I keep getting asked about the Payroll Hero house in San Francisco. People have seen the sticky notes in the background of a picture or the big TVs, but have wondered what is going on. Here is a quick video of me showing you around the mail floor:
We had a few people pop in to the Payroll Hero house last night for cocktails and snacks. It was a diverse group, mainly people who we had met since we have been in town. I snapped a couple fuzzy photos on my iPhone.. not my best work.
Dan Martell giving me a demo of his new business Clarity.FM
(Dan took a call from a guy named Justin from Seattle who had startup questions via Clarity.FM)
Michael Stephenson and Brendan Baker
Tobi Adamolekun of Luxr.co and Damon Pace
Ken Seto of Massive Damage and Chikezie Ejiasi of Oakley
PayrollHero has 1 team in 2 locations. Four of us are currently in San Francisco USA, the rest of the team is in Manila PH. How do we deal with the team across different time zones, in different offices, within different countries? (Tip: A Window)
We use a few different tools to keep the team “close”. Some of those tools include; Yammer.com which is a fantastic tool for online chat within the team. It allows team members to have group chats about tickets they are working on, bugs, new features, etc. It is a great way to communicate, while not disturbing team members when they are focusing on something else. Google Chat works well for one on one conversations and Google Video if you need to see and speak with a specific person.
For our standup morning meetings, the development team has 2 flat screen TVs (1 in each location) each connected to an Apple Mini with iChat. This allows the team in both locations to stand up and meet just as if they were all in the same location. (kind of like looking through a “window” into the other office)
(L – R) Michael Stephenson and Piotr Banasik (foreground) chatting with 5 members of the PayrollHero team in Manila on the screen
(L – R) Adam Baechler and Stephen Jagger (foreground) with the developer daily standup meeting happening in the background
After the first session at Luxr, we wanted to get to know the group as soon as we could so that we could get the most out of the Luxr Residency and fast track the relationships with the other members of the cohort. So, we did what we know best, and threw together a cocktail party at the house for all of the attendees of the Luxr program and the instructors. It was a great way to meet the other teams, share a few stories and learn more about what they are up to and where they are going. (complete picture set here)
Where cocktail parties always seem to gather (the kitchen)
(L – R) Adam Baechler, Piotr Banasik, Tobi Adamolekun, Toni and Jason Fraser
(L – R) Bryan, Janice Fraser, Michael Stephenson and Jesse Martinez
(L – R) Stephen Jagger, Tony Stubblebine and Jesse Martinez
We have rented a house to set up show in while we are here and part of the setup means transforming part of the house we are in, into a functional office space. Thankfully, they had a large dinning room table that we have taken over and make it our work space.
One thing we realized quite quickly was that the dinning room chairs were not going to cut it for long days of working away. About 10 years ago, Mike and I purchased seemingly super expensive chairs called Herman Miller Aeron chairs. While they are really expensive, over the years they have been proven as the best quality chair on the market. We have purchased many other chairs from lots of different suppliers only to have them fall apart, loose the stuffing in the arm rests or just break. The first 2 Aeron chairs that we bought 10 years ago, are still in use and look like new. So today, we drove over the Bay Bridge in San Francisco to a furniture supplier that was selling hundreds of “used” Aeron chairs. By used, they said they were bought by Google, for a 3 day conference, and then put on the market to be sold. So we picked up 4 of them for the PayrollHero.com team.
