Makers and founders. How do you keep your remote team motivated?

That's the toughest part of being remote. In my personal opinion, the best motivation is centered around "growth," which includes the growth of the product as well as personal growth for each team member.

Besides 'growth' I've tried the following, 1/ Monthly workshops (offline): sharing what we worked on for the month, sharing the best food/menu each had for that month, or anything else the team can relate to... Like pets, traveling, sports... 2/ One-on-one sessions: talking with co-workers individually about anything but work. 3/ Gifts for special occasions: sending small gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, or other small goals accomplished. Still searching for better solutions.

This is a really good question and something I feel most founders may struggle with especially if you're building a tech company! One thing we do is regular catchups weekly, which doesn't involve much work talk but more getting to know the team and their interests. The other is helping them with personal or their own side projects... so giving advice and guidance always goes a long way and keeps your team motivated... in my opinion!

Have a one-on-one session on Zoom or Gather about once a month, dedicating half of the time to work-related topics and the other half to personal matters. By building intimacy in this way, individuals can create synergy while working in a non-face-to-face environment.

Here is a blog article that you might find helpful :) https://tira.so/blog/building-st...

If you haven't already, consider getting your remote team a virtual office to collab & hang out. Like SoWork & Kumospace (both on the opposite sides in terms of design, but still good).

I will suggest remote coffee chat. Avoid all kinds of work/project-related topics during that 1-1 chat. You can allocate 15-30 minutes to chat with your remote teammates about anything; sometimes great idea comes with those coffee/ corridor chats. Getting them involved sharing a sense of inclusion is the key.

Celebrating every small win is a must! We have slack channel just for that where everyone can post their wins, and that can be crushing that awful bug, to launching a new feature, to closing 10k in new revenue. Also, talk to people all the time. It takes time from your work and their work, but guess what... it is work. We have to keep people engaged and talk to them, culture building is an important part of a founders work :)

I use this free tool called HuddleUp on Slack that has really helped my team stay close and connected. I believe such tools are a great enabler to achieve camaraderie among the team members.

We launch on PH and that takes the sleepiness away from everyone!