Ten companies. Three months. One Demo Day. But what makes the Techstars L.A. experience so transformative? And how will that translate to the current remote world? In this installment of dot.LA Dives In, we talk with Anna Barber, managing director of Techstars L.A., for a behind the scenes look at what the Class of 2020 can expect from the accelerator experience.
Meet the Techstars L.A. Class of 2020
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cc070c5f773d48cb69efaccc58bc5a90"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NaOLE9iIWSI?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>"We have had a (Techstars) that is all virtual for a few years now, so we had some precedent. Essentially what we are trying to do is bring that community, that connection, and all the learning and the value of mentorship, but just do it in a virtual environment with the same level of effectiveness," says Barber</p><p>Since the inception of Techstars L.A., Barber has been cultivating supportive environments for startups to grow. </p>
<p>Some of her favorite stories are the "before and after" transformations where, by the end of its journey, the company is almost unrecognizable. Many of the accelerator participants go on to raise seed rounds after an intense three months of iteration.</p><p>"The reason people are successful fundraising coming out of the program is because they do the work of understanding the drivers of their business and moving them so that investors can see they are building on a strong foundation, and therefore their business becomes investable," says Barber. "It's not because they build a fancy powerpoint or rehearse their pitch a lot. It's because they did the work."<br/></p><p><span></span>Barber <a href="https://dot.la/heres-the-one-thing-techstars-anna-barber-looks-for-in-founders-2646414750/particle-2" target="_blank">looks for a certain type of founder</a> that can undergo such a transformation. Each member of the Techstars L.A. 2020 class is there because Barber could envision herself working for their company. But what is it specifically that makes her say yes to a founder? Passion and an open mind.<br/></p><p>"I'm looking for that founder who literally can't be doing anything else because they can't rest until this thing that they've envisioned exists in the world," says Barber. "Then you couple that determination with a really open-minded viewpoint of how you get there. And a willingness to learn, and a willingness to be wrong."</p><p>In addition to her role at Techstars, Barber serves as a coach and strategic consultant to founders, as well as a partner at The Fund, an early stage venture capital fund made up of local founders and operators that <a href="https://dot.la/the-fund-los-angles-venture-capital-2645878184.html" target="_blank">expanded to L.A. this year</a>. With so much engagement in the local tech and startup community, it is no surprise that Barber has a specific vision for L.A. tech's future. Five to ten years down the line, she hopes for a Los Angeles that is contributing to the sustainability of our planet and for a community where diversity, equity and inclusion have become core components - and she plans to help make that vision a reality.</p><p>"I think, 'what is the change I want to see in the world and have L.A. be a leader?' I would love to see advances in sustainability, which I think is the pressing issue of our time," says Barber. "And I would love to see a Los Angeles where we have made meaningful progress on diversity, equity and inclusion — both on the funding side and the founding side."</p><p>Watch the full interview to learn more - in this conversation, we dive deep into how Techstars empowers startups to create impact, what it is about a founder that makes Barber say yes! and what she envisions for the future of L.A. tech. Get ready for an intriguing look at the L.A. startup scene from the woman uniquely positioned to help bring about that future.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b3c1131bbffeafa5b7134553e41076cb"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JrBrZxf_7Aw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Anna Barber: Techstars and the Future of L.A. Tech</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrBrZxf_7Aw&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a></small>
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<em>Kelly O'Grady runs video and serves as the chief host & correspondent for dot.LA. Find her on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kfogrady" target="_blank">@kfogrady</a> and email her at <a href="mailto:mailto:kelly@dot.LA">kelly@dot.LA</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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- Meet Techstars LA 2020 Class - dot.LA ›
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As employees and employers have scrambled in recent months to adapt to remote work, nothing has changed for GitLab, except that its founders feel vindicated after years of doubts about whether not having an office would harm productivity and scare off investors. The company, which provides software for developers, is valued at $2.75 billion and employs 1,200 people in 67 countries, all of whom are remote.
GitLab has been fully distributed since it was founded out of Y Combinator in 2015 and far from slowing it down, Darren Murph, the company's head of remote, says eschewing the office — or the co-located model as he calls it — has been a major driver of success.
<p><i>"</i>In 2019, the company tripled in size," said Murph. "That would have been literally impossible in a co-located space because we would have had moved offices at least three times — and just the time it takes to actually move would have prevented us from hiring that amount of people. <i>We<em> have</em></i><em> </em>been able to scale and grow at an amazing rate because of the efficiencies when you don't have to worry about an office building. <i>Y</i>ou can run circles around companies that continue to do the co-located model.<i>"</i></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyODY4MC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTY2MTY0NH0.U-Zizy__nTNWACauSCcsWgvtgTu6Q5EcofdZguO5Wps/img.png?width=980" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyODY4MC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTY2MTY0NH0.U-Zizy__nTNWACauSCcsWgvtgTu6Q5EcofdZguO5Wps/img.png?width=980" id="efe67" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7b2738ff4acd06aa0b7b29aa0232e246" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /></a>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">What are the Secrets to Running a Remote Startup? GitLab has Been Doing it for 5 Years</small>
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about.gitlab.com
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</p><p>Murph, who has been working at home for 15 years in various communications roles, was hired by GitLab last year into a position he thinks more companies should have. That's because, he says, for all its advantages, being a remote office is not easy. It requires intentionality, especially for employees who've spent their whole careers in offices.<br/></p><p><strong></strong><i>"</i>This isn't just something where people flip a switch and say 'oh great, we're remote' and everything can work as it always has'," said Murph.</p><p>Aside from being an evangelist for remote offices, Murph helps new employees onboard and wrote GitLab's <a href="https://learn.gitlab.com/all-remote/remote-playbook?source=in-app-message" target="_blank">Remote Playbook</a>, which anyone can view. He recently spoke to dot.LA from his home in North Carolina about what other companies can learn from his experience and how many others will ultimately follow GitLab's path.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQyNTEwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1Njk5NTk0Nn0.17EGSa4D9UjrNz6QHkGQcM9C7MVFI_svar9YLAkZ--w/img.jpg?width=980" id="ac6a4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8c2437b4cc8b6dce4150ea956674f5dc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
GitLab has been fully remote since it was founded out of Y Combinator in 2015 and far from slowing it down, Darren Murph, the company's head of remote, says the distributed model has been a major driver of success.
<p><strong>Why did GitLab decide to go fully remote when it started?<em></em><em></em></strong></p><p>The first three employees at GitLab were based in three different countries, and so we were very much remote by default. The company did come to California through the Y Combinator startup accelerator — and as all companies do, they did what they were told and they got an offer in San Francisco. That lasted about three days before people just stopped showing up. The work continued to get done and it just dawned on the founding team really early on that spending money on real estate was not useful in any way, so they let the office fade and thus the all-remote company was born.<em></em></p><p><strong>Did you ever feel before the past few months that there was a stigma put on you guys because of that decision to be fully remote?<em></em><em></em></strong></p><p>Early on there were actually some investors that told the founding team, "Look, we love your business and we love your business model, but here's the deal: We have various companies that we can invest in and we've never seen a company do this long term. And so that means there's more risk associated with this. And we're not in a position where we have to take that risk and so we're not going to." </p>
<p>And what's crazy about it is over the years, many of those have made a complete 180 and are actively seeking remote first and all remote companies because it simply makes sense. When you look at a VC, if they're going to cut you a million dollar seed check and 40% of that goes to an office that you're leasing and you have no equity in, compared to a startup where 100% of that goes to people and technology, which do you think has the longer runway for success? It is amazing to see the turn of mindset from nine or 10 years ago. Last year we partnered with General Catalyst to host a half-day panel specifically on making remote work because General Catalyst wants to be known as a VC firm that is actively looking to invest in companies like that. That would have been unthinkable 10 or 15 years ago.</p><p><strong>So these remote trends were underway before coronavirus?</strong><br/><strong></strong></p><p>Yes, well before COVID, because the technology is not the issue anymore. Fifteen years ago, Slack and Zoom did not exist. The only thing you have to get your head around is the management culture side, and (employers) have seen that startups tend to skew younger and they have never known a life without the internet. They've always been comfortable communicating digitally. It just makes sense. They don't view it as remote work. They just view it as work. And I think what has happened has simply accelerated what was already happening. <em></em></p><p><strong>But VCs have always liked going in and walking around — to, in some sense, see where their money is going.</strong><em></em></p><p>But that doesn't mean it's intelligent. Laying your eyes on people and on chairs that you don't own has never been a good way to measure productivity or success. And that is the great awakening that's happening right now, which is the question of, 'how do I know if someone's working remotely?' Well, how did you know they were working in the office? </p><p>This great migration is starting to force people to take a look at how much they were biased and how much they really should have been focused on results. But listen, I don't think you'll ever get away from some B.S. that they want their start ups in an office, because they they want to command and control. And look, it may work better for some companies than others. If you're dealing with physical hardware, it's still going to be really hard to do it remotely. But if you're dealing with a truly digital products, (working remotely is) really amenable to do that.<em> </em><em></em></p><p><strong>It seems like there's already been a whole <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/technology/working-from-home.html" target="_blank">backlash to the all-remote movement.</a> Ultimately when there's a successful vaccine, how much of a shift will there really be?</strong> <em></em></p><p>There's definitely no putting this genie back in the bottle. I think the long term effects of this are going to be way more positive. That will outweigh any negative. I think one of the major things to come from this is it has finally democratized the conversation on workplace flexibility. </p><p>Working moms, caregivers, military spouses, people with disabilities and people that simply want to live somewhere outside of a major urban center have been (reluctant) to bring up the conflict in conversation and interviews. What COVID has done is every company is going to have to have an answer to question: 'What is your stance on workplace flexibility?' </p><p>To me, that is massively empowering and massively liberating. I don't think all companies are going to shut their offices down overnight. The point is to provide more flexibility and support for people no matter where they are. Companies need to realize that their offices are simply another place to go to work in. And if you look at it through that lens, you design your company to have a thriving culture no matter where someone is. </p>From Your Site Articles
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It seems like almost every day another tech company announces an extension of their work-from-home ("WFH") plans. First Zillow (my former company) said they'd allow employees to WFH for the rest of 2020, then Google and Facebook announced something similar. And then Twitter one-upped everyone by announcing that they would extend WFH forever.
I've had several tech CEOs tell me that Twitter's announcement raised the stakes significantly, and is forcing these leaders to rethink their own policies.
Regardless of how far this WFH arms race goes, one thing is clear: WFH is here to stay in one form or another.
<p>In order to maintain productivity in a WFH environment, companies have fully embraced collaboration software, video conferencing and other strategies and tactics to succeed. But they're now facing a much harder challenge: how to build culture remotely.
</p><p>
It's actually quite easy to make a video-conference WFH meeting as effective as an in-person meeting. But <em>remotely </em>building the special <em>esprit de corps</em> that makes a company truly succeed — and be desired by potential employees — is very hard.
</p><p>Unfortunately for those of us who care deeply about company culture, the long trend in workplace design going back 5-10 years is one of more remote and home-based work, and less in-person in-office time. For example, from the time we started Zillow in 2006 until when we went public in 2011, we had only a few hundred employees, and they were almost entirely in our Seattle headquarters. But by the time I retired as CEO in 2019, we had over 4,500 employees across eight offices, and less than half of our employees were in the Seattle headquarters. Dozens more were completely home-based.<br/></p><p>
The trend towards decentralization began out of necessity as companies sought to tap different talent pools in order to grow, and to station employees physically closer to their customers. But the coronavirus pandemic undoubtedly will accelerate this trend, and it seems very likely that the next generation of great companies will be decentralized, and probably some will be mostly remote.
</p><p>
Said another way, the leaders in workplace culture from 2000-2020 were companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Zillow, which built their culture around in-person events (think: volleyball games and frisbees around their corporate campuses). But the leaders in workplace culture from 2020-2040 will be a new generation of companies whose employees have a very different relationship with their company. Less important will be physical perks like on-site dry cleaning and bringing your dog to work; more important will be programs around career development and mentoring, and ways in which the company allows workers to balance their job with outside interests.
</p><h2>How do you build company culture among a distributed workforce?</h2><h3>
Repetitive Communication is more important than ever
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In a remote environment, it is imperative that senior leadership consistently and repeatedly communicate with the team. Reiterating the mission, key goals, milestones, strategies and priorities is critical. In addition, one must communicate repeatedly and through multiple channels in order to break through the clutter of employees' everyday lives. For example, a CEO must remind the team of the top 3 priorities for the company via slack, via video all-hands, via all-hands emails, and probably even reinforce it through social media (if the priorities can be published externally).
</p><h3>Celebrate little wins</h3><p style="margin-left: 20px;">
<strong></strong>One of the small joys of an office environment is the opportunity for in-person celebrations of big accomplishments such as product launches and milestones achieved, and the little wins such as employees' birthdays or weddings. It's important to replicate this in a remote environment as much as possible. Video conference calls have a tendency to trend towards a transactional nature which is antiseptic and demotivating. Overcome this by celebrating small wins in any way you can. A simple method is to do weekly "shout-outs" in video all-hands meetings.
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Try to build relationships among team members
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Again, look for ways to replicate the serendipitous in-office experiences remotely in order to build relationships and trust among team members. Examples include a "bring your pet to lunch" video call; a make-your-own company swag day; and even a crazy-hair day. (Yes, I stole that last idea from my kids' school, but it's a good one for a company also.)<br/>
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Assemble in-person from time to time
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I believe that the company of the future, post coronavirus, will be mostly remote but will still gather in-person a few times a month. An in-person all-hands (with video for those not based in the HQ city) is invaluable. Likewise, some company activities such as brainstorming sessions and annual business planning are best done in-person and you should try to accommodate that via IRL meetings.
</p><p>
Building company culture is important no matter the company's stage or business. But in a remote environment, it's more important than ever. If you have ideas on how else to build culture in a remote organization, please <a href="https://twitter.com/spencerrascoff" target="_blank">tweet them at me</a>.
</p>
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