Startup CXO

Chapter 22Bonus Section: What We Used for Our Internal Systems When We Started Bolster

The company was formed on April 1, 2020, in the midst of the COVID‐19 pandemic. As everyone was going to be working remotely for the foreseeable future, it was very important to establish the tools and operating systems as soon as possible. We had the advantage of receiving some support from our early investor High Alpha's venture studio on a few of the tools and processes. We started to put these systems into place on day one and completed almost all of this in the first couple of weeks. This of course is very different than twenty years ago when we started Return Path, but I also feel it has come a long way the last five years. This section will become dated as systems are improved and new choices are established but I thought the overall process will have some interest.

Selected Systems

Communication: Slack

We created a free account. Planned to upgrade when we hit feature requirements. In the early days, we kept channels to a minimum. General was reserved for rare company‐wide events that don't need context. Water Cooler for open conversations, random fun facts, and pictures. Then let it be organic with curation as it grows.

We established integrations with Trello, Outlook, and Zoom. The Zoom Integration enabled quick video chats to happen with a simple/Zoom command. The Outlook plugin enabled a nice schedule within Slack and put a calendar flag in your status to let other Slack users ...