Blog
The 4-Hour Workweek: 10 Years Later
Last week, a writer who was doing a story on direct-to-consumer brands [https://www.fredperrotta.com/v-commerce/] raising venture capital, asked why Tortuga [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com] didn't raise any money. In 2009 and 2010 when Jeremy and I were starting the company, I was living in San
Working Remotely Means "Your" Schedule, Not “No” Schedule
If you think that working remotely means lying in bed [https://open.buffer.com/work-bed/] in sweatpants, you also probably think that it means starting late and quitting early. For colocated employees, a work from home (WFH) day is like a vacation. Everyone at the office knows that you'
5 Habits to Break Before Working Remotely
Before you can learn to work remotely, you must unlearn habits from your previous, colocated jobs. My company, Tortuga [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com], is remote. We advocate for working remotely [https://onyourterms.com/why-we-work-remotely-19d9bd2077b0] but know that the transition from colocated to remote [https://onyourterms.com/transitioning-to-remote-work-at-tortuga-d15160e7a17f] isn't
The Sound and Fury of Startup Marketing
Ben Thompson of Stratechery, my favorite tech writer, recently covered the success of Stitch Fix [https://stratechery.com/2017/stitch-fix-and-the-senate/]. > I am in fact deeply impressed by Stitch Fix: it seems quite clear that early on [CEO Katrina] Lake realized that the company was not an aggregator, which meant
Sorry Uber, That's Not How Culture Works
I heard about Uber's new cultural norms [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ubers-new-cultural-norms-dara-khosrowshahi/] from a series of Sarah Lacy [https://twitter.com/sarahcuda] tweets. > "We’re also calling these cultural norms, rather than values, because we fully expect them to evolve as Uber continues to grow&
Decision Making Without Meetings
Last weekend, my girlfriend told me about a meeting at her company. The meeting was called to decide on which part to use when their original choice was unavailable. The meeting was an hour long and included 10 people. That's 10 person hours to make a single decision.
Work is a Thing You Do, Not a Place You Go
Remote companies don't give out Perfect Attendance Awards beacuse they don't matter. You don't get anything just for showing up. Even better, there's no where to show up to. When working remotely, you are free to skip the commute, work where you
Overcoming the Fast Fashion Story
Liz Pape, the founder of Elizabeth Suzann [https://elizabethsuzann.com/], wrote an excellent post addressing pricing in the fashion industry [https://elizabethsuzann.com/blogs/stories/money-talk] earlier this year. Her clothing line is made in the USA of premium fabrics and priced accordingly. In the post, she discusses consumers evaluating
How to Hire Customer Service Reps
I was nervous to hire Tortuga's first customer service (CS) person. Hiring a good rep would be a challenge, but the scariest part was that we weren't just hiring our first CS employee, we were hiring our first employee. > What if we hire the wrong
Amazon Copies, Walmart Acquires
> "Amazon will knock off a lot of DNVBs (digitally native vertical brands). Walmart will acquire them." -Web Smith [https://twitter.com/web] on Well Made, Episode 28 [http://blog.lumi.com/wellmade/28-web-smith] Whoa. That short quote has a lot of info to process. Web summarized the