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Going Restless with WFH? Plan a Workation like us. Work plus Vacation! 😍

The Boltic team has recently returned from their first workcation. We spent our six vibrant days in Goa sightseeing and working. We discovered that workcation is a vital aspect of the working culture after spending six days with the team. This is how we get to know your remote team, motivate them to collaborate, and create memories with them.

August 23, 2021
2 mins read

As we write this blog, the current strength of Boltic's team is 21. And almost 80% of the team is hired remotely, and the entire product has been built remotely so far. The team hails from different parts of the nation, but it never affected productivity. But what was missing for so long as the energy and the vibe that you can only feel in someone's physical presence?

After our successful launch on 11th Feb 2022 on Product Hunt, where we were voted as the *drum rolls* 🎉 Product #1 of the day 🎉, it was time to retrospect the launch and plan the next year strategically and tactically.

And most importantly, the team deserved a good long break! 🏖😎And thus A Workation was the right thing to do!

What is a 'Workation'?

Although it is quite clear from the word, still, just to weed out any confusion, Workation is simply — Work + Vacation. The team travels to a cool vacation destination for about a week, where they collaborate, work, and spend time together.

This rejuvenates everyone, allows everyone to get to know each other well, and sets the right tone for the next year to achieve bigger things together.

Can there be a better place than this for your team's morning scrum?

Boltic Team working besides the beach

Why we planned this Workation?

Let us give you a quick backstory of why we planned the workation. We will also share how we organized it, what all activities were planned, and how we managed the logistics. This will help you to use this blog as a playbook and plan your workation better.

Following are our reasons why we planned it now, you may have your own reasons and timelines to plan them.

Launching Boltic & becoming the product #1 of the day 🏆

As mentioned earlier, the team did an amazing job at launching Boltic, and Boltic was well received by everyone. Boltic was voted as the #1 Product of the day on Product Hunt. This surely called for a grand celebration!

Retrospection 🙇🏻

During the time of the product launch, some things went well and things that could have been better. So, we decided to take a thorough look at the process, planning, and product created, discussed them as a team, and decided on a way forward together to ensure we build a top-notch product.

Reward & Recognition 🎖

Each and every team member at Boltic has helped the product reach where it is today. Everyone has contributed equally, but there have been instances where few team members have outperformed others and themselves. And we thought this is the right time to appreciate their efforts!

Strategic planning for the next year 📝

If you are or have ever been part of an early-stage SaaS product, you would know how fast-paced the SaaS industry is and how critical strategic planning becomes at every stage. The leads took this opportunity to sit with the team, share their plan, and get everyone on the same page to set the right tone for the upcoming year.

All work & no play makes Jack, Jill, & everyone else boring. 🥴 And Boltic is far from being a Boring team 🥳

Of course, a grand party is on the cards! You CAN NOT have a workation without a mad party!

Here are some snaps from our workation -

Where we Planned this Workation?

Goa! Post launch we didn't have much time to plan, but we didn't want to push the workation for later. We wanted to carry the momentum of launch success to workation. So the one place that becomes relatively easier to plan is Goa! ;) We scouted an amazing resort on the Vagator beach - Alcove Resort. This place is very strategically located. It is situated right facing the beach on a smaller uphill area, giving you the best morning view for breakfast and a mesmerizing sunset view.

To add more, the sumptuous place had high speed internet, excellent service.

7 Events & Workshops That Made our Workation Worth All the Efforts

Before heading to the workation, we had planned down every event to the finest details. Even free time that was unstructured was planned in advance. Because it’s better if everyone knows what to expect in the workation. If you have a goal in mind, then the planning becomes tenfold easier. We had clear goals, to break the ice, get to know everyone better, make the product vision clearer to the team, groom the team on certain aspects, and retrospect. Here are the events and workshops that we did with the team -

1. Ice-Breaking Event

As the name suggests, this event was planned to “break the ice.” There are few newbies in our team, to resolve their “newbie anxiety” we hosted a beach party. There was food, music, dance floor, and one of everyone's longest nights on the dance floor. 💃

2. Product Launch Retrospection

As we all know “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is the guiding ethos for retrospection. After a successful product launch we realised that not all things work for us the way we expect them to. So, we categorised the retrospective based on three categories- Start Doing, Stop Doing, and Continue Doing, created some questions and asked team members to share their views. On workation, we just closed the doors, drew the blinds and let team members be as honest and open as possible.

3. Know your Domain

While building a product, especially a B2B tech product, it is important to understand as much as you can about the domain, ecosystem and the problems that you can solve. Sagarika shared light on Data Integration domain and where and how Boltic is positioned and what different avenues it has.

4. Shark Tank

To know how good our team members are at understanding, building, marketing, & selling the products, we took onto the trendy show and created our own version of Shark Tank! We split the team in 4 smaller teams of 3 and each team was asked to analyse one competitor. Do the gap analysis w.r.t. features, breakdown their GTM strategies, and try to sell that product to the Sharks. This gave the team, especially people who recently are onboarded in the team a good understanding of the competitor landscape.

5. Solve Real World Problems Using Boltic

We wanted the team to go all out and creative and exploit Boltic and solve real world use-cases. In this activity, each team had to choose 2 or more industries, research about the industry problems that can be solved using Boltic, create 'Bolts' and then present the solutions, its impact, possible scalability, and application in other industries. It was amazing to see the range and extend to which Boltic can be stretched to complex use-cases.

6. Boltic Annual Awards-2021

We believe that stories of peers’ hard work should be shared throughout the company, thus the Annual Boltic Awards! We ended our workation with this beautiful and joyful event. Leaders gave away awards to the ones who proved themselves throughout the year. Apart from the serious series of awards we also had a fun set of awards to individuals who made this workation happy and laughable.

These awards were awarded to recognise and reward top-performing team members. They have done exceptionally well in their first month, quarter, or year with the company.

Fun Awards

Like there’s no rule that says you can’t look beyond employee of the month. So, we compiled some funny employee awards for our team members.

7. AUA - Ask Us Anything

The leads were thrown in the center of the Swimming Pool, and the team showered them with different questions ranging from product vision to growth to expectations and everything under the sun. The leads cleared all the questions that the team had. The decision to conduct this activity in the pool made the whole atmosphere quite casual and helped the team members open up and ask all difficult questions they otherwise wouldn't have.

Apart from work, what we did in Goa

  • Danced and matched steps with each other on so many Shacks & Clubs of Goa

  • Made some new friends with four legs

  • Ate delectable, and freshly-baked cookies, pies, pastries, and cakes

  • Got badly tanned!

  • Went out of our way to cultivate friendships with every team member

Workation has ended, and we're all back to our normal lives. But the memories, the team bond, friendship, laughter we shared were unforgettable. Boltic is a product made with relentless hard work to make the users' lives easy. We all thank each and every team member who came to Goa for the workation, and missed the few team members who couldn't join us this time.

That's all for now, we hope for a better and bigger Workation 2023.

We are hiring for multiple roles, if you have a drive to build a SaaS product, come join us! Hoping to see you in the next year's workation blog! Please use this link to look for current job openings.

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