Sweatcoin, a company based out of London and is on a mission to make the world more active, one step at a time. 

I’m a Senior Product Manager

I own “user value” in the product, where “user value” is defined as the value of a users’ step. I’m leading a tribe in shipping MVPs and micro-optimisations in order to maximise user engagement, user retention, and user’s value exchanged.

How big is it?

• I directly lead a squad of 9 members, consisting of 1 designer, 6 developers, 1 qa engineer and 1 data scientist.
• We have a relatively bigger squad because we are managing two products — mobile and web.
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Where are your teammates located?

• London, Madrid, Moscow, Lisbon.
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What does your team do? What are you responsible for?

• We’re currently building MVPs to rapidly test out new audiences that Sweatcoin can be repurposed for. 
• Specifically we are currently working on building a MVP that will work for employers and healthcare providers to motivate their employees and patients to walk more.

Build a safe, fun and motivating space to work for everyone

• Safe: Encouraging everyone to speak up, and proactively listen. Never blaming or shaming. Have regular check-ins, and openly talk about blockers. 
• Fun: It’s not all about work! Celebrate any wins, especially the small ones. 
• Motivating: Be clear with roadmaps and objectives — remove any confusion. Delegate and assign owners. My favorite phrase: “Divide and conquer!”. Always give kudos (there’s never too much), and be their biggest cheerleader to the rest of the company.
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Prioritise them: Be quick to respond to anything coming from them first, and let them know they are your priority. Have regular 1:1’s that fits their schedule and needs. 

Trust them: Flexible working hours and locations; trust that they will get the job done

Encourage them to take breaks: It’s easy to over-work when working remotely because there isn’t as much of a “hard-stop” when you’re at home. So encourage people to take breaks, especially if you realise people haven’t taken holidays for a while! 

Lead by example: Show them that you are engaged and very passionate about the project too.

Not knowing if silence means that people have no questions, or you’ve just been on mute the whole time XD

On a serious note, being remote means it takes more effort to really read the room because you lose out on the body language and signs. It’s harder to tell if your teammates are confused, stressed, happy or unhappy. That’s why I make sure that as a lead, I am not only empathetic to the users that we’re designing for, but also empathetic to the team that’s building it.

• Virtual airbnb experiences (Tarot reading, Visiting “Barcelona”, Murder mystery)
• In-person retreats (recently in our second hub in Lisbon) where we went on a sunset yacht followed by dinner + drinks 
• Game nights (3 truths and 1 lie, Quiz on fun facts of each other)

We love the organised remote games, in particular all the airbnb experiences. We’ve been quite lucky to get some really great hosts!

• Quick ones in the beginning of the week would be a poll via Zoom asking about their weekend 
• Have also done ones on Miro (Love bombs, What the Duck, etc.) 
• We also do Silent Heroes on Slido during All-hands

Miro, Slido, Airbnb experiences, Zoom

• Reforge 
• Lenny’s Newsletter