📡 How to manage remote teams better, seaweed, Cytomos, and too much support for founders?
This week, we hear news from the seaweed sector, Cytomos, KPMG, and more news about CodeClan, plus a swath of events including an investment roadshow.
But first, some pointers for how to run remote teams better.
Here's your Campfire for 14 of August, 2023.
💼 This issue of Campfire is sponsored by Start to Scale, Shepherd and Wedderburn's initiative to supercharge start-ups and scale-ups
📡 5 Tips for Being Better at Remote
By Mike McQuaid
COVID-19 was for many people, their first introduction to the working-from-home experience. I’ve been lucky enough to have been working from home exclusively since 2009 and at US-based companies (e.g. GitHub) since 2012. I’ve also been an EU-based open-source maintainer since 2007 and maintaining the globally-distributed Homebrew package manager since 2009. These experiences have helped me learn some tips on how to be more effective working remotely that I’d like to share with you:
⚙️ Evaluate performance on output, not on working hours: When everyone’s not colocated in the same place for meetings, pair programming, etc, you don’t need everyone to work the same schedules. As long as there’s enough overlap for some synchronous meetings, most work should be done asynchronously at the times and places that are most productive for that individual. 40 hours spent “working” unproductively can be worse for the business than 20 focused hours spent working at maximum efficiency. Introspect when and how you are most productive and encourage your teams to do so too.
✍️Write more, meet less: A one-hour meeting can technically be recorded but passing around a recording is rarely the best way of transferring information. Instead, consider writing documents which can be linked, shared, edited and kept evergreen for discussion. Keep synchronous meetings to a minimum in terms of regularity and attendance, and save them for tasks which cannot be done asynchronously or individually.
📧Slack and email are async, not sync, tools: Email and, increasingly, Slack are not well-loved tools because they are often ineffectively used as synchronous, interrupt-driven tools requiring an immediate response. This destroys focus, concentration and individual productivity. Don’t send messages saying “Have you got a minute?” unless it’s incredibly urgent that you schedule a sync call now. Instead, ask “Hey, about the meeting yesterday, can I grab your thoughts on the migration when you have a minute?” and expect it may take 24 hours to get a response. Getting Slack and work email off your phone will also help with work-life balance. If it’s critical you can be contactable 24/7: have a more focused process or tool for that purpose e.g. iMessage, WhatsApp, PagerDuty.
🤪 Use emoji to convey emotion: I have been told, particularly when my profile picture looked a bit grumpy, that I can “write like an arsehole”. People can read brevity (combined with a grumpy profile picture) and assume anger, irritation or disappointment when it’s unintended. Emojis can help with this. Regular use of 😂😍🎉 etc, can be used to explicitly convey your emotion and gratitude.
🛬 Meet in person (sometimes): Even if distributed around the globe, like GitHub and Homebrew are, it’s important to have as many people as possible meet in person once a year or more. Technology is wonderful but it’s hard to “get” people to the same extent when you aren’t able to read body language and other signals. Try to make the best use of this colocated time together to do things you can’t do normally e.g. synchronous brainstorming. Primarily focus on getting to know each other better and improving human relationships, particularly across traditional organisational boundaries (yes: sales and engineering can be friends!).
Hopefully, this has given you some ideas of how your distributed, remote, hybrid, or even colocated culture can operate a little more effectively.
Mike McQuaid is the Cofounder and CTO of Raise.dev, and project leader for the Homebrew open source project.
Want to write about an aspect of being a founder? Get in touch and suggest a topic!
🤝 Cofounder Curious
Listings this week include:
Software engineer and manager. Experience with leading teams at startups and larger companies. Interested in AI/deep-tech or sports related domains. After a few years of it, I had enough of full-remote setup and looking to solve hard problems together with a co-located team.
3x founder and venture builder
Plus more!
Want to connect with any of them? Be sure to fill out your profile and join our Scottish-based Cofounder Curious list.
🌊 Updates & Opinions
💁♀️ Is there too much support for Scotland's entrepreneurs? An article by Michaela Hruskova and two other academics question whether there's enough or too much support for startups (and the number of Entrepreneurship Support Organisations, or ESOs). Do we have too many mediocre zombie companies or should we be doing more as a nation to support startups? IN
🍣 There's a new Seaweed in town: Seaweed Enterprises has secured funding and launched after acquiring the assets of Mara Seaweed. Seaweed can be used in sectors such as food, cosmetics, fertilisers, and pharmaceuticals. TFS SFN TS
🦠 Edinburgh-based Cytomos (cell analysis) raised £4m led by Archangels with participation from Old College Capital, Scottish Enterprise, and British Business Bank. UKTN TS LNC
🏛️ KPMG and the University of Nottingham have developed a new Local Business Pulse Index which makes use of AI to try to categorise the economic attractiveness of different places. 37% of Scotland scored as 'High Investment Areas' while it was 22% for the whole of the UK. So... good I guess? DGT
Updates on CodeClan
💻 Codebase is set to acquire the assets of CodeClan with a group of the instructors being re-hired to complete the current cohort's course while a new plan is formed to fill the gap for tech skills training DGT IN FS
🔎 Nick Freer highlights the achievements of CodeClan TS
⚔️ Alan Grant writes that the collapse shows the "Scottish Government isn't serious about tech" TS
📣 Asks & Offers
❓ Who do you know? Community Lab (open innovation platform) is hiring a Proposition Manager ("Imagine a Product Manager has a baby with a Project Manager and that baby was raised by an Account Manager who had an affair with a Community Manager") Know anyone?? Send them this.
📣 We're launching the Founders' Survey next week on the funding landscape in Scotland. If you have a mailing list of startup founders, and would be willing to share the survey, let us know!
👭 Interested in connecting with possible co-founders? Fill in your listing on Cofounder Curious today! Connect with others for possible cofounder matching here.
🙋 Interested in being a COO/CEO? A successful startup (12-15 people) are looking for someone to lead it into its next phase. Seeking a founder mentality who is willing to experiment and explore new avenues while being in charge of the company's operations. A great opportunity for the right person who can have a genuine impact on the company in an exciting industry (Earth Science Tech). Reply to this email for more info.
✍️ Want to write something for Campfire? Have an opinion you'd like to share? get in touch!
🦸 Absolute Superheroes
"John Morrison and Joe Fitzgibbon are absolute superheroes within the Scottish ecosystem. They're always there to help my company and other startups. From free mentoring in the early days, quality advice, even the occasional office space to use in Edinburgh and London, they are genuinely there to help out while still being cost-effective." - John Gordon, CEO & Co-founder, Incentive Games
Shepherd & Wedderburn's innovative and personable approach helps companies from first incorporation onwards (including through to an exit – if that’s the goal). Their global reach means they can scale and grow with you, like they have with clients like Epic Games, FanDuel, Parsleybox, and TVSquared.
👉 To learn more, send an email to starttoscale@shepwedd.co.uk & set up a chat.
📅 Events
🤳 15/08, 11:00 🗺️ Online: Grow your startup with TikTok: Danae Shell about her experience of successfully using TikTok to grow her startup's audience. Danae will share the story of how she got TikTok to work for her business, along with hints and tips followed by Q&A. Open to everyone. MORE INFO
#️⃣ 15/08, 13:00 🗺️ Online: Lessons from eight years of growth at Slack: We’ll hear from Amy Wallace and her stories of fun and failure from her eight years of working for Slack, and the lessons she drew from it including leading teams with no previous management experience, working remotely, dealing with fast-paced change, team culture, and being comfortable with discomfort. MORE INFO
🎉 15/08, 17:30 🗺️ Inverness: Techscaler Summer Sessions: Highlands and Islands: Celebrate the activity which has taken place across the region since the launch of Techscaler, to meet with other members and share success stories, and to enjoy some food, drink and music with the community. MORE INFO
🤝 17/08, 12:00 🗺️ Inverness: AccelerateHER + Techscaler Meetup: Highlands and Islands: Whether you’re working on a fledgling idea for a startup or already in the thick of scaling your tech enterprise, having a community of folks to connect with, share knowledge with, and generally find support amongst is invaluable. For women and non-binary folk in the tech startup world this is even more vital. MORE INFO
🍻 17/08, 17:15 🗺️ Edinburgh: Barclays and CodeBase, Edinburgh's monthly quiz!!: Dave, from Barclays Eagle Labs, hosts a pub quiz each month from the CodeBase, Edinburgh, event space. The winning team will receive a trophy that they can display proudly in their office/on their desk for the month, until someone else tries to win it at the next quiz!. MORE INFO
📖 17/08, 18:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Product Tank Meetup: Storytelling & Data-Driven Design: August event all around Storytelling & Data-Driven Design. We're absolutely thrilled to be welcoming Emma Gordon and Amélie Bruhart to share their experiences building user-centric products with this community. MORE INFO
💡 21/08, 10:00 🗺️ Online: Innovation Funding Webinar: Energy Systems, Grids, Storage and Generation: Learn about the latest domestic and international funding available for energy systems, grids, storage and generation innovation projects. MORE INFO
⛓️ 22/08, 17:00 🗺️ Edinburgh: Monthly Scottish Blockchain Meetup: Networking & talks including "Exploring blockchain and its revolutionary applications" by Rajesh Kumar Plamthottathil, Founder & CEO of TrackGenesis and "The velocity of money and token valuation" by Sekar Langit. MORE INFO
🦓 23/08, 12:30 🗺️ Edinburgh + Online option: Business For Good – Alternative Exits – Employee Ownership: An exploration into employee ownership, hosted in-person and online by B-corp, Zebras Unite & CodeBase. MORE INFO
💰 Series: Unlocking Opportunities: VC Insights for Scottish Tech Founders: panel of experts, comprising seasoned venture capitalists and experts, including Chris Neumann, Marvin Liao, Monique Woodard, Casey Lau, and Mike Sigal, will share their invaluable insights on what it takes to become investor ready.
📆 21/08, 11:00 🗺️ Edinburgh MORE INFO
📆 23/08, 18:00 🗺️ Glasgow MORE INFO
📆 24/08, 18:30 🗺️ Dundee MORE INFO
📆 25/08, 18:00 🗺️ Inverness MORE INFO
🎯 Deadlines
🎯 Open 💡 Applications are open for the RBS Accelerator programme MORE INFO
🎯 14/08 🔒 Funded places to International Cyber Expo in September (travel and exhibiting space). MORE INFO
🎯 22/08 🏗️ CivTech 9 Challenge call deadline for companies to submit proposals for a share of £7.8 million of contract opportunities for teams and businesses able to solve problems for government backed agencies and organisations in Scotland.
🎯 25/08 🇵🇹 Foras Lisbon 2023: funded trip to WebSummit November 11-18. Includes flights, accommodation, WebSummit tickets, wokshops, investor meets. Any stage of business, as long as it has high-growth potential. 15 places for female-led businesses, 5 places for male-led. MORE INFO
🎯 01/09 🤓 Applications are now open for the Scottish Cyber Awards. MORE INFO
🎯 01/10 ♻️ TechX Accelerator: Cleantech at a tech readiness level of 2-6, up to £100k in grant or SAFE note, 15 week programme with 3 weeks expected in Aberdeen. Looking for "diverse, innovative start-ups that will pave the way in clean energy." MORE INFO
🇬🇧 Upcoming Innovate UK deadlines:
Unlocking Potential Begin (£5k grants for business ideas) Submissions close 6 September
Unlocking Potential Build (£50k grants for business ideas) Submissions close 6 September
Ofgem Round 3: Call for Ideas Submissions close 21 August
India – UK Collaborative R&D for industrial sustainability Applications close 6 August
UK-Israel Eureka Bilateral Collaborative R&D: Round 2 Applications close 13 September
Innovate UK Smart grants: June 2023 Applications close 27 September 2023
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That’s all for this week - have a great one!
Team 🔥Campfire