Remote Social is tackling one of the biggest challenges teams face from working from home

In the new world of remote working, building team culture at a distance is difficult.

Enter Remote Social – an online platform that provides games, activities and tools, such as trivia and bingo, that strengthen culture, wellbeing and connection within remote and hybrid teams.

Co-founder and CEO Jessica Baird Walsh says Remote Social aims to tackle the alienation that can result from working from home by bringing people together.

“Remote work has significant benefits, but it also comes with downsides with over 40% of remote workers struggling with loneliness or communication with their teams,” she says.

“This year, many companies have gone remote overnight, without the tools they need to thrive. The Remote Social platform is all about providing a place for those teams to come together, share experiences and create culture and relationships online.”

Live events and lectures are also available on the platform, without the administrative burden normally associated with organising those activities. 

“We make it incredibly easy to find fun activities and schedule them with teams, through our integrations with Slack and Zoom, with Teams and Google coming soon.,” Baird Walsh said. 

“Alongside our games and activities, we have a marketplace of hosted experiences,” said Baird Walsh. “Live events, hosted virtually by leading experts in their fields of cooking, fitness and music, inspirational speakers and charity partnerships.

“From speaking with teams at leading organisations, we know that their teams need partners to fill a range of different team needs: Remote Social is all about fun, play and collaboration.”

Remote Social is on a mission to build the future of team socialising online.

Baird Walsh, and her co-founders Mike Fitzbaxter and Gerardo Contreras, together bring a deep understanding of the importance of relationships to facilitate optimal functioning of teams and organisations. Between them they have founded businesses and designed, built and launched first class products and campaigns for first class organisations such as Atlassian, Deputy, Google, and more. 

“Mike, Gerardo and I are incredibly passionate about building strong relationships, connecting people and driving innovation. We bring complimentary skill spanning technology, marketing and strategy, and importantly we are familiar with both the benefits and the challenges of working in remote and hybrid environments,” says Baird Walsh.

“It has been a privilege to be part of the Antler program. For the three of us to meet and have the opportunity to work together has been an incredible experience.

“The Antler team has also been a huge support – providing not only pre-seed investment, but coaching and access to their network of advisors. 

“Antler are currently accepting applications for their next cohort, commencing in January, and I strongly encourage female founders to apply. They are very focused on providing opportunities for female founders to thrive.”

Huge demand, growing waitlist

In just a few short months, Remote Social has built their MVP, has acquired a growing waitlist of over 150 people who have organically signed up via the landing page, and has Google, EBay, and Atlassian among the businesses that understand the importance of play, and have signed up for the company’s Beta launch.  

“Leading organisations recognise the value of play in supporting the development of strong internal relationships. In turn this creates happier employees, stronger cultures and ultimately delivers compelling results for the bottom line,” says Baird Walsh.

“We have a list of teams within leading businesses waiting to on-board when we launch on November 19, 2020. 

“Rather than targeting enterprise sales, we are taking a bottom up approach – we’re very focused on building a product that is discovered, loved and shared by teams.”

Twenty experiences are already part of the Remote Social marketplace and the team is showing no signs of slowing down.

“We’re very focused on providing an incredible user experience, and to make it super simple for our customers to easily engage their teams and by bringing all the tools in one place,” says Baird Walsh.

“We provide actionable insights and hold the heart of the team in one place. Over time we will be expanding the offering of activities we have available.” 

• Remote Social was built with and invested in by Antler, the world’s largest early-stage investment platform. If you want to build your next company with Antler, applications for the next cohort can be made here. Or come along to their upcoming Demo Day on November 19 to see this team and other startups pitch their businesses to investors across the world. Register for the virtual event here.
• StartupDaily is the official media partner of Antler Australia’s Demo Day.