Maintaining Culture in a Distributed Team

You're right, we don't have internet or communication connections in remote locations, and that's something we take into consideration when building our teams. We know that just because we can't see each other, it doesn't mean we're not working together effectively. In fact, I think some of the best companies are those that've been doing this for a long time and have developed a sense of trust with their remote workers. They know that even if they can't see them, they're still contributing to the team's success.

This is especially true when you've got teams that are already distributed, like ours. We grew our team by tripling in size during the pandemic, which was a great opportunity for us to experiment with remote work and find what worked best for us. Now, we're native to this way of working, and it's allowed us to attract top talent from all over the world.

Recruitment During the Pandemic

When the pandemic hit, our recruitment process was actually easier than ever. With everyone working remotely, we could reach people from anywhere in the world and have them join our team without having to meet in person. This was a huge advantage for us, as it allowed us to find the best candidates for the job without being limited by geographical location.

However, other leaders have told me that recruitment during this time has been more challenging than ever before. With everyone working remotely, it can be harder to build personal relationships with potential employees and gauge their fit with the company culture.

Growing During the Pandemic

One of the biggest challenges we faced was growing our team during a time when many companies were struggling to adapt to remote work. We tripled in size during the pandemic, which was a huge undertaking, but it also presented some unique opportunities for us to experiment and find new ways of working.

As we've grown, we've had to navigate the challenges of remote work head-on. This includes figuring out how to maintain our company culture, how to manage communication with our team members, and how to make sure everyone is working together effectively. We've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't, and it's been an exciting time for us as a company.

Hybrid Office Models

When it comes to returning to the office, we're not sure that five days a week is going to be the right fit for us. In fact, I think many companies are starting to question whether this was ever the best approach in the first place. With the rise of remote work and hybrid models, it's becoming clear that traditional office spaces may no longer be necessary.

We're experimenting with different hybrid models, including core days and flexible schedules. While it's still early days for us, we're excited to see what works and what doesn't. We know that our team needs to have a balance between working together in person and having the freedom to work from anywhere.

Commercial Deliveries

One of the most exciting developments on the horizon for us is our entry into commercial deliveries. In fact, we'll be starting with medical supplies for COVID-19 soon. This is a big step for us, as it will allow us to showcase our capabilities and demonstrate that we can deliver on our promises.

Our aircraft plays a critical role in this process. We use them for testing and performance, and they're an essential part of our business. When we're not flying the plane, we're using it to perform other important tasks, like airdrops. It's long days, but it's also a lot of fun.

Pilot Work

One of the most interesting aspects of our business is the work that pilots do from the air. We don't have remote pilots yet, which is one of the biggest challenges we face. But when we're flying, our pilots are able to perform critical tasks and make a real difference in our operations. It's an exciting time for us as a company, and we can't wait to see what the future holds.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ena lot of the team came on post-pandemic so i think that really gave us a you know a chance to be kind of native to remote work and really understanding how to connect when i say rapid precise delivery of goods you probably think oh yeah that's e-commerce we all take it for granted now but we're about to talk to the founder of a company that does that for a much different set of reasons and i would say a much more important set of reasons and along the way they've learned some unique lessons about remote work joel eiffel is founder and chief innovation officer of dash systems joel what does dash do we do precision commercial air drop systems so simply put we take existing cargo aircraft to give them ability to launch and land cargo mid-flight making air cargo more efficient more accessible removing useful loads of aircraft so thousands of pounds in a given flight so how do you get the goods down to the ground so we make kind of uh two main components we make a software suite that really automates and makes the airdrop process much more safe and reliable then we basically makes little systems that launch cargo out the side door of existing aircraft and finally what are you dropping from the sky we call them pods these custom vehicles uh that have a little parachute that allows a safe soft landing now you had a career before this that set you up to do exactly what you're doing now didn't you yeah i'm an engineer by degree my first job was working on precision guy munitions better known as smart bombs and i really wanted to re-engineer that technology for a peaceful purpose when you are looking at your market it's not about getting a faster easier delivery to more suburban neighborhoods you're talking about a higher calling yeah the company started in humanitarian deliveries you know delivering to impossible situations just days after hurricanes really now we're expanding into commercial deliveries a remote island mountain any place that's hard to reach i believe they deserve fast transportation just like we get in major cities so here you are with a company that is rooted in the idea of being at distance a lot being in areas where perhaps there is little or no connectivity was remote work that much of a shift in your mindset at dash when we all had to take it on from the inception of the company we always knew that remote work uh was going to be a reality just by the nature of aviation you know when you're in the sky you generally don't have a internet or communication connection uh same in disaster location these remote locations you know you can't rely on having good internet or good com so you know just kind of took that into consideration that yes we're always gonna have people in the field and i think some of that just you know comes to a sense of trust that you know they're still working even if you can't see them yeah so this is what's interesting is you already have a team that knows many of us are not here we're out far away how do you maintain and keep the culture going in a company like that maybe this even predates the remote work era one where you've always got a distributed team that isn't always face to face yeah you know when the pandemic started we actually tripled in size uh so a lot of the team came on post pandemic so i think that really gave us a you know a chance to be kind of native to remote work and really understanding uh how to connect uh you know just finding all those various tools and experimenting until we found what worked for us you have talked about how fast you've grown and in the jaws of a pandemic mode what's recruitment been like some some leaders have told me it's almost better because we're now so free and open to look to find people anywhere and base them anywhere and others have said yeah that works but it's a lot harder in other ways because the face-to-face component got a lot more difficult what's it been like to grow so much at this time in history yeah i think it's all the above uh it does open up the candidate pool let you say be more efficient just in in terms of getting meetings in you know meeting people on their lunch breaks etc i think the biggest one for us is also making sure you're solving for culture finding people that are going to fit into the organization i think that's the thing you know i keep my eye on most all right so tell me about return to office everyone's trying to juggle with you know we start with five days and then we try to solve for how we're going to have what part of that's remote what parts hybrid and what part is your call what are you communicating to your team about how they should arrange those five days between monday and friday going forward and you know get kind of into what we're doing uh we're a hybrid office you know we're building physical products so you have to be in there to turn wrenches you know we fly airplanes so we have to be in there have the team in the airplane i think right now we're still solving that experiment you know around having core days what core days should they be a lot of it's just being flexible and being willing to try different systems but we haven't had that resounding message to be in the office five days a week i don't think that will ever be the right long-term move we used to refer to a younger generation as being digital natives and i think that term can evolve and they are now hybrid remote natives so i just think that there's a natural demand that was coming anyway pandemic or not and like so many other things it just accelerated us getting there yeah exactly i think this is a forcing function for a lot of companies saying hey you know they were dragging their feet they're really cautious to know you know we have to do this and once you do it you see the performance the output is the same and really the question why would you go back why would you take all that overhead of having everyone in the office five days a week so let's talk about going forward now as we wrap up uh we're talking now in march of 2022. what are some interesting milestones you've got coming up ahead this year i think the biggest one for us we're really excited to announce very soon we'll begin commercial deliveries uh starting with medical supplies for covid uh really just getting out there showing hey this is possible it's safe it's legal 2022 is the year to do it so joel you guys have something that most offices don't have which is airplane days we don't have those at cnet tell me what they are yeah so in the nature of our business you know we own an aircraft uh we go out and test uh or perform uh and say pilot work uh so we have to fly the airplane call them airplane days test days uh you know by the nature of hardware engineering you usually have to end up touching that physical product and there's no way around it so we rode the crew up in our airplane we go fly out perform airdrops come back they're long days but a lot of fun and that's the ultimate in remote work i got to tell you yeah you know we haven't solved for remote pilots yet so you still got a pilot in the in the cockpit youa lot of the team came on post-pandemic so i think that really gave us a you know a chance to be kind of native to remote work and really understanding how to connect when i say rapid precise delivery of goods you probably think oh yeah that's e-commerce we all take it for granted now but we're about to talk to the founder of a company that does that for a much different set of reasons and i would say a much more important set of reasons and along the way they've learned some unique lessons about remote work joel eiffel is founder and chief innovation officer of dash systems joel what does dash do we do precision commercial air drop systems so simply put we take existing cargo aircraft to give them ability to launch and land cargo mid-flight making air cargo more efficient more accessible removing useful loads of aircraft so thousands of pounds in a given flight so how do you get the goods down to the ground so we make kind of uh two main components we make a software suite that really automates and makes the airdrop process much more safe and reliable then we basically makes little systems that launch cargo out the side door of existing aircraft and finally what are you dropping from the sky we call them pods these custom vehicles uh that have a little parachute that allows a safe soft landing now you had a career before this that set you up to do exactly what you're doing now didn't you yeah i'm an engineer by degree my first job was working on precision guy munitions better known as smart bombs and i really wanted to re-engineer that technology for a peaceful purpose when you are looking at your market it's not about getting a faster easier delivery to more suburban neighborhoods you're talking about a higher calling yeah the company started in humanitarian deliveries you know delivering to impossible situations just days after hurricanes really now we're expanding into commercial deliveries a remote island mountain any place that's hard to reach i believe they deserve fast transportation just like we get in major cities so here you are with a company that is rooted in the idea of being at distance a lot being in areas where perhaps there is little or no connectivity was remote work that much of a shift in your mindset at dash when we all had to take it on from the inception of the company we always knew that remote work uh was going to be a reality just by the nature of aviation you know when you're in the sky you generally don't have a internet or communication connection uh same in disaster location these remote locations you know you can't rely on having good internet or good com so you know just kind of took that into consideration that yes we're always gonna have people in the field and i think some of that just you know comes to a sense of trust that you know they're still working even if you can't see them yeah so this is what's interesting is you already have a team that knows many of us are not here we're out far away how do you maintain and keep the culture going in a company like that maybe this even predates the remote work era one where you've always got a distributed team that isn't always face to face yeah you know when the pandemic started we actually tripled in size uh so a lot of the team came on post pandemic so i think that really gave us a you know a chance to be kind of native to remote work and really understanding uh how to connect uh you know just finding all those various tools and experimenting until we found what worked for us you have talked about how fast you've grown and in the jaws of a pandemic mode what's recruitment been like some some leaders have told me it's almost better because we're now so free and open to look to find people anywhere and base them anywhere and others have said yeah that works but it's a lot harder in other ways because the face-to-face component got a lot more difficult what's it been like to grow so much at this time in history yeah i think it's all the above uh it does open up the candidate pool let you say be more efficient just in in terms of getting meetings in you know meeting people on their lunch breaks etc i think the biggest one for us is also making sure you're solving for culture finding people that are going to fit into the organization i think that's the thing you know i keep my eye on most all right so tell me about return to office everyone's trying to juggle with you know we start with five days and then we try to solve for how we're going to have what part of that's remote what parts hybrid and what part is your call what are you communicating to your team about how they should arrange those five days between monday and friday going forward and you know get kind of into what we're doing uh we're a hybrid office you know we're building physical products so you have to be in there to turn wrenches you know we fly airplanes so we have to be in there have the team in the airplane i think right now we're still solving that experiment you know around having core days what core days should they be a lot of it's just being flexible and being willing to try different systems but we haven't had that resounding message to be in the office five days a week i don't think that will ever be the right long-term move we used to refer to a younger generation as being digital natives and i think that term can evolve and they are now hybrid remote natives so i just think that there's a natural demand that was coming anyway pandemic or not and like so many other things it just accelerated us getting there yeah exactly i think this is a forcing function for a lot of companies saying hey you know they were dragging their feet they're really cautious to know you know we have to do this and once you do it you see the performance the output is the same and really the question why would you go back why would you take all that overhead of having everyone in the office five days a week so let's talk about going forward now as we wrap up uh we're talking now in march of 2022. what are some interesting milestones you've got coming up ahead this year i think the biggest one for us we're really excited to announce very soon we'll begin commercial deliveries uh starting with medical supplies for covid uh really just getting out there showing hey this is possible it's safe it's legal 2022 is the year to do it so joel you guys have something that most offices don't have which is airplane days we don't have those at cnet tell me what they are yeah so in the nature of our business you know we own an aircraft uh we go out and test uh or perform uh and say pilot work uh so we have to fly the airplane call them airplane days test days uh you know by the nature of hardware engineering you usually have to end up touching that physical product and there's no way around it so we rode the crew up in our airplane we go fly out perform airdrops come back they're long days but a lot of fun and that's the ultimate in remote work i got to tell you yeah you know we haven't solved for remote pilots yet so you still got a pilot in the in the cockpit you\n"