When we started Spinwheel, it was four people. Culture was pretty simple because it was just me and Tushar and how we operated with each other. Fifty people changes that. There's a point where I can't be working with everyone every single day, and you need something more than what the founders model or how they behave. Culture has to become the North Star of the company. It has to transcend any individual. For a remote-first team, that's hard. We don't have an office. You don't get hallway conversations or last minute lunches. So our off-sites aren't about running workshops or delivering content. They're about letting people talk about their personal lives, who they are outside of the last Zoom call. That connective tissue doesn't build itself. At our size, every person we add either reinforces or dilutes what we've built. We're deliberate about who joins because of that. Culture is what this company is going to be. Grateful for everyone at Spinwheel!
Great points Tomás Campos and you're spot on about the enormous difference between a core startup team that knows each other intimately, and a 50 person, remote first team. What got you here won't get you there! Congrats on the awesome growth and strong culture. If you're curious, my friend Ken Weary has deliberately built a strong remote first culture Hostaway and they've scaled up impressively across the globe. What has been your #1 tactic for building "connective tissue" and is AI positive, negative or incidental to the culture at Spinwheel?