If you have ambitious goals, you need a work environment that encourages collaboration so that you can get things done, fast. The team at Anycart knows that challenge well. As one of the world’s biggest grocery shopping engines, Anycart helps you find the ingredients for the perfect meal and get all the groceries you need delivered to your doorstep.
The team behind this vision is distributed across the globe. So how do you keep them connected if they’re spread across continents, from the Bay Area to Brazil? And how do you build the energy of a bustling office with all the serendipitous encounters that make work fun and collaborative (and so often spontaneously spark great ideas) when you can’t share a physical space?
Here’s how Teamflow helped Anycart create a virtual workspace that scales with their business.
THE CHALLENGE
Creating a collaborative work environment and a great culture is difficult when working remotely
Rafael, CEO and founder of Anycart, always believed that the secret to building great products and successful businesses lies in building a truly gelled team — and that just doesn’t work when you only engage via chat or scheduled video calls.
So in the early days of the business, Rafael and his team would set up a standing all-day Google Hangout call for everyone to work alongside each other.
“We’re a fully remote team, but I still want the team to feel like a team.”
—Rafael Sanches
As Anycart grew, they set up multiple standing Hangout rooms for different teams, but that made things complicated for members who worked across various teams. The improvised Google Hangout setup just wasn’t scaling with the business. They needed another solution — and Teamflow turned out to be exactly what they needed.
THE SOLUTION
Replicating an office environment virtually with Teamflow
Anycart quickly started using Teamflow in exactly the same way they’d use a physical office.
“We want to imitate a real office environment as much as we can. Teamflow provides the tool to make that easy, and on top of that, we’re living by the same social rules that we’d apply to an in-person office space.”
—Rafael Sanches
That means when team members start their workday, they head into Teamflow. Once they’re “in the office,” they’re available to chat, and it’s okay — even encouraged — to stop next to a coworker and strike up a conversation. Are you stuck with a problem and need help from a colleague? Just drag your avatar over to them and start chatting in an instant. There’s no need to schedule a call or wait for a Slack reply.
Similarly to the physical office social rules, if you see they’re in a meeting room with others, you can try again later. Or, if it’s urgent, you can politely virtually knock to see if you can interrupt for a minute.
Just like in a physical office, Teamflow creates a space for seamless collaboration, but it also helps set boundaries. At Anycart, when someone is done for the day and has left the virtual office, they’re no longer available — just as if they had left a physical office. This helps Anycart employees disconnect by building a cleaner separation between their work, and their life outside of work.
THE RESULTS
A more productive and collaborative way of working remote
With Teamflow, Anycart has created a virtual office making collaboration easier, socializing more natural and spontaneous, and work more productive.
“Teamflow has broken down information silos completely and is making everyone on our team more productive. It’s hard to overstate how much time it's saving us because we're all now so much more aligned.”
—Rafael Sanches
One of the biggest levers for improving productivity is removing friction in team communication. Having the team in a virtual office means questions can now be solved just by approaching a coworker at the virtual office rather than having to schedule a meeting.
Because starting a conversation is just a virtual avatar-dragging away, problems can be solved in minutes not days, making the time-consuming process of finding time in calendars, setting up, and waiting for meetings a pain of the past.
“The fact that I can just start a chat without scheduling calls or sending invites is a game-changer. This has cut the need for scheduled meetings entirely. I no longer have a calendar that dictates my schedule.“
—Rafael Sanches
Plus, Teamflow makes it a whole lot easier for the team to build and nurture relationships. When we talked to Rafael about how Teamflow has changed their new employees’ onboarding process, he invited us to chat with Diego, a brand-new hire who joined the team a few days ago. We found Diego in the common area, chatting with Bruno, a coworker. We later learned the two engineers weren’t even on the same team. Bruno had just spotted Diego in the communal space and stopped by to say hi and introduce himself — an encounter that would never have happened on Slack.
And Diego isn’t the only new team member that felt that experienced the value of Teamflow from the moment they started working at Anycart.
“Teamflow has made my experience as a remote worker 10x better. The use of it comes naturally and meeting the team as a newcomer was a breeze.”
—Lucas Franco, Growth Consultant at Anycart
Both new hires and long-time team members agree: Teamflow enables spontaneous, serendipitous encounters that helps coworkers get to know each other, feel connected, and have fun at work — and that’s the foundation of a strong culture.
“As Anycart continues to grow, it’s important to me to protect our culture and continue to be a fun, collaborative place to work. We just couldn’t do that without Teamflow.”
—Rafael Sanches
