The Importance of Celebration

It’s important to celebrate, especially in a startup.

Every milestone, every commit, every piece of momentum that you gain is respected through celebration. It’s a reward for the toll you’ve put on your mind, body, and teammates. It also trains your body and mind to feel good when you’ve reached your goals. Those endorphins are incredibly nourishing and will keep you motivated to create more of that feeling, which will only positively serve your startup in the end.

So when do you celebrate?

At Meadow, we celebrate the moments that contribute to our traction goals. Our traction goals are measured weekly and broken up into five tiers:

  • 7% Growth
  • 10% Growth
  • 15% Growth 
  • 25% Growth
  • 30%+ Growth

How do we celebrate?

7% — Must do. No trophy, no high-five, but a solid handshake is appropriate.

10% — A nod of respect.

15% Growth — High Five Country! With visits to Hugville.

25% Growth — Huge grin. Ear to ear baby. 

30% Growth — Super Saiyan celebratory dance.

So what happens when you aren’t hitting your growth goals? In my opinion, celebrate anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There is a lot of evidence that says if you change your emotional and physical “state”, it will greatly help turn around your mood and problem-solving abilities. Tony Robbins has some excellent advice on how to create a habit for changing your state.

Give it a try: Pretend you just scored a touchdown during the Super Bowl. Do your celebration dance. Remember, it’s the Super Bowl, go big.

Bonus: An additional “fuck yeah”, never hurts. 

I love Giphy.

PMA

Published on Medium on March 20, 2014


TL;DR Having a positive outlook on things involves making sure you are in a positive state. This can be achieved by being mindful of your thoughts and changing your physical state.

Last summer, I had an Irish girl, Dee, stay at my place from my Airbnb posting. It was supposed to last for a few days but her apartment search wasn’t going well so we decided that she could stay the whole summer because she was cool and I love Irish accents.

We would spend our evenings on the porch and chat about The America’s Cup, because she was a sailor, and also exchanged quotes that we found inspiring and thought provoking.

One such quote, or more of a mantra, was PMA. It stands for Positive Mental Attitude. From that night forward, any time that I was feeling a bit down or discouraged, Dee would say PMA. It felt like my mind was being checked like when a hockey player is “checked” into the wall. She recognized I was in a bad place and she verbally aided me to get out of it.

You better check yo self before you wreck yo self. — Ice Cube

It’s very empowering to know you have complete control over your mind, your thoughts, and your energy. Paying attention to your attitude affects your perspective about how you deal with the external environment. You’ll realize that when you are in a better mood, you are in a better place to handle challenges that come your way. Eventually, I didn’t really need Dee to “check” me, I was doing it myself by practicing mindfulness.

Change your state

This concept was further driven home when I was at DreamForce last year. One of the main speakers was Tony Robbins, one of the best motivational speakers of our time. His workshops usually take place over a week and culminates with people walking on hot coals. We only had three hours so he condensed his material to one main theme, “By changing your physical and emotional state, you will positively change your outcome.”

Your “state” is how you feel at the moment. It’s how you act, it’s how you think, it’s your current well being. An example that stood out was comparing his initial entrance into the room, which was full of fanfare, loud music, and cheering, to an entrance where we walked into the room with head hanging down, dull music, and a less than enthusiastic crowd. You could imagine that the latter wouldn’t lend confidence that this guy was a motivational speaker

Changing your state involves a physical “check” to your body and mind. At first you want to imprint happy feelings and energy to a process that works for you. I chose a King Kong style banging on my chest and grunt (I’m pretty chesty so it works for me). By associating that type of action with happy feelings and energy, anytime I go through this “check” it energizes me and more importantly, takes me out of a negative state.

With the PMA mantra and my “King Kong”check, I feel more confident on my ability to tackle challenges with an optimistic outlook and positive energy.

When all else fails follow Jessica’s lead

Marketing Revenue


Marketing Revenue

“Money, it’s a gas

Grab that cash with both hands

And make a stash”

- Pink Floyd


Cha-ching, what a wonderful sound.

At Sincerely, we constantly survey our customers to see how we are doing. Sincerely creates a suite of mobile apps that allow customers to send photos from their phone as real, physical postcards, as well as curated gift sets. We focus on finding customers that are similar to our best customers. We ask questions like, “How would you feel if Postagram did not exist?” and “How did you find out about Postagram?”. Our best customers respond to our surveys with answers like “I would be extremely sad if this product didn’t exist” and “I couldn’t live without this product”. How they find out about Postagram though, is all over the board.

Traditionally, most companies experiment with various marketing channels to reach said customer. You’ll find marketing/growth teams across the country looking into ad networks, PR, comparing CPIs (cost per install), optimizing their site’s SEO, creating content strategies, running contests, attempting to make videos go viral, etc. The marketing spend is varied but with one goal in mind, for every dollar you spend, you return a value equal to or higher than the spent dollar. When you find the marketing channel that delivers customers that can return high long-term-value (LTV), you then hammer that channel to death. In the mobile world we’ve seen companies manipulate app store rankings, offer their apps on free app of the day offers, and of course buy tons of inventory on ad networks.

Most of those tactics need a war chest that Captain Jack Sparrow would envy. Startups are resource constrained, Sincerely included, so we need to be creative with our marketing. We need to make every dollar count and make sure when spent, it delivers value. What if we don’t have money? Is there a way for us not to spend money and get marketing value? Why not have people pay us? So instead of a marketing spend, we often think about marketing revenue. Essentially working with companies that give us their marketing dollars.

Our Marketing Revenue Strategy

1) Identify potential partners that find value in the products you’ve created.

2) Figure out how to get in front of them and offer an experience that is unique, engaging, and valuable to them and their customers.

3) Create an outcome that is a win-win for everyone.

So let’s put this into practice.

For us, we have a few products that makes it ideal to work with pretty much any company in any industry that has a marketing budget that they need to spend. We’ve worked with car companies, fashion brands, search engines, airports, car share companies, comic books, real estate agents, artists, car salesmen, e-commerce companies, non-profits (before Apple told us to stop), hotels, and most recently a sun tan lotion company. We provided value by allowing customers to send branded postcards using PostagramInk, and even curated gift sets with Sesame.

Vote by Shepard Fairey with Ink Cards

In all these partnerships, we thought about the value of their audience, the value of the cash we could make, the development time and most importantly weighed that against the costs of distraction and opportunity of not working on other projects.

Some of the deals we created started out as minimum viable products (MVPs) that usually made above break even. After launching the MVP, we would try to sell the product to other brands. If we could sell more deals, we would then dedicate more development time to improve the product using the money from the new partnership. We were fortunate in that we never built anything without a launch partner usually acquired through an inbound or outbound request. Having launch partners will help you get through the customer development cycle fast and ensure that you have a check made out for the development work.

Experimenting with Sponsored Mobile Photo Teams

For example, we made a product called Postagram Engage. It was a product that allowed mobile photo teams to work at events by taking pictures of guests and then sending said guest a Postagram. It was way more engaging than a typical photo booth at an event and it had high post event activation with a postcard arriving in the mail a few days later. There was positive nostalgia with the brand when it was associated with a photo they care about. Direct mail has a less than 1% open rate. In our Engage campaigns, we had over 70% opt-in. People want good mail and we gave it to them through our Engage partnerships.

Engage was a ton of fun but ultimately it didn’t scale and we deadpooled it. In terms of cash, we broke even on building and managing the product. But the real value we got was being able to take the team onworkcations to Park City and Hawaii, going to really awesome events like Comic-Con and Outside Lands, representing awesome partners at their event booths (not having to pay the crazy booth fees), and marketed Postagram to a whole new group of customers that we wouldn’t normally have had access to. Cha-Ching.

Experimenting with Direct Mail via Facebook Apps

We learned a lot from Engage, namely that direct mail is a valuable channel that needs to scale with good mail. We ended up in conversations with Gap and their need for allowing their customers to create branded holiday cards leveraging social media. So we created a new product called Postagram Direct and launched it over the holiday season. Direct allows brands to create a custom Facebook App that allows customers to send branded Postagrams to their friends and family using their Facebook photos. If they share this experience to their wall, they get another free card. Over 50% of the people that made a postcard, shared the experience on the wall (yay, virality). It’s a scalable product, associates the brand with a customer’s photos, and they get visibility on customer’s Facebook wall. Our partners are happy and we are too. Direct campaigns usually gain us a ton of co-marketing through the brand’s email list, social media outreach, and even some press. Direct was a success and we continue to spin up campaigns for brands that want to be on refrigerators and desks across the country.

So how can we take this a step further and really make good mail available for everyone? We’ve been able to get marketing at events, marketing on social media, and I believe we were ready to take on marketing within our own app.

Experimenting with Creating our own Ad Unit

For a while now, we’ve allowed new customers to send 5 free Postagrams to their friends and family. It’s a way for the customer to try out the product, see the value, and hopefully get a lifelong customer. Each one of these free cards costs us money though and there is no guarantee they would be a lifelong customer. How could we continue to offer these free cards and not incur the costs? What if we could have brands sponsor these cards? We would then eliminate the cost that we would need to bear and we would make money through selling this advertising opportunity.

So we created an in-app promo unit and sold the summer inventory to Coppertone. It’s a wonderful sponsorship using an advertising unit we created. Coppertone gets on fridges all over the country during their most important season with positive association with their customers’ memorable summer moments. For Sincerely, we also get Postagram on more fridges, continue to offer free cards to our customers, and instead of incurring marketing costs, we get to make some money.

Coppertone in-app Postagram promo

Moving Forward

So take a look at your products, take stock of what you provide for your customers, see if there is a way to have partners pay you for getting in front of your customers or if you can help them with a tool you’ve built. Speak with your customers and these brands and figure out how you can create win-win situations for everyone. There may be a way to make money from your marketing.

Cha-Ching.


Huge thanks to Matt Brezina (CEO) & Sylvia Yam (our VP of Business Development) on crafting these deals and our engineering team for building them.

Ride Cow, Find Horse

Published on May 20, 2013 on Medium


Recently, I’ve had a number of conversations that have involved giving career advice, getting career advice, taking risk, and how dumb Sansa Stark is from The Game of Thrones.

So let’s work backwards. Why doesn’t Sansa stop playing the victim and start playing the “game”? Why get constantly used as a chess piece? By leaving her life in the control of others, she opens herself to world of pain. Escaping from King’s Landing and devising a plan to do so is up to her. Sansa needs to fight or scheme her way out and stop expecting others to come to her rescue. Either she starts making some waves or she’ll continue to be the object that the waves wail on.

Sansa is scared and relatively “safe” in King’s Landing and I think that is why a lot of us can empathize with her. Navigating the “Game of Life” can be a daunting task. In a sea of choice and unknown challenges, what is one to do? My response to that is a quote that has really stuck with me on one of my Pinterest binges:

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

I believe that whatever waves one makes in life, it ultimately will make them more confident and capable of tackling greater challenges in the future and have a deeper understanding of their character.

We’re never in the “perfect” situation to act or take risk but that doesn’t mean you can’t move forward and progress. There is a Chinese adage that I often reflect upon:

骑牛,寻找马

This literally translates to “Ride Cow, Find Horse”. Whether it relates to our careers or personal lives, we want the perfect situation, “the horse”. Though the horse is what we want, sometimes its better to make due with riding a cow to find the horse. It sure is faster than walking.

So moooove along and enjoy the journey riding the cow.

If you have any quotes you love, or any other life advice, please tweet them to me @hua. Thanks!

It’s on the house

Published on April 30, 2013 on Medium


TL;DR Giving away some of your products to your engaged customers will have a positive effect on them, the people in their vicinity, and their impression of you.

My wife, Steph, is a food blogger and soon to be chef. She’s created one of the best food blogs on the planet, Lick My Spoon. It’s a place for all things delicious, where her hungry readers consume food porn and the amazing stories she has captured, given her access to restaurants, chefs, and really delicious food.

Sunday night we had a “media dinner” at The Slanted Door, a modern Vietnamese restaurant at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. The food was delicious, staff was super friendly, and the ambiance was inviting and classy without being too fancy.

For those that don’t know what a “media dinner” is, it is basically a dinner where Steph and I eat for free (but always leave a generous tip). If the experience is great, she snaps photos and writes about the experience. If the experience is not so great, Steph doesn’t write anything (if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all). It’s a perfect example of a symbiotic relationship.

It’s become the norm for us to have things brought to the table “on the house” or “compliments of the chef”. Usually this is a way for the chef to show off a few other dishes that we ignored on our ordering. Either way, it’s fantastic because we get to try something new and we feel special.

At The Slanted Door, I noticed that servers were discretely giving out dishes to other guests of the restaurant as well, not just food bloggers. It dawned on me how amazing that strategy is and here’s why:

  1. Guests are happy and genuinely delighted with a nice surprise. I know I was when the uni arrived at our table (see picture above).
  2. The happy energy from the guests is passed onto other guests thus raising the overall ambiance and energy of the restaurant.
  3. New guests sitting down or walking through to their seat, get to see what is on the table and will most likely “have what the other guest is having”.
  4. Servers make more on tips (one example of where mo’ money doesn’t equal mo’ problems).
  5. “On the house” desserts make paying the bill a bit more enjoyable.

I’m willing to bet that the impression the customers leave with is a happier one and more likely to become a loyal customer.

At Sincerely, we have an app called Sesame (think, Open Sesame…followed by a magical experience), which allows customers to send beautifully curated themed gift sets. Recently, we sent some of our best and most recent Sesame customers a free cookie box. We just wanted to thank them for taking a chance on us and allowing us to help make their world a more thoughtful one. I mean isn’t it time for the gift givers to get something nice? We’ve already gotten a bunch of positive feedback, repeat orders, and we couldn’t be happier.

As a final note, I’ll leave you with a piece of simple advice from one of the thought leaders in the hospitality and restaurant space and one of my role models, Danny Meyer:

You get more when you give more.

Be a team player

Published on April 29, 2013 on Medium


If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with a team. - African Proverb

If you asked any person, “Hey, are you a team player?”, I bet 99% of people will emphatically say “yes”. It’s standard to work in a team and unless you are a renaissance wo(man), you need the help of others.

Though it’s standard to work in a team, I don’t believe everyone understands that being in a team is not the same as playing with and contributing to the team. Here are a few things I keep in mind in any team or project that I am a part of.

Check your Ego

Everyone in a team will have an opinion and perspective on how things should be done. Healthy discussion and debate is essential in flushing out problems and coming up with solutions. Being open to everyone’s feedback and actively listening greatly enhances a team’s communication and circle of trust.

Check your ego and know that you don’t know everything. There are multiple ways to get things done.

Vent up

In any team there are problems and challenges. It’s completely normal to be frustrated, feel pressure, and at times get pissed off. Often times, it feels good to to release that pressure by offloading on a fellow co-worker, but I’ve found that it isn’t a good idea. It creates a negative environment and is not helpful. Instead, “vent up”, meaning speak with your boss about your frustrations. If they are a good boss, they will listen and give guidance on what you should do.

Know your role and execute

In most professional sports teams, there are specific positions that are in charge of specific responsibilities. Whether being a shortstop on a baseball team, a point guard in basketball, a user experience designer in an app company, or product manager for your team, it’s important to recognize your role and deliver the results expected of you.

Communicate

IMHO, this is one of the most important traits of being a team player. You can’t expect a fellow teammate to read your mind and you can’t assume what they expect either. Poor communication can be detrimental to a project and cause a ton of frustration. A couple of best practices that I adhere to is to take some time to scope out the project beforehand, make sure everyone has their responsibilities, and then give updates if you are having trouble or just to check in. After a project is complete, we do a post-mortem to see how we did and where we could improve.

I’ve never had someone tell me they had a problem with me overcommunicating but I’ve had issues when I haven’t communicated enough.

No Drama

I know it is extremely frustrating that your neighbors keep you up with their late night debauchery and that your dog isn’t getting along with the other dogs at the dog park but sometimes it borders on TMI. As a fellow compassionate team mate, I’ll listen to your problems but sometimes, it’s best kept to yourself. Everyone has problems but it’s better to check them at the door so we can keep our work environment positive and drama free.

Do the Dishes

In any company there are things that some people don’t want to do but must be done. Whether it is doing the dishes, answering the customer service line, or staying a few hours later to fix a bug, a team player rises to the occasion and gets it done, otherwise it’ll be left for another team member to do. I love this motto from the Boy Scouts:

Leave this world a little better than you found it. - Robert Baden-Powell

Give without expecting anything in return

When I was in high school, I asked my wrestling coach, who had been successfully married for 23 years, “What makes for a successful marriage?”. He answered, “To give to the other person without expecting anything in return.”

That really stuck with me and is a part of the foundation in my marriage but also with my other relationships whether they are friends or co-workers.

One of the great joys in my life is to work in a team where everyone is running at full speed and is completely in sync with each other and their contributions to the project.

Hopefully these thoughts can make you a better team player. If you have other tips, I’d love to hear them.

Would you like an Egg Roll with that?

Published on April 28, 2013 on Medium


TL;DR Use every opportunity to get better, to improve the effectiveness of your position, to up-sell with care, and have fun.

My family owns a Chinese restaurant called the Golden Dragon. It just hit its 30th year in existence, older than me by a few months. I spent a majority of my childhood running through the aisles, playing with my cousins and sister in the kitchen, and eating a ton of Chinese food.

When I was of working age, 10 years old, I was put on dish duty. It really didn’t feel like work, I was actually happy to help out. I would spend my days washing the dishes and then stacking them back onto the shelves. My cousin Steven and I turned it into a game to see who could finish stacking a freshly cleaned rack the fastest. That game quickly ended as the number of broken dishes hit an all time high. Days turned into years and as I got better, I was given other responsibilites like peeling shrimp, preparing snow pea pods, string beans, etc. Around this time, I also started to get paid for my efforts, $20 a day, look out, Richie Rich!

It wasn’t until I hit high school that I got to work the “front of the house” manning the cash register and answering the phones. My family said I was ready, but as I think about it now, it was probably because I finally reached the legal working age and could be outside with the customers.

At first, I would answer the phone, take orders, collect money and say “thank you”...pretty standard stuff.

As I got to know the menu better, improved my “phone voice”, and had a relative idea on our profit margin, I decided to step up my game. One day, I started with a simple goal that I would try to get an egg roll added to every order. I didn’t really have any qualms about it, since our egg rolls are freaking delicious (shameless plug). We made them from scratch and once a person had a taste, they would keep coming back for them. Eventually, an extra egg roll turned into adding on wonton soup, to adding on entrees — our General Tso’s Chicken is the best (shameless plug). I was able to upsell the menu and increased the average order size on pretty much every call.

When they came and picked up the order, I made it a point to know the entirety of what they had ordered and accepted their money with a smile. With credit cards, I read their name on the card as I swiped it and thanked them using their first name. It’s a nice little touch that goes a long way. Needless to say, order size increased and tips were good so I rarely was put back on the dishwasher station.

By the way, if you ever are in Conshohocken, PA, stop by the Golden Dragon, and be sure to try an egg roll.

Helpful Links:

Yelp

Google Maps

Be a good boss


Walking over to the local Blue Bottle in downtown San Francisco, I run into more founders than hippies in the Haight.

Nowadays, it seems that anyone can be a founder. However, as a company grows beyond the founders, they also become the boss. As a company continues to grow beyond that, the bosses hire/promote other bosses to manage people. Just as there can be bad and good companies, there can be bad and good bosses. I’d be willing to wager that most good companies have a high correlation with good bosses.

Here are some of the tips I’ve learned on being a boss:

Listen

A good boss often engages in conversation with their co-workers and actively listens. Actively listening involves eye contact, not checking your phone, and asking follow up questions. Listen, internalize and look for opportunities to help but balance with it on being a good listener. Sometimes, people just need a place to vent and not someone to solve their problems.

Help plan for their future both professionally and personally

Your people want to grow at and outside of work. They want to build on their skills, expand their network, and be taken care of financially. A good boss should send their employees to meetups, conferences, and provide resources and tools for them to learn. There may be cases where an employee outgrows their role or wants to try a new position they are unqualified for. Invest in the materials or mentors that can help this person become qualified.

I often ask about their personal life and if there is anything I can help with. Sometimes it’s a spouse or a relative of theirs that want an intro, other times it’s a restaurant suggestion. It’s a good idea to acknowledge people are more than what they are at work and see where you can help.

Give them a clear runway long enough so they can takeoff

A good boss helps clear the path for their employees of any obstacles that may be “blocking” their performance. A “blocker” to me is something that is beyond their capability of handling or is something that would take you a minimal amount of time whereas it would take them a massive amount of time. However, it shouldn’t go as far as removing the challenge from the job. There is a fine balance that will take some time to calibrate with your employees, but once it is reached your employees will be more independent and will know that they can reach out to you for help when needed.

Go on a walk

A good boss doesn’t just spend all their time in the office or a conference room. I like to go on walks, grab coffee (even though I really don’t drink the stuff), and grab dinner. It’s a great opportunity to get to know one another outside of the office.

Have resources but enable them to be resourceful

There are plethera of tools, educational materials, and resources that employees want. A good boss will provide them but I believe it’s important to check whether it is a “nice to have” or a “need to have”. I believe there are creative ways around some of the “nice to haves” that can be an opportunity for your employees to be resourceful.

Transparency

A good boss is transparent with what is happening in the company. With transparency, comes better communication and information for everyone to make decisions. Keith Rabois has a great talk about thishere.

Ultimately, if you want people to make smart decisions, they need context and all available information. - Keith Rabois

Inspire and Excite

A good boss doesn’t need to use the carrot or the stick. A good boss understands the motivations of their employees and ignites a fire in them to “go get it”. Along that journey, a good boss is part cheerleader, part nurse (fix ‘em up and send them back out to battle), and part Tony Robbins.

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It’s impossible for this to be an exhaustive list but I hope it sheds some light on what it means to be a good boss. Please feel free to share your thoughts and tips on being a boss or from the bosses you’ve had.

Thanks :)

Pay for your Employee’s Flu Shot

Published on January 12, 2013 on The Lean HR


Flu season is upon us. Flu symptoms include sore throat, fever, headache, muscle aches, cough, and congestion. Typically the flu can last 4 to 10 days depending on how you rest and recover. However, some people feel run down for a week or more after it has run it’s course.

Having a member of your team check out because of the flu can be a setback to your company. Even worse, imagine losing multiple members of your team to it.

At Sincerely, we pay for everyone to get a Flu Shot, if they want it. A Flu Shot costs about $30 at your local Walgreens/CVS and takes 30 min - 1 hr. Sometimes it’s smart to take a step back and prepare for the worst so that everyone can live to fight more important battles. Also, it’s great to see the faces of your team, as they get needled.

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Flu Myths:
Myth: Getting a Flu Shot Can Give you the Flu
The vaccine is made from inactive or a dead virus that can no longer spread its fever symptoms

Myth: If You’ve Already Had Your Shot, You Are Guaranteed to be Flu-Free
After having a shot, you may only be 60 percent protected, according to the CDC.

Myth: If you are Young and Healthy, You Don’t Need the Shot
The young and healthy people will most likely recover just fine after contracting the flu, with our without the shot. However, the more people that are vaccinated, the fewer number of people that may get it and will offer greater protection to those at-risk groups.

Work + Vacation = Workcation

Published on January 12, 2013 on The Lean HR


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Twice a year at Sincerely, we take the entire team on a workcation. A workcation is a combination of work and vacation with your coworkers at a location where everyone can work together in an environment where they can relax, get work done, and get to know each other a bit better.

We make these trips because we feel they are important bonding opportunities, provide a great environment with limited life distractions, and allow us to focus on building Sincerely into a great company that creates great products. We also believe that they align with our core values of Curiosity & Health. We travel to new places to learn new things, and to learn from each other. We also spend a good chunk of time exercising and clearing the mind to refresh the soul.

We were fortunate to begin 2013 in Maui, with the entire team, paid for by Hyundai.

How does it work? Gussy it up however you want, Trebek. What matters is does it work? - Sean Connery (SNL)

Workcations work when the entire team is as productive or more productive than a normal day in the office. It allows the company to justify the expense and continue to keep making these trips in the future. Before leaving on a workcation, the team outlines objectives and projects that need to be worked on. We also have a pretty good idea of the activities outside of work that will be available and who is interested in taking advantage of them. We provide a framework for the team on what the company is “covering” and what individuals are responsible for. In our case, we cover the flights, rental cars, lodging, stocking the house with food, lunch, and a few team dinners. Activities such as snorkeling or a massage on the beach is up to the individual to cover.

Preparation “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.“ - John Wooden

The team should come with goals that they want to accomplish. For an engineer, it could be a complete set of features. For a designer, it could be a new set of wireframes or in our case, Valentine’s Day Greeting Cards.

The team should also come with activities they want to do outside of work such as snorkeling, whale watching, or seeing the sunrise at Haleakala. It’s easier to coordinate these trips in smaller groups so finding out who is interested in what earlier allows ample time to book a tour to make sure there is availability. We also bring other fun activities for people to participate in while at the house. We usually bring a few board games (Settlers, Blockus, Deck of Cards, etc.) as well as fun equipment for swimming, running, and reading.

The team should also think about breakout sessions either for team building, brainstorming, or discussing features on the road map. I believe these sessions are some of the best moments of a workcation. We usually run sessions in small teams throughout the day and a session with the entire team in the evenings a little bit after dinner.

Finally, you should have a good idea of what accommodations you will have, if people are comfortable sharing beds, and sleeping on the floor. Luckily in Maui, sleeping outside is a luxury people volunteered for. I would also recommend making a list of equipment that you will need (power cables, chargers, power strips, projector, any equipment you need to do your work, and office supplies such as post-its, markers, pads of paper).

Get Sponsored “I scratch your back, you scratch my back.”

We had the majority of our workcation sponsored by Hyundai. Though we are a consumer facing company, we built a product for businesses called Postagram Engage. Essentially we operate as a mobile photo team that takes pictures of guests at events and sends those pictures on branded postcards to their doorsteps. We were brought out to Maui to work at Hyundai’s Tournament of Champions, the first event of the PGA Tour in 2013.

We took this opportunity to bring out the entire team where the photo team worked at the Golf Course and the engineering and design team worked at the house on their projects. We were able to make it work financially by substituting hotel rooms for a large house, minimizing eating out and focusing on cooking at the house, and finding cheaper flights leaving from San Jose and not SFO.

Out of the 8 days we spent in Maui, 4 days were spent working at the Golf Course while the rest was spent at the house. I’m confident that the team is refreshed and we already have some great momentum heading into 2013.

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