Recorded on 03/2020 in Linz, Austria at Neue Werft. CTO Wolfgang Damm & HR Lead Tanja Weidinger of Fretello spent the day with Remoter at their coworking space Neue Werft. Fretello is an AI-based music education app empowering people to express themselves through music by learning to play guitar. Being a remote company has allowed them to retain their best talents and better integrate work with personal lives, flexing their schedules as they see fit - something that’s very important for those at the company with young families.
Recorded on 03/2020 in Linz, Austria at Neue Werft. CTO Wolfgang Damm & HR Lead Tanja Weidinger of Fretello spent the day with Remoter at their co-working space Neue Werft. Fretello is an AI-based music education app empowering people to express themselves through music by learning to play guitar. Being a remote company has allowed them to retain their best talents and better integrate work with personal lives, flexing their schedules as they see fit - something that’s very important for those at the company with young families.
Support Us!
Please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast & Spotify!
Tweet us @Remoter Project.
Follow us on Instagram @RemoterProject.
Give us a like on Facebook @RemoterProject.
Check out some other creations:
The Founding and Growing Remotely online video course with informative details about going remote-first.
If you have any additional questions, feel free to e-mail j@remoter.com.
Josephine Tse 0:00
It's time for season two of the Remoter Podcast. I'm your host Josephine.
Josephine Tse 0:05
As a continuation from season one with Alex and Andres, I had the opportunity to interview some remote work leaders, ranging from companies, consultants, advocates and more to add to Remoter's stash of free resources and human-centred stories, enriching our educational platform about remote work. This podcast is sponsored by Torre, a new kind of professional network that automatically connects talent with opportunity. Founded by Alexander Torrenegra, our goal is to make work fulfilling for everyone find the job of your dreams by visiting torre.co. That's T O R R E dot C O.
Josephine Tse 0:49
Nestled in Upper Austria, Linz is the home base for Fretello, an AI based music learning app that empowers people to express themselves by learning to play guitar. I had the pleasure of listening to Wolfgang and Tanja's story about how they're scaling their business with a remote mindset. We also talk about breakfasts and whitewater pools and skiing down slopes and the double edged sword of what availability meant, especially for them and their families. Remote work was still in its beginning stages when I was in Austria. So I'm very glad to be telling Fretello's story about what makes remote work, work for that.
Josephine Tse 1:26
Welcome to another episode of the Remoter Podcast, season two. Today I am in Linz, Austria, in an industrial park turned office. They've got a lot of cool graffiti art and murals on the buildings, and this is sort of a co working space for smaller businesses that we're in. What is the name of the space?
Wolfgang Damm 1:51
Neue Werft.
Josephine Tse 1:53
Oh man, okay. So in this space I am currently with Fretello. They are a music app using artificial intelligence to help people learn to play guitar. I am with Tanja and Wolfgang today. Tanja is the HR manager at Fretello. And Wolfgang is the CTO and co founder at the company. How are you guys doing?
Josephine Tse 2:18
Great.
Tanja Weidinger 2:19
Awesome. Thanks. How you doing?
Josephine Tse 2:22
Good. Actually, it's been a it's been a hectic journey, but I'm glad I finally made it here. Thank you so much for participating in the Remoter Project, by the way, like none of this would have been possible if we didn't get in touch. And I'm excited to hear you share your story today.
Wolfgang Damm 2:38
Us too, like we're excited to talk about Fretello and how we see remote work.
Josephine Tse 2:43
Can you please tell the listeners about yourself? Give us a little introduction.
Wolfgang Damm 2:47
As you said, I'm co founder of Fretello. I'm a tech enthusiast and I like tough technical challenges but also building our team to create a great product. The essential part about Fretello is the passion for lifelong learning.
Tanja Weidinger 3:01
Yeah, I'm Tanja. So I joined Fretello in September 2019. And it's been a great experience so far. Before that I was working as HR lead in a digital company as well, but over there, they didn't really promote remote work. So it was a strategic decision to actually have everyone on site. I have two kids at home and I needed to have more adapted work setup in order to be really satisfying for myself and like, juggle all the different responsibilities that I have in my life. And yeah, lucky me when I was looking for a new challenge, I was introduced to Wolfgang and Florian the cofounders of Fretello, who at a stage of having around 15 employees back then, were already looking for a dedicated HR person that helps them take good care of their employees and road organisation. Lucky me, I was hired and it's been a great experience so far.
Josephine Tse 3:56
I mean, I'm really glad to be here to talk to you guys about what Fretello is doing in terms of how the remote structure works and everything. And I think this would be a good time to kind of get into that. Can you tell me a little bit more about the company other than the one liner I gave at the beginning?
Wolfgang Damm 4:10
Sure. So we actually first started out developing apps for a 360 degree action camera, which was the first one to market by that time. But it wasn't our passion. Florian and my passion is just lifelong learning and music. And we always were missing that. The reason we think it's important for the world is there are some great guitar teachers around but not everybody has access to them. And even if you have access to a great guitar teacher, you usually only see them once a week. And there's so much more we can do with an app that listens to you. We use artificial intelligence to really understand what your play and then give you feedback on that. And this allows to create a high quality music education product.
Josephine Tse 4:53
What was what was your thought process going with your co founder as to how you even got to starting Fretello as an app, what was your motivation, other than the lifelong learning that you said, but what was?
Wolfgang Damm 5:04
Well, that's a lot of that comes from Florian's own experience, okay, he's an avid guitar player has played first started as a kid playing the drums and then self taught himself to guitar, played in a couple of bands. But at one point, he had the feeling of not progressing anymore. And he wanted to do like learn more. Met our guitar teacher Helmut that we now have on our team as well. Helmut showed Florian a way to practice and learn very, very efficiently. And there's a lot of sports science as well in that practising and learning method. With that method he was able to play things that he within, like, a couple of weeks that he was previously thinking, Hey, I would never be able to play this in my lifetime.
Josephine Tse 5:52
Okay, okay. And then this came to be then.
Wolfgang Damm 5:56
Exactly, and we got feedback from guitar students. Talk to different guitar teachers, and just condensed everything that Florian had experienced, and combine it to be Fretello, basically.
Josephine Tse 6:07
That's really cool. I've been seeing a lot of like signed pictures by other musicians. And they all say to Florian, like they know each other. What's the story behind those pictures like do they also teach within the app or use it?
Wolfgang Damm 6:20
A lot of the pictures you see outside that are signed are actually from people we talk to and that they know Fretello. And some of them actually provided some exercises for our users as well. They are great at what they do the perfected guitar playing, but they also want to pay it forward. One of the results that we have their autographs.
Josephine Tse 6:39
So for the listeners, that was a really bad explanation on my part in the beginning, but who are some of the artists that are on the wall right now, just to give some context.
Wolfgang Damm 6:49
We have a couple of interesting metal guitar players. I think that was two years ago, that Florian talked to them. One of them is Herman Li. If you know Guitar Hero.
Josephine Tse 7:02
Yes, yes.
Wolfgang Damm 7:03
The end boss song, okay, which is "Through the fire and flames." It's really fast and very, very technical. Herman Li is the guitar player for that song and Oh, okay. Okay, with the band DragonForce.
Josephine Tse 7:19
Okay, okay, I know Dragon Force. I've heard of Dragon Force.
Wolfgang Damm 7:22
And one interesting thing about Herman Li is that like, he told us that without practising, he wouldn't be able to play songs. Like, even if he stopped practising for two weeks, he wouldn't be able to play some songs.
Josephine Tse 7:35
Oh, so it's like the consistency of just continually playing that he's at that level.
Wolfgang Damm 7:40
Yes. And also like, practising the right things, because you're training your motor skills. And there's a lot of sports science involved in exactly how you train your muscle memory. Okay, okay. And if you do it, right, you have fast progress and you do it efficiently. If you don't know what you're doing, it's very hard to get to certain points and to build your muscle memory.
Josephine Tse 8:01
Okay, okay. I mean it's it's a really cool challenge that you guys have gotten, because I know a lot of people who want to learn to play guitar, but it's a matter of finding like the right methods. A lot of people are on YouTube and they teach people how to play guitar on YouTube. But sometimes I think that maybe isn't necessarily enough.
Wolfgang Damm 8:21
Exactly. There's a feedback loop is missing. One important thing about learning is getting quick feedback on what you're doing and what you shouldn't be doing.
Josephine Tse 8:30
Are you guys also learning to play guitar?
Wolfgang Damm 8:33
I am, I got to the point where I can play some Christmas songs for my family and impress basically my family with it. I'm not yet ready for the stage, but that might come with time as well.
Tanja Weidinger 8:44
I don't play the guitar yet. And I'm definitely planning on doing so. And lately we got offered from the company to actually be given a guitar. Oh, they are on the way to Austria and I'm really excited to get the journey started. Because only then our employees can be full ambassadors of our product actually.
Josephine Tse 8:59
That's fair. That's a fair point. Okay, cool. That's, that's really awesome. And we're not just here talking about music and guitars. We're here also because Fretello is built on a remote structure that there is a there is a point to this people. So Fretello is built with remote culture in mind. I want to talk a little bit about how that kind of came to be. How did you guys start injecting remote in your foundation?
Wolfgang Damm 9:26
We didn't actually in the beginning start out to decide, hey, we build a remote first company. But I think a couple of key events made it very clear for us that that's the way we want to build the company. First one was when, when Thomas our first employee moved away from Linz, we saw it as an opportunity and not the end of working together. Another key event that happened is when we were looking for an iOS developer to help build the iOS app, we instinctively looked for a remote worker and we found Mark who was then the first employee not working in Austria. And from that point on, we had such a great experience. So that was the point where we said okay, let's make that our mission as well. And let's be a remote first company.
Josephine Tse 10:10
And how about you Tanja, in your experiences so far? What do you think about the remote structure that Fretello has? I know you really like it for your own personal schedule, and flexibility and all.
Tanja Weidinger 10:22
A definite raise in motivation and engagement personally. So when I do have more time to spend with my family and not feeling torn apart all the time between the different obligations that I have, I'm just way more excited and motivated to actually get things going and really focus and deliver high quality work.
Josephine Tse 10:40
So, are most of your engineers dispersed? Or how is the like the build up for that?
Wolfgang Damm 10:48
Yeah. So we have a cross functional product team that is all like engineers back-end iOS, Android, but also UX and QA, and they are all remote.
Josephine Tse 11:00
And how big is your team?
Wolfgang Damm 11:02
The product team is nine people overall we are 20.
Tanja Weidinger 11:06
Yes. No, we were 20. And we were looking for the 21st employee right at the moment.
Josephine Tse 11:13
So your e-platform, your team is working remotely to build that and you are handling. You are handling this team and managing everything. How is your experience been?
Wolfgang Damm 11:26
We, we found that retrospectives for us are the one key factor that helped us improve how we work together and also to better understand the expectations each one of us has, and that was a little bit part of the scrum process. I don't know if you're familiar with that.
Josephine Tse 11:44
Agile methodology.
Wolfgang Damm 11:46
Exactly.
Josephine Tse 11:46
You know, I could just be saying these words at the same time. But yes, no, I am aware.
Wolfgang Damm 11:53
Yes. And within scrum, you have every two weeks you have those retrospectives built in, and that we took that really seriously and we always ask ourselves, besides other things, hey, how we are remote team, how can we make the better what is working for us? What is not working for us?
Josephine Tse 12:11
What is for you the hardest thing about managing the remote cross functional product team?
Wolfgang Damm 12:17
I think everything gets easier if if you have to right people on the team. Mm hmm. So I think the hardest thing is actually building the team and making sure that you tackle things proactively.
Tanja Weidinger 12:30
I personally if I'm if I may add, it is even more important for leaders to actually spend time and dedicate time to their employees, and really get to know them. And having a lot of empathy is really important to being able to read between the lines and really get the sense when people are not feeling well.
Wolfgang Damm 12:48
I think that's, that's what I meant was proactively, like, talking to the people and also being available. And therefore I set aside like my office hour, one hour every Friday, which the team knows they can. Yeah, I'm free. I'm available. I don't have anything else planned. They can just ping me and talk about anything. And then I also like proactively talk to to the team members over the week to to see where things are.
Josephine Tse 13:14
When you hire for people to join this team, do you look for anything in particular to kind of make sure they're a good fit for the company?
Tanja Weidinger 13:24
Yes, we do because we are thing that not everybody is made for remote work for some people, it just doesn't work. And we're especially looking for people who are great communicators. So really are able to concisely, comprehensively and precisely actually get their ideas and information across to people. And also for persons who are really proactive and asking for information, giving information to others, keeping everyone in the loop, because especially in a remote setup where you don't see everyone else in person on a day to day basis, it's super important to keep everyone informed about your own progress, something that already shows in the recruitment process as well. For example, we are having a test for all the positions that we are having out there for the engineers. It's a coding challenge, for example, after the first interview, and there is no deadline for the challenge so people can do it whenever they want. Okay, and there are certain candidates to get back to me after me sending the challenge to them. Even though it states there is no deadline. Hey, Tanja, thanks for sending me the challenge. I will make sure to do it this weekend, for example. And then exactly this last weekend, I had a person getting back to me on Sunday. So Tanja, I'm sorry, I know, I promised you to deliver by Sunday. But I couldn't do it for private reasons, I make sure to deliver it at the beginning of this week, which actually shows me already that from a communication perspective, this person would be a perfect fit for our company.
Josephine Tse 14:52
So that's a good tactic. Actually. That's a good one to use, because then they're just already letting you know, right away, do some people just not like say anything for the longest period of time? Like, are there people that just don't communicate at all?
Tanja Weidinger 15:07
Oh, yes, there are. Yes, there are candidates who just don't respond and then send the the challenge or two of the challenge results after one and a half weeks without any any note.
Josephine Tse 15:17
And that's probably not somebody you're...
Tanja Weidinger 15:19
Not the ideal case. Exactly.
Josephine Tse 15:22
Okay. Okay. So as you guys run your cross functional product team and continue improving your app and everything that you do at Fretello. Could you guys talk a little bit more about what else you are looking to do to improve the remote work culture within your company?
Wolfgang Damm 15:40
So I think we haven't talked about the team events we do twice a year that we get everybody together like really everybody. We'll make an effort to find the time where whatever works for everybody andwe usually do some rather crazy things.
Josephine Tse 15:58
Like what?
Wolfgang Damm 16:01
We we let non swimmers jump into whitewater pools.
Josephine Tse 16:07
Whitewater pools...
Wolfgang Damm 16:09
Do you know what canyoning is?
Josephine Tse 16:11
Oh, is it what like rafting like in the...
Tanja Weidinger 16:14
No, not really.
Wolfgang Damm 16:15
No, it's in a gorge like with with water and you just repel down the gorge, you jump down into water pools. You slide down water slides off Like nature rocks and everything.
Josephine Tse 16:28
Okay. Okay.
Tanja Weidinger 16:29
Guided tours.
Wolfgang Damm 16:30
Guided. Yeah.
Tanja Weidinger 16:31
It's really important to mention it's all guided tours. Okay.
Josephine Tse 16:34
Okay. Okay, so there's somebody leading you all doing this. You're not jumping.
Tanja Weidinger 16:38
Actually, that would be way too dangerous.
Wolfgang Damm 16:41
Okay, no, but it's a fun activity that we did that last summer team event with some also not that crazy stuff. Like, we like to cook together as a team and enjoy a whole different culture that we have in the team.
Josephine Tse 16:55
What are some of the memorable meals? If I may ask?
Wolfgang Damm 16:59
There was, from Turkey. We had some special like, local sausage.
Josephine Tse 17:05
Okay, okay.
Wolfgang Damm 17:05
With egg and tomato but for breakfast? Okay, okay, that was really really spicy. But that that was that was good and something a little bit unexpected for me at least for breakfast.
Josephine Tse 17:17
What do you for breakfast as like a really just, I just know now that you bring it up.
Wolfgang Damm 17:22
Coffee.
Josephine Tse 17:23
Oh, you only eat coffee?
Tanja Weidinger 17:24
Yeah, me too. But usually in Austria, it's bread with jam, butter.
Wolfgang Damm 17:30
Or or yoghurt with some cereal cereal? It's yeah.
Tanja Weidinger 17:34
That's pretty standard, I would say.
Wolfgang Damm 17:36
So yeah, I have that on the weekends, not so much during the week. It's double espresso and then good to go.
Josephine Tse 17:44
Triple espresso.
Tanja Weidinger 17:45
We're currently working on an onboarding experience, okay? Because of course, especially when you're having a remote setup, it's a little difficult to really get how everything's running and you know, how the tradition and customs within the team, how are people actually acting, what are the rules, whom to address with what, and we send out a survey to the entire team to really get the input of everyone. Same for a team member who just started yesterday, actually, because his perspective of course, is most valuable because he is right now in that situation where he wants to learn about the company, what his needs are, giving me an idea to then being able to design a proper journey together then with the entire team to make it as memorable and as enjoyable as possible for the newbies to start within our team. There is already information upfront about what to expect from the very first day. Basic things like at what time they should start with whom the meeting, what information they can expect on the very first day. And then also what they like to learn about the company, the vision, the mission, the goals, the people, our organisational structure, what everyone is doing within the company, a basic introductions to all the tools that we're using, for example, and then as well communication insights. And then of course, also regarding the technical onboarding, but that differs of course from position to position.
Josephine Tse 19:07
Are you thinking about creating a just like one overall onboarding experience, no matter where the employee is, it's going to be more remote structured?
Tanja Weidinger 19:16
So we don't want to see ourselves as an on site team and there is a remote team we are one team and that is super important for us. So it is going to be one journey, no matter where the person is working from.
Josephine Tse 19:28
That's awesome. No. So as you guys are continuing to learn on your journey and continuing to grow with Fretello, I wanted to ask a little bit about your daily routines and what kind of things motivate you to keep improving this remote culture within your company.
Tanja Weidinger 19:45
I'm kind of a hybrid model. So as I'm living close by only 20 minutes from Linz, I tend to come to the office every Monday, but just because I know that there are some people that I am able to see in person. And the other days I'm working from home and just having the remote coffee dates and calls and chats with with my colleagues.
Wolfgang Damm 20:04
I also drop off my my kid in the morning and that's like my meantime, I usually then check some things work related, but I'm not actively on Slack yet. That's just like my time to to figure out what the day is about and do some deep work. The motivation for me is always to see there are people having worked on something, sharing things like new designs or some some test results. And then what remote work offers me as well. I'm a pretty active person. I sent a picture recently from top of the mountain and saying, I'll be in the office in 30 minutes. I was. Yeah, I was ski touring up the mountain which was close to where I live, okay, and sent a picture and then really like, skied down downhill and jumped in the car and was at my, at my home, showered and ready to go within 30 minutes.
Josephine Tse 20:58
That's I mean, when you say like, you take your kids to school and you do deep work, and now you ski down a mountain, like what time do you wake up to do all that how to start like?
Wolfgang Damm 21:11
6:30 with some help of my wife, she gets Noah already and then I drop him off at seven and then I have two hours to do that. So that works.
Josephine Tse 21:20
Okay. I'm like, do you sleep? Okay, okay. And because both of you have talked about your kids like I want you guys to put your parent hat on what does being available now mean to you with the incorporation of remote work in your life in your schedule.
Wolfgang Damm 21:37
I had some learnings about this. It's it's it was hard in the beginning, especially being a new parent, the phone is right next to you. And when it buzzes, you check it. But after that experience, you don't feel that great for me really thinking about that. And then also coming up with some rules for myself how I deal with that, when I'm with my son, and with my wife, I turn off notifications. That's helped me to really turn off work and focus on my my family.
Tanja Weidinger 22:09
But also from the other perspective being available for my kids now, which remote work enables me to do so is, when I'm sitting at home and there are often events at kindergarten, for example, or it's cool, and right now I have a chance to just say, hey guys, I'm gone for 45 minutes between dipping into school event and then I'm there and my kids see me. I'm there with them. And I'm part of it and I see how much they appreciate me being there now.
Josephine Tse 22:35
And it's all about we use the term work life integration and making it fit together well rather than balance. I also thank you very much for sharing the difficulties of being available. That's something I I've always just heard the availability in terms of being flexible with their schedule part but also the part of turning off is very important because it's it's it's difficult to do when all your devices are near you and I mean, I I can only imagine that you know, when you're trying to spend time with your family, but but it's a whole different thing you have to manage for yourself. I mean, I'm sure this is like maybe parents are like yeah, this is obvious, but now, I had no idea, okay.
Wolfgang Damm 23:18
Yeah, yeah. You change your view on a couple of things as a parent.
Josephine Tse 23:23
I mean, here, we are talking about all these things from what Fretello does as company, what your cross function product team does as well, your experiences in remote work and now, remote work and your parental balance as well. I mean, we've covered a lot in this episode. I just have one final thing I want to ask you. And that is, do you think that what you've shared today with our audience, do you think Fretello story missions and values will encourage more leaders and companies out there to explore this remote world?
Wolfgang Damm 23:54
I hope it does. I would say be deliberate about the culture you're building. So don't just offer remote work to an otherwise office culture. You have to really think about how you integrate those remote workers into your culture.
Tanja Weidinger 24:10
I have the feeling that for some companies, trust is the prevailing issue, why they're not doing remote work or not offering remote work. Somehow in our minds or in our society, there is a lot of presence culture, really being present in the officeis valued over the actual outcome of people and really giving full trust to the employees having trust in the expertise and that they are actually doing the work that they that you hired them to do, can lead to really surprising results for you. And if you're trusting your employees, they will they will trust you back and there is a lot of benefit in that. And I think this is what is keeping a lot of companies from actually going to remote.
Josephine Tse 24:53
Awesome. Okay. I mean, we've reached a pretty good point in this. Thank you so much, Tanja and Wolfgang, did I get that right, for sharing your story and for telling the listeners a little bit more about Fretello what you guys are doing over here. We really appreciate your time and for agreeing to be a participant on the Remoter Project.
Tanja Weidinger 25:15
It's been our pleasure, thanks for coming here.
Wolfgang Damm 25:17
It has been, thank you.
Josephine Tse 25:23
Remoter Podcast season two is recorded, produced and edited by Josephine Tse. It is mixed and mastered by Stephen Stepanic and Vanesa Monroy. Graphics and visuals by Valentina Castillo. The music track used is Skip by OBOY from SoundStripe. Follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts wherever you listen to your podcasts. Don't forget, we've recently made our Founding and Growing Remotely online course completely accessible and listed on our site. Visit us at remoter.com, that's R E M O T E R dot com for more relevant content. Follow us on social media @remoterproject to stay up to date with our latest initiatives and collaborations with other remote first companies around the world. We'd also love to hear your thoughts about each episode, so feel free to tag us on socials anytime. And remember, we're here to make work fulfilling, so what part will you play in shaping the future of work?