0:00

Hey , it's Alex once again

0:02

from the remote work life podcast

0:04

, and I have a great

0:06

guest with me today . I have Jake

0:09

, who is a CEO and co-founder

0:11

of a business that I've

0:13

been following for a while . In fact , I've been following

0:15

him for a while on LinkedIn

0:18

because I'm just fascinated to hear about Butter

0:22

. Butter is

0:24

a great product we

0:27

see on product Hunt , I believe as well a

0:30

product which enables facilitation

0:33

. It's very much a

0:35

visual product . I'm going to let Jake describe

0:37

it a bit more in more detail . First , for most people

0:39

, I love video products . I love

0:41

products that allow remote workers

0:44

or anybody who is working virtually

0:46

to be able to facilitate

0:49

, to ease that whole process

0:51

, to bring people together

0:53

. I think that is the essence

0:55

of Butter for me . Of course

0:58

, jake , we'll be able to describe more . I just

1:00

want to say , jake , thank you so much for joining me today

1:02

. You're very welcome .

1:04

Yeah , thank you so much for having me , Alex . I'm excited

1:06

to be here .

1:08

Excellent . Tell us then

1:10

, please introduce , but

1:12

to tell us what Butter is all about , for those of

1:14

us who have not seen it

1:16

or are not familiar with it .

1:17

Yeah . So Butter is like Zoom , but

1:20

laser , focused on remote workshops

1:22

and trainings , more

1:24

complex collaborative sessions where

1:27

you need to prepare the session , you need to

1:29

actively facilitate the session and

1:31

you need to get the main takeaways of

1:33

the session as well . That

1:35

is what Butter is all about . It enables

1:38

you to prepare everything before

1:40

a session takes place . So set up an agenda

1:42

, set up all the different tools you might want

1:44

to use in that particular session , such as Miro

1:46

, mural , whiteboards , polls , music

1:49

you name it Then run

1:51

that session with all of those tools directly

1:53

into one

1:55

product , into Butter , without you having

1:57

to share any , share your screen or

2:00

share any links or whatever . Everything's

2:02

in one place and then it allows

2:04

you , to what you say , have significantly

2:07

more engaging sessions with

2:09

lots of interactive

2:11

tools directly in the product

2:13

. So that's very much what Butter is all about .

2:16

And don't we all want more engaging sessions

2:18

when it comes to those

2:20

sorts of events , because over

2:23

the last few years , we've been bombarded

2:26

, I guess , with , I think

2:28

, people still learning , in fact , how

2:32

to have sessions , the most productive

2:34

sessions that they possibly can , whilst

2:37

having that engagement , and it sounds like Butter

2:40

is a real solution

2:43

for that . And

2:45

I want to dig a bit deeper into how

2:47

this all came about for you

2:49

, jacob , because , as

2:53

I said , you have a really interesting

2:55

background , so

2:58

I want to yeah , let's dive into that , in fact . So

3:00

tell us about you

3:02

. How did you come to be CEO

3:05

? Co-founder of Butter .

3:07

Yeah . So you see , in the more

3:09

immediate , in the more immediate , let's

3:12

say history . We started

3:15

Butter a little around three years

3:17

ago now , so it was right during the

3:19

height of COVID , my co-founders and I we'd

3:21

shut down a startup before . That didn't

3:23

work out started within game streaming , but

3:26

we started that as a remote company

3:28

. So we built that as a fully remote

3:30

company and learned a lot of good things about that .

3:34

and right after we shut and company down in January

3:36

of 2020 , we thought , hey , we

3:38

want to build something . We want to build something together

3:40

. We're great together . So let's look for

3:42

an opportunity within the space of remote

3:44

work , which is where we were passionate

3:47

about . That was right when COVID

3:49

hit . So we thought

3:51

, okay , let's figure out a problem

3:53

within remote work that's really , really burning

3:55

for a lot of people , something that's really problematic for a

3:57

lot of these organizations that have suddenly been pushed remotely

4:00

by COVID . So we started doing online

4:02

workshops and trainings for these companies

4:05

, teams that didn't know how to work together

4:07

remotely to

4:09

figure out , hey , what are they ? What's the real

4:11

pain that these guys are facing ? And

4:14

that's when we experienced

4:17

it ourselves that doing remote

4:19

workshops was tremendously

4:21

difficult . We had

4:23

issues with technical

4:26

overload . We're focusing so much on the tools , so

4:29

much on the actual

4:31

setup of the workshop , that we ended

4:33

up not focusing on the participants themselves , and

4:36

it was incredibly hard to get people

4:38

engaged , to interact with people , to get

4:40

them to lean forward when we were doing these sessions

4:42

remotely . So that was what kind of became

4:44

the origin to

4:46

Butter almost three

4:49

years ago , as launched the first version

4:51

in June of 2020

4:53

, the very first version of Butter

4:55

.

4:56

Sounds good and

4:59

, yeah , these are things that I

5:03

talk to . A lot of people not . Yeah , lots of remote

5:05

teams , lots of remote workers who experienced

5:07

those pains that you talk about , and the

5:10

tools , the regular tools out there you

5:13

know , microsoft Teams , being one of them , is not , is

5:16

not , is not all that when it comes to bringing

5:19

teams together , enabling an easy

5:21

, easy process or a streamlined process

5:23

for all the things that you just just

5:26

mentioned there . But

5:29

for you , one of the things

5:31

that you mentioned previously or

5:34

in your introduction just now , remote

5:36

work , as well as being a passion

5:38

for you , or is a passion for

5:40

your previous business as

5:43

well , was a remote business . What

5:47

made you start ? Apart from wanting

5:50

to bring those people together ? Was there anything specific

5:52

about remote

5:56

work which appealed to you ? Why you thought yourself

5:58

I want to set up a business as a remote business

6:00

?

6:01

That's a good question . So I guess

6:04

that begins a bit of a bit more background about

6:06

myself . So I started my career in strategy consulting

6:08

was what's now Bayneam company in the Nordics for

6:11

close to four years . Then

6:13

got the opportunity to work in Indonesia

6:16

to start a digital marketing agency or

6:18

the local arm of digital marketing agency in Jakarta

6:20

. So went out there , build

6:23

it up , sold it off , but met some really

6:25

great and extremely talented people in

6:28

Indonesia , and

6:30

that was when I then came back to Denmark

6:32

to start a tech business in

6:35

2018 . That

6:37

was when I thought , hey , like

6:39

some of the people that I worked together with in Indonesia

6:42

, they're awesome people . I

6:44

want to work with them again . So

6:46

started reaching out to them and we started basically

6:48

setting up the business as a remote business

6:51

, because some of the people were in Indonesia , some

6:53

of the people were in Denmark , and

6:55

then , when you already had some people in Indonesia and some

6:57

in Denmark , you might as well recruit elsewhere as well , because

7:00

you suddenly realized

7:02

that distance was not

7:04

an inhibiting factor . So

7:07

what initially drove me to start that

7:09

started remote business before was

7:11

the fact that I realized that talent is

7:13

everywhere . Denmark is a very based

7:15

now is a very small country of just 6

7:17

million people . Right , talent

7:21

is . Although it's recently been talent

7:23

dense , the absolute number of talented people

7:25

is recently small because

7:27

of the size of the country . So recruiting good

7:29

people is difficult , and if you suddenly

7:31

have the world as your playground in terms of recruiting

7:33

, then it's way more manageable

7:36

. So that was kind of what initially brought me

7:38

to remote work was

7:40

access to talent and a knowledge that

7:42

talent is everywhere . That stemmed from

7:44

me having worked abroad

7:46

, in Indonesia , for quite a few years .

7:49

No , it sounds good and yeah

7:52

, it's . More and more businesses are beginning to realize that the

7:55

world is full of talented

7:57

people . One of the things that

8:00

I one of the backgrounds or the backstory

8:02

in terms of remote work like podcast is is

8:04

to really show that people

8:07

of talent all over the world are such a diverse

8:10

mix of people with a diverse range of

8:12

skills , opinions , thoughts , which

8:14

can help to grow businesses

8:17

, can help to you know and really

8:20

connect . I think that the whole idea of connecting with people across

8:22

the world is something that drove me . It sounds like

8:24

that's what has driven you as well , right ?

8:26

100% , 100% actually that

8:28

I can see two , two separate things , that

8:30

the first thing is diversity

8:33

as a like in

8:35

the team , like we're , I think , seven different

8:38

, with 70 people

8:40

across seven different countries at the moment . I believe , and

8:44

one of the things that we've seen is that by

8:46

having people from diverse origins , we

8:49

end up building a product that's way more , almost

8:53

inclusive , but it's broader than that . It's

8:55

just like the world is taken into consideration

8:58

when we're building the product at

9:00

different internet connectivity speeds

9:02

, different UX

9:05

, behavioral patterns , all of these different

9:07

things . They get taken into account when we're building

9:09

the product . So diversity has had that effect

9:11

on building butter . The

9:14

second thing is more of a personal thing , and that's

9:16

I mean I've I've personally lived

9:18

in six different countries , I believe

9:20

. So it's also China , China , US

9:22

, Austria , Hong

9:26

Kong and Chicago separately , but

9:28

it's been like

9:30

that adventure of living abroad and meeting

9:33

people from lots of different international

9:35

internationalities is on . That nationalities

9:37

has been so amazing , Alex , and

9:39

it's one of like that's what really gives spice to

9:42

life . So working in an organization

9:44

that is super international is something of an

9:46

absolute personal pleasure of mine .

9:49

Yeah , it just , it just . And

9:51

again , I think I keep I'm an avan

9:53

, I don't know if I'm an avan , it's a remote work but I just

9:55

love to to just to share

9:58

stories like yours , jay , because it

10:00

just to me it just instigates the

10:02

collectivity . The remote work and the great

10:04

business that I've highlighted

10:07

on the podcast have just just all

10:10

had a very similar story of being able to sort of bring

10:12

, like I said , bring people together and help

10:14

to build great things and make great collections

10:16

as well . And for you as

10:18

well , it sounds

10:20

like you had great reasons just

10:22

to establish a remote business . I

10:26

mean , how did you begin to ? Because

10:29

there's lots of people , I guess , out there who are

10:32

still trying to figure out how to

10:34

to build their business or want

10:36

to know how to build a remote business . How did you establish your

10:38

business ? Just briefly , from from ground zero

10:40

?

10:41

Yeah , that's a good question . I think it's not an

10:43

easy question . No , no , it's not

10:45

an easy question . So

10:47

it was established remotely because we were

10:50

two Danish co-founders , one Malaysian co-founders

10:52

, so we already had to work remotely

10:54

as co-founders from the very beginning . And

10:58

then when we started recruiting

11:00

people , it was just it was defined that

11:02

hey , this is going to be a remote business , people

11:05

are going to work remotely anyways . So

11:07

the first people we recruited were

11:09

acquaintances or people that we knew

11:12

through either

11:14

ourselves or through connections

11:16

, and they

11:18

were in what you say , in pockets around

11:20

us . So some of the first people who recruited were in Denmark

11:22

or in Malaysia or in Indonesia , were already

11:25

new people . But then , as we began establishing

11:27

the business to become larger and we saw that we needed

11:29

skills that were not in our initial or

11:32

immediate circle

11:35

of acquaintances or immediate

11:37

network . We said

11:39

like , hey , we've a remote business anyways . Like

11:41

let's just try recruiting from anywhere

11:43

. So we started getting super

11:47

strong people in from Nigeria

11:50

, from

11:52

India , different other locations . We now have people in Portugal

11:54

and in the Netherlands as well . So

11:57

that was kind of it

12:00

just started with us being remote by default

12:02

and that opened up to getting people in from various

12:04

different countries

12:06

. On top of that , one

12:08

of the things that we started establishing from the

12:11

very early days was a very

12:13

conscious culture of documentation

12:16

and conscious

12:19

culture of communication . So

12:21

on documentation side , like

12:23

we have a notion headquarters

12:25

where we document a ton of things and

12:28

it's written by default or async

12:31

documentation by default . It's

12:33

very heavy on that and that we did from the very early

12:35

days . Secondly , on communication

12:37

styles and not just styles but also

12:39

communication

12:41

channels we established a guide

12:44

on what do we do sync

12:47

and what do we do async . Which channels do

12:49

we use ? How do we use like

12:51

we have a reasonably sizable

12:53

document and how we use Slack , for instance , that

12:56

people are here to . So there's a lot of these different

12:58

things and we were just very conscious about establishing

13:01

from a very early stage .

13:05

It sounds good to you , remote from day one

13:07

, which I guess makes it in

13:10

a bit common , a little bit easy . I don't know

13:12

the user with ease . Nobody does . It does come easy .

13:15

The decision is not as hard I mean it just

13:17

is Whereas I know a lot of startups and

13:19

struggle with should we be remote ? Should we be

13:21

remote that whether co-founders

13:23

are co-located to begin with , but then they start

13:25

hiring remote employees and

13:27

you start establishing a second tier

13:30

citizen setup

13:33

with people that are remote , who

13:35

aren't really priority but they kind of are

13:37

? So that's way

13:39

more difficult than hey , if we're all remote

13:41

, then it's much easier . It's

13:44

also I heard the saying that if the CEO

13:47

is not remote , then the company is not remote

13:49

. So it's

13:51

super important how you

13:53

deal with that from the very beginning .

13:56

No , it sounds good and I think well , you

13:59

mentioned as well with notion in terms

14:01

of async . But where

14:04

do you stand on the whole sync

14:07

async debate ? Because

14:09

you know there's in my

14:11

mind there's so many different . There's

14:13

a broad spectrum of remote work and

14:15

across that spectrum , each

14:18

team , each business operates

14:20

might operate sync , might

14:22

operate async Somewhere in between

14:25

. But then there are those online

14:27

that are strong advocates of async

14:30

and others that say sync is the best

14:32

. Where do you stand ? Yeah

14:35

?

14:35

I think overall . I

14:37

think when remote work

14:39

started kind of going into the mainstream

14:41

due to COVID a lot of the

14:44

old guard

14:46

of remote work , the

14:48

get-laps of the world , you

14:50

know the safes of the world they

14:53

came out with their best practice guides

14:55

which were very heavily focused on async

14:58

work and said that async

15:00

is the only way that you can really work remotely

15:03

, and 95% of the communication needs to be async

15:05

, and so on and so forth . So

15:07

overall , I believe that the world has

15:10

been too much too

15:12

focused on sync traditionally , like

15:14

the whole . Too many meetings is definitely

15:16

true . A lot of people have found

15:18

that meetings and synchronous conversations

15:20

are the path of these resistance , which

15:23

has just made a lot of processes

15:25

incredibly inefficient in traditional businesses . That

15:28

being said , I think that , due to these remote

15:31

organizations focusing so heavily on async , the

15:34

narrative has been skewed to the other side , especially

15:37

on the remote , that , oh then , async is the savior

15:39

of everything . So where I

15:42

stand is , I think that traditionally

15:44

we've been too much sync . I think the traditional remote

15:46

companies have been too heavily async . I think that

15:48

there's a very heavy , there's very specific

15:50

balance that one needs to strike when

15:53

you are operating remotely and that

15:55

balance needs to be dictated by why

15:58

or what you're communicating about or what

16:01

you're collaborating about . So

16:03

you need to be conscious on

16:06

whether you want a particular thing to be sync

16:08

or async and you almost need to have written

16:10

down like okay , when we do this it's sync , when

16:12

we do that it's async . Like example

16:15

, one thing that works super great async

16:17

is one way communication . Like

16:19

if I have a company update or

16:21

something like that , it works super well if I either communicate

16:23

it out in written format or I record a loop and send

16:26

it out to the team . No need for everyone to sit

16:28

in a synchronous session and listen to me drawing on

16:30

. But

16:32

if we need to brainstorm about

16:35

a particular complex topic or

16:37

if we need to make a particular

16:40

, a pregnant decision , a lot of those

16:42

things are better done synchronously , that

16:45

being said , with a lot of async preparation

16:47

before either of those sessions . So everyone's kind

16:49

of at the same baseline before you enter the session

16:51

. But the actual brainstorm or the actual

16:53

decision-making session is

16:57

way more often than not , way better to do

16:59

sync than async .

17:01

Yeah , which , again what

17:03

you just said . It just there's not

17:05

one size fits all by any means at all

17:07

. Not at all . This

17:10

is why I want to Again this podcast is all about

17:12

sharing different opinions

17:14

, viewpoints , working practices

17:17

for the betterment of

17:19

everybody . And

17:21

yeah , I respect the async

17:23

advocates , I respect the sync advocates and the ones

17:26

in between , but

17:29

there's no one size fits all , but one

17:32

skill in terms of remote

17:35

work . It

17:37

requires , apart

17:40

from the collaboration and the

17:42

communication side of things and in

17:44

some cases over communication and understanding

17:47

of how different practices and processes work . You

17:50

have an interesting take on a specific skill

17:52

, which , a specific core skill

17:54

that you believe can help to

17:57

optimize

18:00

. I guess remote teams Tell me about

18:02

that .

18:03

Yeah , so thanks for asking , Alex

18:06

. One of the things I've been banging on about

18:08

in the remote

18:10

work space is the fact that facilitation is

18:12

an incredibly undervalued but incredibly

18:15

important skill in remote collaboration

18:18

. And this comes back to my belief that

18:20

there are a lot of sessions that need to be done synchronously

18:22

, but if they are

18:24

not well handled , if they're not actively

18:26

facilitated , they will fail . So

18:29

in the physical world , if

18:31

you will , in the traditional co-located

18:34

work space , I think the facilitation has

18:36

also been incredibly important . In the past it's

18:38

been super important to actively

18:40

manage a meeting and again , by

18:42

facilitation I mean the fact that you define

18:45

what a meeting should be about

18:48

. It could be a workshop meeting or it could be a

18:50

training , it could be a team

18:52

meeting , but you set up the agenda clearly beforehand

18:55

, you define what the objectives and outcomes should be

18:57

, you define the roles of each individual person

18:59

in the session and then during

19:01

the session itself , you actively facilitate towards

19:04

this particular outcome

19:06

that you pre-defined . So in

19:08

co-located space , that's been important , but a lot

19:10

of people have been able to kind

19:12

of navigate around that through almost

19:16

like subliminal or cues

19:18

or physical cues that they might have had that have made

19:20

it easier to operate . In

19:23

the physical world , in the remote world

19:25

, you don't have a lot of those extra cues

19:27

. If you're sitting

19:29

in a video conferencing court , you can only talk

19:32

one person at a time without it being overwhelming

19:34

, whereas in a physical

19:36

meeting you're able to kind of have side conversations

19:39

, you're able to pick up cues from people , that kind of stuff

19:41

. So active

19:43

facilitation of that meeting

19:45

, active facilitation of that session , becomes incredibly

19:48

important in getting the most out of

19:50

that particular session , and I think

19:52

that that's also why a lot of people have been suffering

19:54

through , you know , endless back

19:56

to back video calls

19:58

, especially during COVID , but still

20:00

these days , and many

20:03

of them haven't been actively facilitated , there hasn't

20:05

been established clear agendas or clear outcomes

20:07

of the meetings and hence a lot of them

20:09

have been superfluous and a lot of hatred

20:12

or a lot of hate has been been

20:15

pushed on them . So that's

20:17

why I believe that active facilitation

20:19

of any type of meetings

20:21

is a core skill , or is

20:23

being fast becoming a core skill , and it's

20:25

something that any leader or

20:27

any project manager or anyone that

20:29

that kind of hosts

20:32

any meetings online need

20:34

to learn .

20:36

And that's the thing actually . I mean , you don't

20:38

, when you look at job descriptions , whether

20:40

they're remote or not remote

20:42

, because obviously there's there's more and

20:45

more online meetings these days , whether

20:47

teams are remote or not , but especially remote

20:49

job descriptions you don't really see . You see

20:51

collaboration , but collaboration

20:53

is quite nebulous , isn't it ? It's

20:55

quite , it's doesn't necessarily

20:57

, it's not specific , it doesn't . Whereas facilitation

21:00

is not something that you see on the

21:02

job descriptions enough as a core skill

21:04

, and I'm wondering

21:07

why , what ? I

21:09

wonder why that is , but by the

21:11

fact that it needs to be there .

21:12

it definitely needs to be there and I think we're seeing

21:14

that it's coming from a kind of a niche

21:17

skill that hasn't been super

21:19

recognized . It has been super important but it hasn't been

21:21

very recognized . Do we come way more of a

21:23

mainstream skill ? And we're seeing

21:25

that increasing like in

21:27

butter . We have a community of , I think , 1500

21:29

, 1500 facilitators and

21:32

we've been nurturing that community

21:34

very heavily as a community of practice

21:36

, with the focus of bringing to light

21:38

facilitation as a mainstream skill

21:41

on the side of project

21:43

management , for instance , and

21:45

that's something that we'll be able to see

21:47

go upwards very heavily

21:49

in the next five to ten years .

21:52

So I'm just interested to explore

21:54

that a bit more in terms of facilitation

21:57

. I know you've talked around facilitation where regards

21:59

what is concerned and the

22:01

importance of it , but what

22:04

if you're in a meeting ? I mean

22:06

, I've been in meetings , obviously , where people have they're

22:08

going through an agenda and they're picking

22:10

the points of an agenda and then you

22:14

know , somebody else starts talking and then it

22:17

kind of goes off track a little bit

22:19

. What are the key things that the facilitator

22:22

is doing ? And yeah , what

22:24

are the key things ?

22:26

Yeah , I mean I think of Sylthe Hader

22:29

has say , a role before , during and after the meeting

22:31

. Right Before the

22:33

meeting , it's about basically setting up the confines

22:36

of the meeting . Being very clear on

22:38

like agenda is a traditional thing of seeing it , but

22:40

I think it goes way beyond that . A gender is just

22:42

one way to achieve a goal . The way more important

22:45

thing is establishing the outcomes

22:47

of the meeting and the roles and

22:49

responsibilities of each individual

22:51

person in the meeting . So

22:53

that's what a facilitator should do . They should

22:55

set up the confines of the meeting beforehand

22:58

, during the session . It's

23:00

about . During the meeting , the

23:02

facilitator's role is to get the

23:05

participants or the rest of the people

23:07

in the meeting from point A to point B and

23:10

basically the point B is the established outcome

23:12

of that have been established , the

23:15

pre-established outcome of the meeting that the

23:17

facilitator set up beforehand . And

23:20

, like you mentioned , going off track

23:22

on the agenda , one person talking

23:24

a lot that kind of stuff . It

23:27

might be okay if

23:29

it goes towards solving or

23:32

goes towards the objective or the outcome

23:34

of the meeting and if that's

23:36

the case , then the facilitator should allow

23:39

it . But it might also not be

23:41

okay . It might be totally off track and then it's a facilitator's

23:44

role to kind of keep to

23:46

narrow people in and get people on track again . So

23:48

during the session , it's a facilitator's role

23:50

to make sure that people they keep going towards

23:53

the outcome , that the pre-established outcome . And then , lastly

23:56

, after the session , it's very

23:58

much the facilitator's goal and I think this is something that's often forgotten

24:00

to collect all

24:03

the materials from the meeting , to collect the decision that

24:05

we've made in the meeting and make

24:07

sure that these are not

24:09

implemented but at least remembered and

24:12

documented and sent around to the participants

24:14

of the meeting . So

24:17

essentially , a facilitator is the person that makes meetings

24:19

successful , if that makes sense .

24:22

No , it certainly does and , like I said

24:24

, I've been in far too many meetings where there doesn't

24:27

. There's somebody there who's

24:29

chairing the meeting , but it's not necessarily

24:31

effectively . Even from

24:33

the whole process that you just mentioned . It's

24:36

not always there , it's a bit somebody

24:39

else might send notes or you know

24:41

. So you go ahead , yeah , yeah

24:43

.

24:43

And I think it's often because someone

24:46

will or may take part of the role up

24:49

during the session . That's why facilitators it's

24:51

not a job title , it's a role in this

24:53

particular session . We are all facilitators

24:55

in various different meetings . But then we need to make

24:57

sure that we don't just chair the meeting . We

24:59

take over full responsibility of the

25:01

meeting and we don't drop that responsibility

25:04

throughout the middle of the session . Right , and

25:06

that's what I'm seeing often that someone just kind of steps

25:08

in , but then they're afraid to step in the

25:10

hallway and then things get rubbed

25:12

on the ground .

25:14

No , I hear you . I hear you and I

25:16

mean it sounds like . I mean you've

25:19

obviously your learnings

25:21

as a founder , you're passing them

25:23

on through butter and you're sharing

25:25

a lot of stuff online . Did

25:29

you see yourself being in this position , you know

25:31

, say even you know a few years ago ? Is this something that

25:33

you envisage as part of your

25:35

career , or is it just accidental ? Because

25:39

the reason I say that is because I think we

25:42

need people like you in the sense

25:44

that , like I said , people are

25:46

still trying to figure out remote work

25:49

, even those that are doing

25:51

remote work , and especially those that are trying

25:53

to do it better . We

25:55

need people like you in terms of being , you

25:58

know , sharing skills , and that's one of the key traits

26:00

of remote work is sharing skills , sharing

26:02

knowledge . Did you see yourself being in this situation

26:04

, say , a few years ago ?

26:06

That's a good question , like I think , as

26:10

a founder , yes , I wanted to be a founder for

26:12

very long . I wanted to be

26:15

Ever since I

26:17

started the agency

26:19

business in Indonesia back in 2014,

26:22

. I must admit

26:24

, I really enjoyed the

26:26

act of creating something

26:28

. There's something amazing about that

26:30

, right ? And

26:32

I mean

26:34

you've created this podcast as well

26:36

, right ? I mean the act of creation , of willing

26:39

something in from nothing , is amazing

26:41

, and that joy is something

26:44

that I've found

26:46

and I've almost clung to .

26:49

So yes .

26:49

I saw myself that way . I think I didn't

26:51

see myself as being a

26:53

heavy and remote work advocate as I've become . That's

26:56

something I've only realized over time

26:58

, I think again with the realization

27:01

like again , this kind of early realization that talent

27:04

is everywhere , which was what really got

27:06

me on this path . And then

27:08

I've just realized so many other positive

27:11

things about remote work that

27:13

have let me even further down that path . And

27:16

, of course , since building butter , like again

27:18

, I've

27:20

been heavily integrating tooling that makes remote

27:23

work even more

27:26

fluid and possible . So

27:29

, no , I didn't see myself going this

27:31

heavily into remote

27:35

work , but man , am I wonderfully glad about being

27:37

here .

27:39

No , we're glad to have you . The other thing is as well

27:41

. I mean , apart from the , you know your role

27:43

as a co-founder

27:46

, as a CEO , as an entrepreneur . You're

27:52

able to affect so many people across the world with butter

27:54

, with the advice that you share online

27:56

, the learning out loud , as Tyler would

27:58

say . How

28:02

else has remote work affected your

28:05

life ? Or has it affected your life in

28:07

other ways ? Oh yeah , heavily many ways

28:09

.

28:09

I think the number one thing is just flexibility

28:11

. Both my wife and I were remote workers

28:13

, so there's a tremendous amount of flexibility

28:16

both in terms of time and location , which

28:18

has changed our life significantly

28:21

. Time , in terms

28:23

of being able to there's

28:25

almost been times on independent rights . We're

28:28

able to work whenever we want to work

28:30

a lot both of us but

28:32

we have a huge amount of flexibility in

28:34

terms of when and then

28:36

location . We've always been travelling

28:39

a lot , and remote

28:41

work has allowed us to travel even more , so

28:44

I think from that perspective , it's

28:46

done a lot to my personal life . That

28:49

whole level of flexibility has

28:51

been absolutely amazing .

28:54

And what are you excited about

28:56

for the future ? That could either be personally

28:58

or with Butter . What's

29:00

exciting you ? What do you envisage

29:02

for the future ?

29:05

Oh man , so many things . Future

29:08

is glorious With

29:12

Butter . One thing I'm very excited about

29:14

is , honestly

29:16

, what AI

29:18

enables in terms of synchronous

29:21

and asynchronous kind of flowing together . We're

29:24

launching , very soon AI

29:27

summaries of our sessions , and others

29:29

are doing this too , through pure transcriptions . But

29:31

what we're leaning into is all the different things that have

29:33

been collaborated on and Butter , all the documents that are being shared

29:35

, all the notes that are being

29:37

taken . All of those are being consolidated into summaries , and

29:40

I'm really excited about the opportunities

29:42

or possibilities of taking that full process

29:45

from set up to running the session and

29:47

then debriefing the session into a total

29:50

knowledge base . That would

29:53

make synchronous and asynchronous

29:55

work flow so much better together . So

29:58

that's , I think , is something that

30:00

I'm super excited about in

30:02

terms of Butter going forward .

30:05

Excellent , now it sounds good . And

30:07

just one final question

30:09

when you're not working because

30:12

I know you said , you and your wife you work a lot and

30:14

that sometimes can be a bit of a temptation with

30:16

remote work , because there's nobody there to kind of like get

30:19

you to fuck off what are you doing when you're not working

30:21

?

30:22

Oh , I

30:25

do work out quite a lot to make sure that my

30:27

mind kind of blanks . Then I read

30:29

quite a lot and I play a lot of computer games . So

30:33

those would be my three biases .

30:36

Well , we would have to have something else that we do outside of work

30:38

. Jake , I just wanted to say thank

30:40

you so much for coming

30:42

on the podcast . We'll be looking out

30:44

for what you're sharing online . We'll

30:48

share some details in the show notes of where people can find

30:50

you . We're looking out for Butter as

30:52

well . And , yeah , I just want to wish you all the best for

30:54

you and your team , for the future .

30:56

Yeah , thank you so much , Alex . It's lovely to be here . Pleasure

30:59

.