Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Communication issue for startup founders in different time zones

• posted by: Frank Goortani on 2015-05-27
• tagged: saas, communication, online-tool
• score: 1

Our high school classmates have created a community that we keep in touch through chatting tools. Our conversations have evolved into business ideas and starting up a new kind of entity.

The problem is that we are scattered in various time zones and keeping up with communications is becoming difficult. Our group is learning about communication the hard way - by trial and error - and we need reliable tools to build it up fast before the 150 members loose interest and traction. We have tried Slack but apparently it’s slow in Middle East.

What tools and apps shall we use? Any idea is appreciated.

Answer 5375

• posted by: Denis de Bernardy on 2015-05-27
• score: 4

Look into how Automattic does it. (Googling “Automattic remote work” yields lots of useful results, as does browsing around on wordpress.org – it’s basically organized in the same way.)

Their basic process in a nutshell is:

1. Slack for general chatting. (It used to be IRC and a mailing list.)
2. Skype for interactions with third parties (e.g. hiring) and live interactions every now and then.
3. Project and team blogs using the WordPress P2 theme (as done on wordpress.org).
4. A big travel budget so the team can meet face to face every now and then.

Quora answer of potential interest:

What are prominent examples for remote work besides 37Signals, Github and Automattic?

Other cool tools my clients frequently use:

• Trello or Asana for task management
• Hipchat (instead of Slack) for chat
• Google Docs or Dropbox for document sharing
• 1Password for password sharing

Answer 5376

• posted by: Darnuhulu on 2015-05-27
• score: 2

I’ve run a small international business in the past using various tools. Below are several that may help your situation:

• Google Talk or Skype are great for facilitating virtual meetings where face-to-face (or voice) communication is required.
• Google Drive offers free solutions to office documents (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc). Depending on latency, changes may appear immediately or slightly delayed.
• Asana offers an online collaborative to-do list - very simple project management
• Lucid Charts is a tool for diagramming - useful for defining organization structure and charting business processes. it also has a mind mapping tool for brainstorming ideas
• TeamGantt or Tom's Planner are two solutions for online collaborative project management.
Talking with your group and determining processes and availability are just as important as the tools you choose to move your ideas forward. While these tools may help, the real issue is overcoming the differences in time zones and the varying levels of interest in your group. Assigning individuals to appropriate teams will also play a key in your group's success. --- All content is licensed under [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).