Recorded on 03/2020 in Stuttgart, Germany at STYG. Head of Product Maël Frize sat down with Remoter in Stuttgart, connecting with CEO Niklas Dorn in Strasbourg, France, to do a hybrid podcast. Filestage is a content review platform with a mission of fixing broken workflows that poison teams with miscommunication, friction, and frustration. Being remote-first for over 5 years has left them to not only witness the benefits but also address the present challenges that are less tangible; more so keeping the relationships healthy within a remote team.
Recorded on 03/2020 in Stuttgart, Germany at STYG. Head of Product Maël Frize sat down with Remoter in Stuttgart, connecting with CEO Niklas Dorn in Strasbourg, France, to do a hybrid podcast. Filestage is a content review platform with a mission of fixing broken workflows that poison teams with miscommunication, friction, and frustration. Being remote-first for over 5 years has left them to not only witness the benefits but also address the present challenges that are less tangible; more so keeping the relationships healthy within a remote team.
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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
I've recorded in person, I've recorded remotely and this was the first time I recorded both in person and remotely. 50/50, equally. I met up with Filestage at their co working space in Stuttgart and Mael, head of product, was there to greet me in person, while their CEO Niklas, dialled in from France. Niklas also happened to be one of the first respondents to my first batch of cold outreach emails for the Remoter Project, so I'm really glad that this happened. Filestage is a company built on a remote-first ethos, and they've been documenting their lessons learned and tips and tricks for running a successful remote first-company over the last five years, but I will let Mael and Niklas tell their story on this episode of the Remoter Podcast.
Josephine Tse 1:41
Welcome to the Remoter Podcast. Today I am in and I can never pronounce this properly. Stut- Stuttgart Stuttgart- Stuttgart...
Maël Frize 1:51
Very good, Stuttgart.
Niklas Dorn 1:52
Stuttgart. There's that, like that 'shh' that I can't, I don't know why I can't. Anyways, I am there in a co- working space called Styg...
Maël Frize 2:02
Styg. Again this difficult sound.
Niklas Dorn 2:04
Styg, my God. I am with Filestage today. I have Mael and Niklas here with me and I will let them introduce themselves actually.
Maël Frize 2:16
Okay, my name is Mael. I'm head of product at Filestage, one of the co founders. And I'm located in Stuttgart in a tiny office, because only two of our team members are here in Stuttgart. Yeah, so that's why I'm here.
Niklas Dorn 2:30
Yes, hi, I'm Niklas, I'm CEO and also co founder of Filestage. I used to be located as well in in Germany in Stuttgart, but then moved to Strasbourg, France and working remotely from this place now.
Josephine Tse 2:46
Why Strasbourg?
Niklas Dorn 2:48
Basically because my fiance found a great job over here. Okay, so we that was the main reason but we also said we would love to live abroad because there's also the option to live in Germany because Strasbourg is so close to the border. We said, living abroad is awesome and the city's very, very interesting to to live in, I think.
Niklas Dorn 3:09
Are you learning French then?
Niklas Dorn 3:11
Yes. I think the French people are not famous for speaking other languages so well. And I think it's also very important if you live somewhere that you speak the local language, so yeah.
Niklas Dorn 3:24
So yes, thank you again for joining me on an episode of the Remoter Podcast. I'm very excited to talk about Filestage and your guys's remote journey. What I understand is, so you guys were founded five years ago, and I want to hear a little bit about how remote was incorporated into the foundation of your company.
Maël Frize 3:47
Sure, so I mean, when Filestage started, was basically three students in a room, in a very small room. That's how it all started and at some point, when we wanted to scale our team. We faced some obstacles, which is hiring in Stuttgart, or generally in Germany is pretty difficult. It's the sixth largest, largest city in Germany, the salaries are the third highest in Germany, for skilled workers. And when we had a little budget to hire developers, it was impossible to hire. So we have people coming around, people liking us, people almost signing a contract, and then they were going to Bosch, or they're going to Daimler, or some other big companies. And that's when we first started experimenting a bit with freelancers, a bit with remote work. And really, yeah, understood the power of remote work. And that's how it basically all started, the need for hiring. But now it's much more than than hiring for us remote. It's really culture and something we embrace.
Josephine Tse 4:48
Can you guys give listeners a little brief overview on what Filestage does as well?
Niklas Dorn 4:53
Sure, sure. I'm happy to do. So Filestage is a software for review and approval, so initially was made for for the film industry. Nowadays Filestage is really like a solution for all the kind of corporates, to review and approve all their documents, videos, and all kinds of files to have efficiently. The key problem we solve this if people are not in the same room to review and discuss basically, the content together, it usually ends in an email ping pong. So a lot of emails go back and forth. And at the end, everybody is like super confused about the actual status of the content review process and the content they have. And this is like a problem we also faced ourselves back then, that we started and wanted to solve a Filestage.
Josephine Tse 5:40
That's something we are struggling with actually, the content and review stage because we've gotten into a couple of incidents where video products and media products have ended in not just an email ping pong but a slack ping pong and like it was bad. So I totally I... okay.
Maël Frize 5:58
Generally when when I joined the professional world or enter the professional world, I was pretty much surprised by how much frustration friction miscommunication is going on.
Josephine Tse 6:08
Oh, yeah.
Maël Frize 6:09
People are confused people angry, and really results in project results which are not so good. And more importantly, in bad relationships at work. And this was really surprising. And I mean, I'm pretty analytical, I looked at it. And I found out that many, like most of these problems really happened because of bad processes, bad tools, communication barriers. And that was really one of the reasons why I wanted to start Filestage. When we started Filestage, that we looked at one of the biggest problems which is happening, which is content review. And our mission here is really to turn this into a smooth workflow to help teams to be more productive, have better relationships, and ultimately being happy at work while reviewing content and bring more collaboration into this process. And on this mission really, we want to make this process super smooth, super easy, and reduce any repetitive tasks.
Niklas Dorn 7:08
One big part about how we define the product and also the the upcoming features, and the entire thing is about... we also, we always take like the view from the customer. And that means like for us, it has to be simple. Since our product is something that you share, so you start a project there, and then you share the file with somebody to review it. And usually this third party reviewer is nobody that ever has worked with our product before. Yeah, so for this person, it has to be self explanatory. So you just have you get a link and it has to work for you. So everything that we do is really about simplicity for the customer.
Niklas Dorn 7:51
Now, and that's a really good overview of what you guys do at Filestage. And now I want to dig a little bit deeper into your remote work processes. As you were saying, before you gave us a little bit of an introduction into what the scenes sort of looks like in south of Germany, and I kind of want to touch a little bit more on why you guys are such big advocates of remote work on top of, you know, being able to hire at a greater like talent pool and getting the diversity in talent. Anything else you'd like to add to that?
Maël Frize 8:26
Well, I think one part of working remotely is being ready to work remotely. So having the processes in place, having a lot of clarity and transparency in the company, having a healthy flow of communication going on. And I think this is something that any company working remotely or not can can really benefit from, and I think working remotely is really depends on the people, but the first part being ready and having really resilient relationships and all of that is must-have.
Niklas Dorn 8:56
Yeah, yeah, I think in one important aspect of working remotely means that you have to understand that certain things are not just happening like this. So basically, if you have a classical company, you meet there in the morning, you have a coffee together, you talk about certain things. I think there's a lot of rules and a lot of information and so on is not documented somewhere. It's just in the heads of people. And it works because they all come together to one place. But as soon as you are not at the same spot anymore, having a transparent way of sharing information within the company and making the information flow around. I think that's that's key.
Josephine Tse 9:37
So it was I mean, because you guys are giving me that answer, I'm going to assume that you guys practice what you preach. And I want to ask like, was it a huge learning curve to get to the point of realising that this is the type of documentation that you guys have to do to make your company work with this remote foundation?
Maël Frize 9:55
I would say definitely, yes. A lot of learnings of mistakes a lot of things improved. Trying to think about an example. I think one would be the rhythm of communication that is going on. And what we really concretely build is a meeting structure, a meeting hierarchy. Because before, no matter if we were in an office or worked in Slack, it was just full of full of constant interruption, you know, of this and that one person is rushing to a meeting, another person wants to talk about a strategic decision. And this doesn't work. And establishing this meeting structure really helped us to have a flow of information going on.
Niklas Dorn 10:31
Yeah, I think a important other parts was to find, let's say the right amount of information to share. So in the beginning, let's say there was nothing documented it was all in our heads, because we're just the three founders. Then you have the small team and and you start explaining things and then you think, okay, when you explain this thing the third time, maybe I should write it down so somebody else can just read it. And then you start to build all those guides and things. What we recognised after a while, okay, it can get overwhelming for people, we've recently added to the to this process was also to work with videos. So we basically produce our own little video explanations, or we use like checklists internally instead of super long guides, or working with flowcharts and things like that just to help people to digest the information. And I think getting this right is really still so I think a key challenge.
Niklas Dorn 11:28
You have all these processes in place to make sure that people who join your team understand what they're getting into. However, you know, there's only so much that you can do to prepare for things like that. Have there been situations where you know, things just didn't work with your hires and remote, like they just didn't understand it? And how did how did you guys go about it?
Niklas Dorn 11:52
So far it was more like general, I think, work ethics were different. So like, like we said in the beginning, we have a really structured way of working. And yeah, I think if you want to succeed at Filestage, you should also somehow embrace a certain work structure. So and I think this is also like in a remote team, probably you have a higher need for certain structure and documentation. So I think if you are, let's say, a person that don't like to write things down or document or so it can be a challenge at the beginning to to get to this mood, because I think it's important to share context with team members.
Josephine Tse 12:37
I personally have this really bad habit of getting really lazy, I don't want to type anymore. And then I send like voice notes on WhatsApp, and I'm trying so hard to pull back on things like that because then there's no paper trail, and I have to stop being lazy. It's just like, little things that I personally also find myself struggling with because it's, you know, like, it's, it's easier said, than done to keep in mind that, you know, it's better to write things down instead of just, you know, pressing the record button and saying what you have to say. It's way faster to record, sure. But it I, that's something I'm working on.
Niklas Dorn 13:18
For us, I wouldn't say recording is a bad, bad thing. I think a bad thing is basically not to write down or record anything. So basically not communicating in a remote team is quite a big challenge because then team members have not like the right context, cannot access the information and then it gets super difficult, especially if you are in different time zones. But I think some of our co workers here they record a lot of videos instead of writing down everything in detail, but then they also attach it to their to projects or tasks so it's accessible for everybody. That's a good thing.
Niklas Dorn 13:59
Yeah. That's the good thing but for us, like if I'm just recording on WhatsApp, it's gonna be lost in two seconds is the issue and I have to like use more services like Loom as you were saying and being able to attach that like keep that somewhere that makes sense. Yeah, but for me I'm just like shooting off all these WhatsApp notes and it's just it's just lost. And and then I sort of I'm like, why wasn't this done? Well, I communicated it in a really fleeting way so of course it would have been lost, I understand that but that's something that I'm personally going through and I'm trying to pull back on.
Niklas Dorn 14:39
Maybe you need a an integration with WhatsApp to your other tools and so you can links your information over.
Niklas Dorn 14:47
Is there WhatsApp for Slack? Actually, no, I don't want to know, I, that's gonna kill me. That's actually gonna destroy me. So you guys have been telling the listeners about how you go about remote within your company. When you guys started, did you have many companies to kind of look up to to create your processes?
Maël Frize 15:05
I think for us, it was just more trial and error. More scenarios, see what happens. And we it wasn't like that, we said, okay, from now on, we are remote company. It was more, okay, let's hire this freelancer, let's hire that freelancer. And then we figured out freelances don't work for us. Then we hired a full time developer and really in Spain, and it was total luck. So he's still with us. He's a great developer. We're super happy. So I think we started with a very, very good, let's say, example of positive experience that really encouraged us to just, the second position also hire remote and then it kind of developed until we became a remote company without even noticing. So I think it was more of a process than rather like an action plan or a goal that we had in mind.
Niklas Dorn 15:51
Okay, and what are you guys doing to continue improving your remote culture today?
Niklas Dorn 15:56
We are still trying to get better and better in having like a super happy and motivated team and also supporting them, even though we are remote. So just an example. So there was, I don't know, International Women's Day. So if we would have been in the same office, somebody in the morning would just go would have just would have just gone to a store and then have bought something nice for them. And we would then, just saying, hey, okay, happy, happy Women's Day. So in a remote team, not possible. So you have to think about that ahead. And then you have to figure out okay, how can I send something to disperse in this country? And I think it's very, very important, even if we already wrote to think about ways how you can show that you appreciate.
Josephine Tse 16:51
Did you end up doing anything for international Woman's Day?
Niklas Dorn 16:54
Yes, we did. So, uh, yes, we sent flowers, basically okay to all the women that work at our company and gift cards. Yes.
Niklas Dorn 17:08
Okay, that's awesome. That's definitely something that I think a lot of companies also have also struggle with. Because there's, I mean, it's never ending, right? Like, there's always so many ways that you can go about it and look at this, and it'll never feel like it's ever en-enough. Again, I guess it's one of the iterative paths that you'd have to follow to improve your processes and improve how to make your team work together more and be more engaged.
Niklas Dorn 17:37
Yeah, definitely, I think makes makes a big difference for the people.
Maël Frize 17:41
Yeah. So this whole part of being productive, having the processes, I find it not so difficult, to be honest. The tricky part is really how to have these human interactions, how to build resilient relationships, how to build trust and remote teams, and this is something that you have to actively like build, where you have to take care of. So we're investing a lot now in this. We have someone like team members who are have ownership for employee happiness. Okay, so we do things in Slack. We share photos, we have retreats to meet together. We have donut calls, where we randomly pair two team members to talk for 30 minutes, just about...
Niklas Dorn 18:23
That's the app right? The Donut app.
Maël Frize 18:25
Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, we call it donut call so that you can call it what you want. But we pair like team members for 30 minutes, they can just talk about private life. Because the not remote team in the office, you know, after after working, just grab a beer and talk about things. This doesn't work in a remote team. So we need to find ways to like mimic that in a remote team.
Niklas Dorn 18:48
How do you guys stay motivated to work remotely and maintain as advocates for remote work? Because sometimes, you know, as you said, people find that they are not actually as suited for a remote work environment, so how do you guys do it?
Niklas Dorn 19:05
I think one aspect is to just speaking for myself, I had to find out a bit what kind of office type am I, for example, I personally recognised that I cannot stay home all the time to work. I also recognise it is good to have some people around sometimes even they are not your colleagues. So, um...
Maël Frize 19:26
Yeah, I would agree with Niklas that it's a very personal thing. Everyone is different here. And for me as well, I like to keep the balance of working from home and also having this tiny office here in this co-working space and if I want people around if I want to talk if I want to just you know socialise during lunch, and I'm here around with people that are not my co workers, but that are just around me.
Niklas Dorn 19:46
So in that sense, is that also how you battle the whole issue of isolation? I don't know if for me like just being in a place with people really helps me with the isolation aspect. I find a lot of comfort with the hobbies that I do that helped me with the isolation aspect actually, rather than me, you know, going to co-working spaces and talking and meeting new people. So yeah, I was just wondering is that basically your main combatant against this?
Maël Frize 20:13
For me, I would say it's both having people to talk about work, that don't necessarily need to be part of your company. Just talk about problems, talk about results, talk about achievements, and just bounce ideas off of other people. And the second part, I would agree, it's for me, also my hobbies, okay, so playing ping pong, playing football, going out, things like that. Just doing stuff after work, to meet people and to be around with people. And I would say having a girlfriend who tells you to be home at a certain time for dinner also helps just to have clear boundaries in life.
Josephine Tse 20:48
That's a fair point.
Niklas Dorn 20:49
Friends. Whatever. Yeah. The other aspect of motivation, interesting that that we have in a team I mean, as a startup, you want to push things, you want to make progress. And one big part is really like achieving something together. So and this can be like, a very good review or feedback from a customer. This could be like, a very big client that has started to to work with your solution. This could be a new feature that was shipped and where people say, oh, this is awesome. This really solves my problems. I would say these are more like external triggers, and achievements. And for example, me personally, I'm really motivated by things like that, because I see the company's growing like that. And what we've established as well as that, for example, we work in Slack, most of the time, that we share those achievements in Slack. This, I think, really helps everybody to stay motivated. And I think it's also a big part of the company to to show everybody else that you appreciate the good. Good job, good work.
Josephine Tse 21:53
We have Slack channels to celebrate wins. So we yeah, I totally agree and it's cool, like to see like what's happening because sometimes, you know, depending on what position you work in, you may not hear about things that are happening in other departments. So for me, that's a good way of keeping track of, you know, the types of, the types of wins that we have as well. And I mean, we've been talking a lot about how you guys run your remote company and what you guys value, and I wanted to know if you think that the story that you've shared today with our listeners, in terms of your company's missions and values will help encourage and enable our listeners explore this path of working remotely.
Maël Frize 22:40
So what I can really say for us, having good processes having transparency of the company, I would say for us now it's a no brainer. The part of having human interactions, having good relationships, and not being socially isolated. I would say this is a very personal thing that everyone needs to make for him or herself, but for the first part for being productive, having a lot of clarity and transparency of the company, having everyone following and achieving the company goals. This is something that works really well remotely. And I think being remote ready and having all the structure and all the clarity in the company helps you no matter if you're actually working remotely you're not.
Niklas Dorn 23:20
A remote company really shows you if you haven't build scalable processes yet. If you don't communicate well, if your values are not well defined, you will really feel it very fast and a remote team since you have to communicate more intensively and information is so much more important. I think it's the first part that you really feel like okay, here's something I need to adjust. Being a remote team helped Filestage really to build like a great company and build like a company that is now scalable and can grow to the next step and hire more people and grow everything but also for our customers. I think that's the number one aspect I think for me.
Maël Frize 24:01
Yeah, I really like what Niklas said about working remotely being some kind of stress test for the company to really see where the problems, where are the issues, what slips through the cracks, and I think we're working remotely really uncovers these potential issues that you might have in the organisation.
Josephine Tse 24:18
I mean, so as you've used the word no brainer, I feel like that is basically how Filestage is, like remote is a no brainer for you guys and that's why it works for you. And from there, you improve on your processes you improve on the other aspects that you need to make it work for your company. With that, I just wanted to thank you very much for sharing your story with us at Remoter and our listeners as well. I mean the goal of the podcast and the goal of everything for this is to to motivate and let people know that you know there are companies out there that are already doing this and this is how they've gone about it and this is what they've gone through to get to where they are today.
Maël Frize 25:00
Thanks for having us.
Niklas Dorn 25:01
Yeah, thank you.
Josephine Tse 25:06
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?