The Exchanges

Q So you were saying off air that team building has about eight or 90 people. Is that between, uh, those, um, other companies that are under the umbrella as well, or?

A So it all operates as one company now. So yeah, the employees are our collective group. And I believe right now the number is 90. Uh, we have, uh, full-time staff who are the sales team, marketing, uh, customer service, et cetera. And then we have, uh, all of our event hosts. Almost all of them are part-time. There's a few that are full-time, um, but all as employees. Uh, and we're somewhat seasonal as a business. So for example, quarter four is quite busy for us. Uh, as companies are not just doing team building, but they're also doing holiday parties, and so we'll bring on seasonal staff, which pushes us up to more like, uh, I think it was one 80 last year, or almost 200 even, uh, with more hosts, more, more support staff, et cetera.

AI assessment note: “it all operates as one company now. So yeah, the employees are our collective group.”

Q like, I wish I never lived in Wuhan. But the other part of me is like, if I had never lived in Wuhan, I may not have ever learned Chinese. So now that I have this experience, I have a specific kind of, not really a formula, but I have specific things I look for when I decide where I'm going to go next. Do you have something like that?

A Uh, no, we were actually pretty unintentional about it. So before the pandemic, we would So the path that I mentioned before, it's like what brought us to Australia was work. Um, we were there for a museum conference as part of the museum hack business. Uh, my partner gave a keynote and I did a marketing workshop. Uh, it was the first time I've been to Australia because Australia is really far, uh, from Canada in the US. So I got there, spent a little bit of time and then realized that it was a great opportunity to visit, uh, other places that previously seemed too far. So for example, It takes forever to get to Bali, right? From almost everywhere. If you leave from Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, even when I was living in Beijing, I was like another 10 hours or something to get to Bali. So I just didn't, uh, go, um, which sounds silly now because I've taken a lot of flights that are way longer than that. But, uh, Australia to Bali is like four hours. And so it was such a no brainer to go there next. Uh, and then from Bali to Thailand and then from Thailand actually went back to China. Um, There's direct flights to Chengdu and then, um, there's a great, uh, the rapid train that goes across the country. So start in Chengdu, stop in Changsha and then Beijing at the end.

AI assessment note: “no, we were actually pretty unintentional about it.”

Q team after four years, um, because I'm living in Europe now, and two of them are based in Europe. And, uh, so we've tried this VR stuff because we don't really know how else to do team building, um, which is one of the reasons why I was asking you if you'd thought about that. But I guess I'm curious to know what made you want to start this company?

A Actually. Previous career was as an, a lawyer, a lawyer, and I did some other kind of corporate stuff before that. And when I moved into the startup world, I was doing marketing. It was remote and I was working alone. I started to recognize and appreciate just how much the social component, uh, of work plays into your life and your happiness and your, and a wellness. And so. Uh, seeing that for me, seeing how it can expand to other people became very clear, very quickly, uh, especially with the virtual ones, because of the time we were in, it's like pandemic hit, pretty much everyone in the world was stressed, right? Like everything around us was stressor, stressor, stressor. And some, some of the early, uh, testimonials or feedbacks, comments that we got from guests were like, wow, thank you so much for 90 minutes. I forgot everything that's going on in the world right now. So we realized that it's like, It's more than just connecting people. It's like letting people feel good, uh, during the work day and beyond.

AI assessment note: “started to recognize and appreciate just how much the social component, uh, of work plays”

Q How do you handle work as you travel?

A Uh, sometimes very well, sometimes less so. Uh, a downside of the Canaries was that for that seven months, we were basically on dial-up internet from the nineties, right? It was so difficult, especially with the previous company going to zero and needing to rebuild. It was You know, sometimes we could barely do Zoom calls, et cetera. Um, other, other locations can be much better in a location now that has fiber internet, even though we're on a remote island. It's like, I don't know how that exists, but, uh, it does extremely well and better than kind of the town I grew up in, or frankly, and better than New York City, uh, and parts of it. There's, uh, there is a balance of trying to work and enjoy The places you're in as well, uh, which I would confess I'm not good at. I think we lean a little bit too much towards work. So, you know, spending three weeks in the Greek islands is potentially incredible, except barely left the hotel room, mostly just left to go to the grocery store to, to get goods, to come back and keep going. So not, not enough balance in the past. I think an exception to that is when we intentionally visit places that Uh, we have friends at and then spend more time with them. So, right. Have a good friend in Valley and would spend a lot more time together in China. Going to visit friends would be a really nice break from work. The most, uh, the most challenging…

AI assessment note: “sometimes very well, sometimes less so. Uh, a downside of the Canaries”

Q style and it has to have air con and like, sure. 1500 euros a month, please. It's like, guys, come on, but, but fine, whatever. So I want to talk a little bit more, uh, about your business as we come to a close here. So you have a team of between 8200, depending on the year. At this stage in your business, what are you focused on the most?

A Yeah. So a few things we have within the company, there's, uh, myself and, uh, COO Tasia, who basically Co CEOs, right? We run the company together and make all high level decisions together. A lot of smaller decisions too. Uh, and then we have a management team, uh, where there's individuals for, uh, the head of each department and then the folks that come under them. The management team, uh, is the one that we want to continue to develop the most. So with the number of people we have, with the amount of client work we do, um, with the complexity of operations now. You just need more managers, uh, and more specific ones. So for example, um, one of the current managers has essentially in charge of multiple departments. So removing her from that, so she can focus on one specialty and then bringing in somebody who would take on, for example, uh, the client success or client support management role or whatever you would call it. Um, bringing on a sales director, bringing on, um, Uh, a management director who would kind of lead all operations to reduce the number of points of contact that we have. Right. Just like hiring, uh, hired well and systematizing, uh, beyond that and what that enables is more growth. So with our business, yeah, virtual was very big throughout the pandemic. It continues to be pretty significant, although remote teams or teams that are still kind of working b…

AI assessment note: “The management team, uh, is the one that we want to continue to develop the most.”

Q How often do you do team building and How often are you directly attending those team building exercises with your team?

A Yeah, so team building for clients literally every day, right? Um, many, many events every day, every week, every month. Internally, uh, we do a handful of different things, and I think team building can be, we could say team building events, or you could like team building activities, team building games, team building meetups, whatever it is, um, can be more expensive, but, um, we do. Almost all of our own events internally, both as a way to connect people as well as a way to demo them, um, so that everybody knows what's going on. We have in the virtual round, 30 plus events. And so that's probably the 30 plus internal team building events that we've done. Uh, and then as part of that, and in some cases, in addition to it, uh, one of the best events that we found for our team is to do Trivia that's aligned with identity months. So black history month, pride month, uh, uh, women's history month, where we'll have an hour of trivia set up. It's not just trivia questions, but puzzles and things that people solve together. Uh, and then. It's a way to do team building together. It's also a way to like educate and promote diversity. Uh, at the end, we, uh, the winning team selects a charity or nonprofit and the company makes a donation on everybody's behalf. To it. Uh, and it's very, very, very good. Aside from that, we do, I guess, I don't know if smaller is the right word, but we …

AI assessment note: “So really I guess the short answer would be a lot. We do a lot”