Remote work learnings from Amod (Udaan)

They have had a mixed model for Tech teams from the start (required to come in only 1 day of
the week, discretionary otherwise). So this is now based on a couple of years experience:

1. It's a ​major model change​. Spontaneous discussions disappear and things are not on
demand. So don't force-fit the current office work model to remote work.
2. ​Documentation of decisions​ is super important. Slack etc. help to some extent but the
burden of documentation is very high.
3. Need to have ​very well defined touch points​. Don't expect employees to be proactive. Daily
touchpoints for small groups, weekly touchpoints for large groups.
4.​ Tools become incredibly important​ - Slack, Zoom, Hangouts, Notion (For documentation),
Cloudflare Access (relevant for VPN setups), Kettle (For instrumenting daily personal
productivity).

Recent learnings from making non tech teams work from home (still early days for them):
5. ​Chopped up teams into smaller parts ​(10%) and got them started on WFH to practice how
to work from home. In case they need to switch to this full time.
6. ​Certainly need hardware and instrumentation​ (e.g., laptops on rental) for large operational
teams.

Advice to other founders:

A. Building a ​playbook for multiple levels of crises​. And doing a dry dun for the more severe
scenarios vs. what we are seeing right now
B. Working on ​creating a sense of security and assurance amongst employees​. Switching
to almost daily communication during this phase, highlighting how we are preparing for this

Learning from impact in China from James Mi and Bejul Somaia (Lightspeed)

1. This looked like a 15 days phenomenon early on in China. But will at least be a 2 quarter
phenomenon but could be more. Rest of the world could be impacted more.
2. It would be​ ideal if companies don’t have to raise capital in 2020​. Consider doing a top up
if you have recently raised a round and still can add to that.
3. If you are in the middle of a financing round, ​do not over-optimise​. Just get the thing done.
Terms that look bad right now will start looking very good in 3 months.
4. ​Capital will get more scarce​. Capital will get ​more expensive​. Capital will get m
​ ore
selective​. There will certainly be stress on valuations.
5. There will likely be a ​flight to quality​. Would advise founders to spend time on improving the
quality of business rather than growth that has been the norm for the past few years now.
6. ​Focus on survival ​more than anything else. Nothing should be off the table and trade-offs
that weren't considered earlier ought to be on the table. You'd be surprised how much cost you
can take out of the system.