As coronavirus continues to run rampant, today we’re amping up our work from home mentality. We also challenge stereotypes and create new norms. And we wrap with a very human IPO. 

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Work from wherever

Work from home is a glorious thing. If you’re able to do it—and do it well—it can be the difference between keeping up at work and falling far, far behind. 

And according to BuzzFeed News, some in the industry are using the coronavirus as an experiment for that moment when “working remotely will broadly replace working in person.”

And with this madness seemingly not stopping soon, we have our eyes on the remote tools you need (but probably have never heard of).  

We’re no stranger to the classic tools like Slack and Zoom, but Product Hunt (a team that’s remotely distributed itself) dropped a list of the lesser-known platforms you could find especially useful this season. 

• • I'm really digging one called Tandem, a virtual office for remote and distributed teams. It’s not VR, but it’s like the next best thing. With it, you can see who’s available and what app they’re working in, then chat and screen share in one click.
  • Grace is all about Flow State, which is a free daily newsletter that sends you two hours of perfect working music every morning. It gives you tons of background information on the artist and music genre. A paid membership gets you access to in-house custom mixes on Mondays and a searchable database of songs, too.
  • And this next one seems super simple but is actually awesomely useful: It's called Krisp Mac. It’s a tool that mutes background noise during calls, and works with any conferencing app and a headset.

(Here's the full list if you're interested.)

Remote company cultures have become more akin to a religion than a growth strategy with amazing people like DHH from Basecamp, Nick Francis from Help Scout, and Wade Foster from Zapier preaching the power of remote.

And since all companies go remote or multi-office at some point, it’s not an argument of either/or, it’s more of an argument of when. Especially in the case of something like Coronavirus. These are uncontrollable circumstances for so many, but we can try to make the best of it.

We did a bit of digging into the data to see if remote teams were growing at the same rate as their co-located counterparts. After looking at 3,000 SaaS and subscription companies we saw that, in the early stages, remote companies are growing at a much slower rate than those companies where everyone is co-located. What’s fascinating though, is that as companies get larger, this growth differential starts to diminish. Here's the full report with all data cuts if you feel like doing some digging. 

Let us know what remote tools you’re using, too. You can reach me at abby@recurnow.com. 

An unconscious bias is the scariest kind

Compiled by Grace Gagnon

On a previous episode of Recur Now, we talked about the idea of branching outside of your respective niche. In it, David Cancel from Drift challenged people to find different events and different books to read to expand the potential for breakthrough ideas. 

Last week, I took that advice myself and attended the Tory Burch Foundation’s Embrace Ambition Summit. Tory Burch is best known as a fashion designer, but she started the foundation back in 2009 to support the empowerment of women entrepreneurs. The foundation provides access to capital, entrepreneurial education, and mentoring and networking opportunities.

But the summit went deeper. The speakers and attendees had a common goal—challenging stereotypes and creating new norms. We heard from many powerful women. To name a few: feminist/activist Gloria Steinem, Civil Rights pioneer Claudette Colvin, National Geographic marine biologist Sylvia Earle, top female athletes A.J. Andrews and Bianca Valenti, and President/CEO of Time's Up Tina Tchen. 

Tackling unconscious bias was a recurring topic of the summit. Unconscious biases are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Unconscious bias is particularly dangerous for women’s equality (which we are unfortunately far from achieving). 

But, Tory Burch Foundation has a downloadable resource that everyone, especially companies, should look at if we want to smash unconscious bias against women, together. 

For companies specifically, here are five ways to counter that bias:

1. 1. Strive for diversity in your workforce. CEOs, we’re calling on you to look around the room and ensure ALL groups are represented. 
   2. Assessment and evaluation: do a diversity audit at all levels. How are people hired? How is work assigned? How is compensation determined?
   3. Training: include bias awareness training that is based on the science of how the mind works.
   4. Support non-profit organizations and programs that increase diversity in the pipeline
   5. Provide sponsors or mentors for all employees including members of underrepresented groups. 

For more tips on tackling unconscious bias, check out this downloadable PDF. 

A very Human IPO

Previously on the show, we’ve touched on the idea of subscribing to humans, as well as funding them. Back in October, we spotted Human IPO, which is a marketplace for investing in just that—humans. We wanted to circle back here and see how this site—and its subsequent humans—was doing. 

And apparently, they’re kind of killing it. 

Let’s look at Mike Merrill, the world’s first publicly traded person, who took crowdfunding to a new level when in 2008 he divided his “self” into 100,000 shares and sold them at an initial public offering price of $1 a share. Now, his life rights have been optioned by Sony Television for a series on Amazon and he's been featured in Wired, The Atlantic, BBC, and The Today Show.

Before announcing a personal IPO, the Human IPO team conducts an investigation process on each human—reviewing financial records, past business performance, and a personal health check. Essentially, this works when someone is willing to sell their future time to anyone who believes they’ll succeed. The more successful they become, the more their time is worth—and their investors? They get a solid return. 

And the Human IPO team claims your investments can grow significantly higher with them vs. the S&P 500, with an average 890% target return, a 10-year average estimated term, and 25-35% average estimated risk. 

Our question here is: Would you IPO yourself? Or would you invest in a person’s time in this regard? It’s actually a pretty simple idea, but it for sure has interesting inclinations. Share your thoughts with me to abby@recurnow.com or via social. We want to keep this conversation going.

That’s it for your March 10 episode of Recur Now. If you are not already on the list to receive daily episodes, head to recurnow.com to sign up.

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