
Mobile Jazz Company Handbook [pdf] - znq
https://mobilejazz.com/docs/company-handbook/mobile-jazz-company-handbook.pdf
======
znq
Here's the direct link to the PDF for the HN crowd:
[https://mobilejazz.com/docs/company-handbook/mobile-jazz-
com...](https://mobilejazz.com/docs/company-handbook/mobile-jazz-company-
handbook.pdf)

Alternative download (Google Drive) in case the server goes down:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/16D90e7L7whbeRSCLxhZ_X3-K_3R...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/16D90e7L7whbeRSCLxhZ_X3-K_3R_oBty/view?usp=sharing)

EDIT: Added alternative download.

~~~
blotter_paper
On your homepage, right under the title, you claim to be "The #1 Boutique App
& Web Development Company". What do you mean by this? Is this an award that
some other organization granted you, is it just marketing fluff, or is it
something in between? What sort of metrics were used? Can you tell me who the
#2 boutique app and web development company is? My first reaction on seeing
that line was "oh, they're willing to say anything to make a sale, I can't
believe anything here."

~~~
znq
Good morning! Just marketing fluff. Boutique App & Web Development Company is
just a term we made up, to reflect our focus of being small, tailored and of
high quality.

~~~
blotter_paper
Morning! I didn't mind the "Boutique App & Web Development" part (I've used
almost this exact same line in the past, TBH), it was "#1" that set off alarm
bells. It feels like you're claiming to be the best at something that is so
multi-faceted and hard to pin down that nobody can say whether or not it's
true. Any of your competitors could make the same claim -- therefore the thing
that sets you apart is your willingness to make the claim, not that it applies
to you. If I were you, I'd stay away from attaching absolute comparatives to
mushy marketing terminology. It feels very snake-oily to me. On the other hand
your contracting business seems to be a lot more successful than mine was, so
maybe you'd be silly to behave the way I would.

Some minor thoughts on the PDF: The bottom of page 2 looks like it has a
clickable button on it (I'm not sure if that was intentional). Of the four
colored titles on page 3 the PRODUCTS one stands out as not-a-gradient,
compared to the rest. The font that looks hand-drawn feels cheap and Comic-
Sansy to me, I'd prefer actual hand-writing or a font that doesn't look like
it should have natural variation. On page 19, the Harvest window has a shadow
that the other example images on this page and the next don't have, which
looks inconsistent.

In general I do like the document, these are just nit-picks I thought you
might find useful.

------
fijal
Hi

I suggest you don't write down in gray on white "by the way, we will also
store your email". Put it somewhere either prominent or maybe outright have
and opt in button for that? It's an industry wide practice, but that does not
automatically make it ok.

~~~
znq
Thanks. I'll get that sorted out.

~~~
fijal
Thanks!

I'm glad to hear your company is also incorporated in Estonia. How well has it
been working for you?

~~~
znq
It has been a great choice. I've incorporated companies in multiple countries
before, and Estonia has been by far the best. Easy, unbureaucratic, extremely
competent, they speak great English and are always very pro-active and
helpful. We work with the guys from LeapIN and it has been a great and
pleasant experience since day 0.

------
mithr
This is really well done! I appreciate both the design, and the amount of
thought and effort that went into laying all of this out and then honing it
into a cohesive, well-written deck. I've been thinking and reading a good deal
about distributed companies recently, and it's nice to see a perspective as
solid as this.

I'm also curious for your take on one question: you describe yourself as "a
remote team working all over the world", and also say that to keep the team
cohesive, you try to overlap with other members of the team four days a week,
and use CET as your "standard" time zone. The globe diagram makes it seem like
all of your team members are relatively close to that time zone.

How would you support team members living in locations that are farther away
(e.g. the west coast of the US), given that overlapping with central Europe
would require those employees to work either very early in the morning, or
very late at night?

~~~
znq
Thank you very much. We actually did spend more than 6 months (not full time
of course) working on this and are very proud to release it this week.

Currently the team is spread over Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia,
Vietnam, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Australia, UK. That said,
1/3 of the team is in Barcelona (where we started the company), but not
necessarily Spanish. That said though, while we're quite diverse and from many
countries and cultures, most of us do live in Europe though and once the
summer is back we'll migrate back there.

So in summer it's quite easy for us, as we as a team sit closely together.
However many of our customers are from the US West Coast and then the other
extreme is a client in Australia. Winter time is then more difficult as some
people go back home to Latin America or over to Asia. But so far we've always
managed and actually sometimes it helps to have someone being in a different
time zone. Makes it easier to monitor servers around the clock.

We do however require that team members do have a certain overlap with CET.
Just in December I was myself in Brazil, so I simply started working at 6am
and stopped around 2pm to go kitesurfing. Maybe not something everyone wants
to do, but since our company is mostly about lifestyle everyone in our team
appreciates that freedom, but also understands the responsibility that comes
with it.

~~~
mithr
Thanks for your reply!

From your experience so far, do you think that the overlap requirement is
essential to successfully running a distributed company? Did you have it right
from the start, or is this something that you discovered you needed as you
went along?

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dzek69
Before reading the comments I gave you my spam email and unsubscribed right
away. I won't even read that book anyway.

Still - it felt soooo 2000's. Give us your e-mail, so you'll get 32 instead of
31 shitty e-mails you don't read anyway. And without your email we won't do
anything for you.

~~~
znq
To be honest, there were no bad intentions behind it other then updating
people with updates to the book as written there. But we do get your (and
other people's) point and have fixed it to a direct download. Thanks :-)

------
andyjohnson0
Related discussion from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19198889](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19198889)

------
mattharney
Hey znq, this is an awesome deck. In fact, I wrote up how you've used HN as a
case study in using content to attract talent:
[https://mattharney.com/2019/02/22/talent-magnet-in-
action/](https://mattharney.com/2019/02/22/talent-magnet-in-action/) reply

------
deanalevitt
This is excellently done. I've worked with remote teams for over 10 years and
this would have been a lovely thing to give to new team members.

------
ShirsenduK
Is the team is only EU men?
[https://mobilejazz.com/team](https://mobilejazz.com/team)

~~~
znq
Currently the team is spread over Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia,
Vietnam, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, Australia, UK. That said,
1/3 of the team is in Barcelona (where we started the company), but not
necessarily Spanish.

~~~
ShirsenduK
Congrats!

------
saosebastiao
Is anybody else surprised that a 20 person company has the resources and
prioritization to create something like this?

~~~
sonofgod
Cynically, it's a recruitment expense -- there's a pretty good probability of
getting a good hire from posting this widely.

It's not, to my mind, an actual corporate handbook -- it's missing boring
important things like "here's our password and security policy, please
remember we have people's super-personal health data in our apps, so it's
really important". I guess that's probably in the company Wiki or similar.

~~~
znq
To be honest, we're currently not really thinking of growing the company much.
But you're right.

However, this whole thing started out as a Onboarding Handbook for new team
members. Then however we thought it's also a great book to share with the
world. So we decided to remove certain items and have those in the internal
wiki only.

~~~
rladd
What are you using for your internal wiki?

~~~
znq
Google Sites. Not specific reason, other that we use Google Suite already for
most things and everyone has already a Google Suite account.

------
kayhi
The experiments section looks interesting, can you give more details about
them?

~~~
znq
Absolutely! Basically everyone can propose new ideas to the team. If multiple
people are interested and we see a benefit for the company (e.g. learning a
new technology) we will run it.

These experiments range from little internal dev tools, to scripted
spreadsheets, to open source libraries to even hardware projects. Sometimes an
experiment is also just trying out a new way of running the company. For
example MJ Talks and MJ University were initially experiments. Or our trip to
Thailand in 2014 was an experiment. Now we do 5-6 company trips per year
(workations, skiing, hiking, kitesurfing). Our bonus/profit-share program was
an experiment that we started 11 months ago.

Also some of those experiments turn into products. At least we try. Some are
successful and spawn their own company from it, e.g. Bugfender. Most
experiments however failed to gain traction as a product. Maybe not because
the idea/product itself was bad, but because we're a tech company and suck at
sales and marketing.

------
gdsdfe
it would be nice to have a job description or some details on your website
about the open positions ... I mean how you expect candidates to know what
they're applying to?

~~~
znq
We did in the past. You might still find some entries on our blog. However,
currently we're not hiring for specific positions as our goal is not growth in
quantity or higher revenue. We're only hiring if we came across individuals
that we think are a very good fit for our company culture and have the right
mindset and attitude. That's why it is an "open application".

------
spnoetzel
Thanks for sharing. Very helpful.

------
znq
HN moderators: I noticed this just made it to the front page and then got
removed. This is really disappointing. Is there any explanation why? This was
a genuine effort of sharing something useful with the HN crowd.

~~~
pault
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the fact that it's a landing page with
very little information and a newsletter sign up form has caused some people
to flag it. I doubt it's a moderator action.

