The (Remote) Water Cooler

Matt Preuss
Marketing Manager
Remote Work at Visible Our Favorite Slack Channels
Unlock your investor relationships. Try Visible for free for 14 days.
Start your free trial

As many companies are transitioning to remote work for the first time it is normal to feel overwhelmed. Getting used to the social norms of working from home can be odd for some individuals: no group lunches, desk visits, mid-day games, and “water cooler talk.”

Remote Work at Visible

Being remote for the last 5 years, we’ve missed the serendipitous moments and random conversations that take place at an office. We have done our best to fill the void with different Slack channels, games, Zoom calls, and offsites (more on that in a different post). Being able to have personal conversation outside of work is vital to any startup culture. Being able to translate that conversation when working from home is just as important.

Out of the different strategies and ideas we have tried to mimic office communication, the one that has stood the test of time is the #watercooler Slack channel. Our #watercooler Slack channel is exactly what it sounds like — a chance to take a break from work-related tasks to discuss hobbies, interest, food, and current events.

Our Favorite Slack Channels

We all like to see our respective Slack channels light up, but there is an added excitement when the #watercooler channel lights up (especially later in the day). We do not have hard set guidelines for what should be posted in the #watercooler channel but it generally consists of the following:

  • Food/what we ate — Pictures or recipes for what we are cooking at home/eating at restaurants. We all love to eat at Visible so this is big for us.
  • Random videos/pictures/stories from our day to day lives — For example, a current event or something big that may be happening in someone’s respective city/neighborhood/etc.
  • Travel and Hobbies — Being a remote company, a lot of us spend a good amount of time in different locations. We love to share pictures and stories from our time in new places.
  • Work Inspiration — This is also where we share examples and inspiration of something cool we see a different company doing. Anything from a new product feature to an intriguing marketing email.
  • Fun Stories — If someone runs into a fun story, stat, or fact they run into online, we tend to share it in #watercooler.

While there is no substitute for in person conversation, being able to take a break and have casual conversation with co-workers is a must when working from home. Being fully remote ourselves, it has allowed us to get to know each other as if we were working in an office. For those working from home for the first time, give the #watercooler a try and let us know what you think!

You may also enjoy:
Product Updates
Product Update: Turn Emails Into Insights With Visible AI Inbox
Structured data. The holy grail of business intelligence. Structured data unlocks a realm of possibilities, from setting benchmarks to enhancing decision-making processes. Yet, in the venture capital landscape, accessing reliable, structured data remains a formidable challenge. This is precisely why we created the Visible AI Inbox. With unique features like automated metric detection and file parsing, the Visible AI Inbox stands out as a pioneering solution for portfolio monitoring. Discover how it can transform your data strategy by meeting with our team. Turning email into insights We believe that investors should spend time sourcing new deals and helping founders, not manually copying and pasting data from email 🙂. The AI Inbox helps aggregate insights that exist siloed in data, files, and updates across a venture firm. Updates from founders often stay stuck in one team member's inbox because it's too time-consuming to extract and enter the data and files into a more centralized repository. Visible AI Inbox makes this possible within seconds. Requests + AI Inbox = A Complete Picture The addition of the AI Inbox continues to advance our market-leading portfolio monitoring solution. The pairing of Requests + the AI Inbox will give investors a holistic view of portfolio company performance across a fund. Visible continues to be the most founder-friendly tool on the market. We’ll continue to build tools in existing workflows where both founders and investors live every day. How Does it Work? Visible AI Inbox works in three simple steps. Forward emails to a custom AI inbox email address Visible AI automatically maps data and files to portfolio companies Investors can review and approve content before it is saved From there, dashboards, tear sheets, and reports are all automatically updated on Visible. Learn more about how Visible AI Inbox can streamline workflows at your firm by meeting with our team. FAQ Will this be available on all plans? Visible AI Inbox is only available on certain plans. Get in touch with your dedicated Investor Success Manager if you want to explore adding this to your account. How is Visible addressing privacy and security with Visible AI Inbox? No data submitted through the OpenAI API is used to train OpenAI models or improve OpenAI’s service offering. Visible AI Inbox leverages OpenAI GPT 4 and proprietary prompts to extract data in a structured way and import it into Visible. If you’re uncomfortable with utilizing OpenAI to optimize your account, you can choose not to utilize this feature. Please feel free to reach out to our team with any further questions. These processes adhere to the guidelines outlined in Visible’s privacy policy and SOC 2 certification.
Metrics and data
[Webinar Registration] VC Portfolio Data Collection Best Practices
Customer Stories
Case Study: How Moxxie Ventures uses Visible to increase operational efficiency at their VC firm
Operations
How to Start and Operate a Successful SaaS Company