Sometimes we were watching TV.
(32:48):
Sometimes we're at the diningtable. Sometimes we were in the
other kind of coffee place. Hadsome outdoor balconies.
Helen (32:57):
I think some of the recommendations that we had
really helped to Pointed us inthe right direction, whether
that was, restaurants, places tovisit, the hotel, things like
that. So having a city where wePerhaps have connections with
people who are already there,was helpful, and also to
arrange, like, meetups and in inperson Coffee chats, things like
(33:20):
that.
Justin (33:20):
I tweeted about our trip quite a bit and asked folks if
they were you know, hadrecommendations. I, found I I
emailed a list of customers whoare in Montreal and said, hey.
We're in Montreal for a week. Ifyou'd like to meet up, Let's
find a time, and then I justsent them to a reform form that
(33:42):
had a bunch of options. So Helenand I met with, a group of our
customers at MedPlan, which is acommunications agency in
Montreal.
That was really helpful. We cameback fired Fired up from
listening to all their productfeedback. And then, we did
another meetup. Jason and Jonhad left, unfortunately, but we
did one on Friday Afternoon, ata at a restaurant where just
(34:09):
anybody on our list or anybodywho knew that we were there
could come and hang out. So wehad some customers come.
We had some podcasters come,some indie hackers come. That
was that was really fun. Yeah. II love that part personally. I
love, Like, doing a few customerthings on top of, the the
meetup, and we had the space todo it.
(34:30):
So, Yeah. That was great. Ithink we're we probably wanna go
somewhere different every year,but that location was just
amazing. It really set a highbar.
Jason (34:38):
Yeah. I wonder I I have a very skewed view, I think, of
what Montreal looks like becausewe're in this really old,
beautiful area, and we sawVirtually nothing outside of it.
Justin (34:50):
So next time you wanna stay in the suburbs in an
Airbnb, Jason?
Jason (34:54):
That's right. If we could find, like, a Radisson or
Jon (34:59):
No. The neighborhood we were in was great and, you know,
old Montreal, but and we walkedaround a bit at night. We went
to a concert one night and kindawalked back and walked around a
different part of town. Youknow, I think the, the last
night we were there, we haddinner in What is actually,
like, a pretty cool neighborpretty cool neighborhood, but we
didn't really get to see itbecause it was evening. We
(35:20):
didn't really walk around, butapparently, that's a really cool
part of town.
Justin (35:23):
Yeah. I I think we could have even stayed in that in, Le
Plateau and and had a reallygood time. I I think, actually,
in this case, not every city islike this. But in this case, it
was actually nice not staying atan Airbnb. It was easy to
check-in.
(35:44):
It's easy for everybody to gettheir own room. We had we really
did have privacy as A team too.Like, each of us had our own
room we could go to. It feltlike that was money well spent.
Jason (35:56):
Yeah. I really enjoyed having, like, a shared space And
then our own our own separaterooms.
Justin (36:02):
Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was great. The meals
together, You know, that thatwas great. We did we already
said lunch and dinners.
We had just some awesome mealstogether, And I really like the
activities. This kinda happenedorganically. This is something I
wouldn't naturally think of,but, you folks did. So Helen was
(36:23):
like, oh, we should go see ahockey game, and she just booked
the tickets and, got it alldone. Jon was like, what's the
name of that band again?
It's
Jon (36:33):
Motorat.
Justin (36:35):
Motorat. Yes.
Jon (36:35):
So you
Justin (36:36):
were like Motorat. You just looked up to see what Bands
are playing? Yeah.
Jon (36:39):
It's, like, randomly found that, like, oh, this band's in
town. Cool. They're awesome.Maybe we maybe if everyone's
interested, we should go.
Justin (36:46):
Yeah. It was super fun. Like, I'd never heard even heard
them before, but, it was fungoing to that concert together.
The the venue is really neat.What else did we do?
We did the boat ride.
Jon (36:59):
Yeah. I
Justin (37:00):
love the boat ride. That was one of my highlights.
Jon (37:04):
Yeah. That was kinda we were we were trying to find,
like, one of those boats thatwas, like, more of a tour boat,
but we ended up on, like, thepublic transit boat Yeah.
Justin (37:12):
Down the river. Ferry.
Jon (37:13):
Yeah. The ferry.
Helen (37:14):
It was great, though.
Jon (37:15):
It was great. Yeah. And that
Jason (37:16):
thing was fast. It was a really fast boat.
Jon (37:19):
Yeah.
Justin (37:19):
It was super fast. I I got some great, like, sunset
photos on the way back on thewater.
Jon (37:24):
Justin got to practice his French.
Justin (37:26):
Oh, yeah. I cornered this old French couple and just
wouldn't let them I wouldn'tleave them alone. Just kept
practicing my French.
Jon (37:34):
I
Justin (37:34):
got a education in French politics, French history,
English, French relations, eastwest relations. We we covered it
all. The other thing that workedwell is I'm so glad that
everybody took time to takephotos. We have so many great
(37:55):
photos that we shared with eachother in a a shared album. And,
Especially I mean, I'm builtlike this because I'm a dad, but
I was trying to be deliberate insaying, oh, let's get a photo
taken.
And if we can find someone totake a picture for us, let's do
that. And so we got a few Imean, like, 70% of those photos
(38:16):
are not great, and then a fewworked out. And we just got this
great photo of us with theFerris wheel behind us and all
the fall colors, and we justlook fucking golden out there.
Jason (38:27):
That lady that lady was a pro. Total pro.
Justin (38:30):
We that that that lady we asked was a pro. I I really
like that part, and, everybodycontributed by taking photos,
and I I thought that was great.I do think at one point, Next
retreat, I wanna get aprofessional photographer to
come in and take some photosbecause those assets of us,
(38:51):
hanging out or doing work orhaving a discussion are just so
valuable from a marketingperspective, so valuable for
even just We could also doheadshots then. I think having a
professional photographer wouldhave been a nice addition and
probably not that much moremoney, just to have someone come
in for to do some nice reallynice photos that we can use in
(39:14):
press releases and blog postsand tweets and And, also, for us
to all have uniform headshots ifwe wanted. Yeah.
I I thought that would be goodtoo. Any other thoughts on what
we could improve for next timeor other advice we would give to
teams to to close this out?
Helen (39:32):
I guess I think one of the things That really worked
well was obviously you, Justin.You kind of, led the group in
terms of a lot of the productdiscussions. I guess if you have
a larger team, it might be niceto, perhaps rotate the response
who that responsibility falls toeach day. So there's an
(39:54):
opportunity for, like, eachperson to, step up and take
ownership of a particularfeature or a particular Talk for
the day so that you can alsoenjoy being part of those
discussions without having tolead them all the time.
Justin (40:10):
Oh, we should do that next time. We should just have
someone lead every day.
Helen (40:14):
You need to force us into the leadership position.
Justin (40:17):
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm gonna force you guys all
to go to organize 1 meetup, andI'm gonna force you all to I I
was definitely it felt like Iwas definitely the the one
extrovert in the group. We havea very introverted, group.
(40:39):
Anything else for for otherteams, advice, or things that we
should improve on next time?It's okay for us to get a little
bit, You know, you can be youcan be a little bit dangerous
and reveal something that youdidn't think worked well or that
we should do next time.
Jon (40:56):
I honestly can't think of anything that didn't work well.
I mean, it, you know, it mightbe nice next time to like change
up the, the venue to maybe asmaller city or outdoor
activities or which would betotally different, right? You're
not gonna go out to every day,and you're not gonna do this and
that, but, like Yeah. Could belike, go on we'll go on some
(41:19):
hikes or, like, hang out on aboat on a lake or, you know
Justin (41:22):
Yeah. So Yeah. Let's do the whole thing on a boat. Yeah.
Jon (41:26):
Okay.
Justin (41:29):
What kind of boat are you thinking of, Jon? Are you
thinking of, like, Sailboat or ahouseboat or a cruise ship. Are
we gonna go cruising next time?
Jon (41:35):
I don't know. Could do a houseboat. That might go a
little cramped.
Justin (41:40):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. I think it'd be fun to
mix up the venue.
Marie Poulin and her team didtheir retreat at the same time
in Banff, And I think they had,somebody cook the whole time.
And, so they didn't go out formeals as much, but they had
really amazing meals inside. Andthen they had all the hiking and
(42:02):
and other things to to dooutside. Yeah. I think that'd be
great.
If you have questions about theteam retreat we didn't cover,
reach out to us on Twitter. Allof our Twitter handles are in
This episode, you can also, ifyou're on the web, look at our
people profiles, which is a newfeature we just released. Every,
transistor customer gets to setup hosts and guests. And they
(42:25):
get a photo. They get a link.
They get a social media link. Soif you're looking for any of our
Twitter handles, They're allthere. Sass.transistor.afam. Jon
Buda. We have some people tothank who have been supporting
us for such a long time, evenwhen we don't release an episode
every week or every month even.
(42:47):
Big shout outs to these people.Jon, do you wanna go through the
list?
Jon (42:50):
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks to all of our supporters. We have
Jason Charnes, Michael Davisfrom recruitkit.com.au Marcel
Fale from we are bold.af Alexpain, bill condo, Anton Zoren
from prodcamp.com. Harris Kennyfrom the intro to CRM podcast,
(43:12):
Ole Kulik, Ethan Gunderson, WardSandler from member space,
Russell Brown from.
Fotivo.com.
Justin (43:21):
That's right. Yep.
Jon (43:23):
Noah Praill, Colin Gray, Austin Loveless, Michael Sitver,
Paul Jarvis, and Jack Ellis fromFathom, My brother Dan Buddha,
Darby Frey, Adam Devander, DaveJunta.
Justin (43:36):
Junta, who actually I forgot. He he's got his own
people profile. If you go tosas.transistor.fm/people,
there's Dave Giunta. You can seewhat he looks like. You can go
and click on his profile, hearthe episode he was in.
We gotta have Junta back, Ithink, on the show.
Jon (43:53):
Absolutely. We should. Yeah. And we have Kyle Fox from
get reward for dotcom and Simonand Vulcan. Can you explain this
one?
This is this looks different tome.
Justin (44:04):
Yeah. This is a new Bootstrapper podcast Simon and
Vulcan are doing, shipsaasfaster.com. Worth listening
to. If you like thebootstrappers talking to
bootstrappers every week format,kinda feels like an early Build
your SaaS podcast. Yeah.
Worth checking outshipsassfaster.com. Thanks
(44:28):
everyone for listening. Thanksto Jason, Helen, Jon for being
here, and we'll see you nexttime we record an episode. Glad
we got one out. Talk to youlater.
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