Grant Miller is the co-founder and CEO of Replicated. Previously, Grant was the co-founder of Look IO, a mobile live-chat solution that was acquired by LivePerson after just nine months.
Challenge
Grant Miller and his co-founder Marc Campbell founded Replicated in 2014, and rather quickly that team of two grew to five. Then, after raising $5 million in Series A funding, Replicated entered a growth phase and began scaling from five to 18 employees. It was during this time that priorities began to shift for Grant.
“A good percentage of my time is spent focusing on culture development and hiring. It is absolutely imperative that we make sure we’re establishing the right systems, solutions, and processes that will make Replicated a highly scalable company from a people operations standpoint.”
During this time, four of Replicated’s team members — that’s nearly a quarter of their workforce — went remote. Most of these remote employees started in the main office or had worked with either Grant or Marc at previous companies, and their absence impacted the company culturally; there was a gap. While the team was still the same bright and dynamic group of people capable of pivoting and iterating quickly, the new challenge of successfully connecting a remote workforce with the rest of a growing co-located team needed to be addressed.
How could these remote folks contribute to the company culture like they once had when working out of Replicated’s headquarters?
Grant also needed a way to quickly see what tasks and projects his team was prioritizing so that he could, if necessary, step in and course-correct.
“I’m often auditing these priorities to make sure that each is getting the attention they deserve. I frequently find myself asking, “What do I not want to do, but is really important?” alongside “What could I be doing more or less of to help my team do something better, to get more done and be more productive?”
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Solution: How Range helped
When Grant was first introduced to Range he immediately saw an opportunity to elevate daily standups. Like many other companies, Replicated’s standup meetings used to be a time when each team member would list off a number of tasks they were working on related to high-level priorities and roadblocks.
Adopting Range allowed them to conduct more thoughtful and focused discussions about their work and to make sure they remained in alignment, moving in the right direction together. It has introduced a new layer of transparency between teammates and even freed up time in meetings to conduct more personal communication.
Range has also helped Grant and his team establish the processes necessary to, in his words, “make Replicated a highly scalable company from a people operations standpoint.” Sharing daily updates asynchronously, made work and artifacts easily discoverable and accessible, and created opportunities for building personal connections. And that’s not solely for the benefit of Replicated’s remote team members — this benefits everyone.
“Now that we’ve been using Range, we’ve discovered that the team-building questions are fantastic. That’s brought the most value.”
Grant was not surprised that Range was able to uplevel how his team was going about managing their work. “I thought the help with establishing necessary processes would be the most significant feature, but honestly just asking the team a question each day and having them share a response has helped create and strengthen our interpersonal relationships.”
Range has helped Grant better engage his remote team members, making them once again feel included and a part of the core team.
“I want Replicated to be a place that everyone is excited about, a place where they know their coworkers, value them and have a sense of responsibility for their success.”
This community-oriented mentality has always been in the DNA of Replicated; it has always been the foundation of their culture. But now, as they have set out to actively create a great culture, Range empowered everyone — including remote employees — to take part in shaping Replicated’s future.
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