Building a High-Performance Remote Team Across Five Time Zones
Today’s advice post is by Dan Lesley, Founder of Homestar. Dan has over 20 years building, growing, and selling SaaS tech startups.
Running Homestar, my CRM startup for real estate agents, taught me hard lessons about remote teams. Back in 2019, I never expected we’d end up with developers in Singapore, designers in Berlin, and sales folks scattered across North America. Had to figure it out on the fly.
After selling my previous startups Navigo and CloudPeel, I thought I knew remote work. But Homestar was different - coordinating across 5 time zones pushed us to rethink everything about team dynamics and productivity.
Through countless late nights and early mornings juggling time zones, we developed an approach that works. Not perfect, but solid enough that other founders regularly ping me for advice.
Crystal clear role definitions became our north star. No room for fuzzy responsibilities when your backend dev is sleeping while the frontend team is coding. We mapped out every position meticulously, learned the hard way after some painful role overlap in the early days.
Our tech stack evolved through trial and error. Slack channels got messy until we implemented clear protocols. Asana boards needed serious refinement. But we eventually nailed the rhythm:
- Quick daily standups focused on blockers and priorities
- Weekly deep dives into product roadmap and challenges
- Monthly career development sessions with direct reports
Micromanagement kills remote teams - saw this firsthand at CloudPeel. At Homestar, we judge output, not hours. Took me months to stop checking Slack activity, but productivity improved when I backed off.
Shared infrastructure makes or breaks distributed teams. We standardized on cloud tools accessible everywhere, though dealing with China’s firewall still gives me headaches. The tools matter less than creating genuine collaboration.
Remote hiring requires different signals. Technical skills matter less than communication style and self-direction. After some early misses, I started prioritizing candidates who showed initiative and emotional intelligence in interviews.
Building culture remotely is tough but crucial. Virtual coffee chats felt awkward at first but now spark real connections. Last week our Singapore team surprised our product manager with a virtual birthday party - seeing genuine friendships form across continents makes this all worthwhile.
Documentation became our lifeline. Every decision, meeting, and discussion gets logged. Learned this at Navigo when key context kept getting lost between time zones. Now our internal wiki is the source of truth.
Alignment happens through constant reinforcement of vision and values. Each team member understands how their work impacts our mission of changing real estate CRM. This shared purpose bridges physical distance.
We run regular retrospectives to catch issues early. Sometimes painful but essential for staying on track. The feedback helps us evolve our processes before small problems become big ones.
Cultural awareness shapes everything from meeting times to communication styles. Our team spans multiple countries and contexts - respecting those differences strengthens relationships.
Looking back at my notes from our first remote quarter, we’ve come so far. The systems we’ve built enable true global collaboration while preserving work-life balance. I still wake up to urgent Slack messages sometimes, but our distributed team model delivers results that would be impossible with everyone in one office.
Watching team members from different corners of the world tackle problems together reminds me why I love building companies. Remote work revealed strengths in our organization we never knew existed. When done right, it creates resilient teams that transcend geography.