After a little-less-than-6-month spell in the series A, US-based startup, I was let go from Remotion in a company-wide layoff last November.
Even though I was devastated by the decision, I had this eye-opening chance to work for this top-tier, 20 people-strong, early-stage startup that’s straightly built from the Silicon Valley culture. From day 0, I knew that this was a rare opportunity and it definitely lived up to its name.
As a team formed by both experienced folks from the big tech and heads-down early-stage startup hustlers like me, I always knew we were a great team, and the work we do every day constantly inspires me. However, it took me quite a while to fully realise just how good we were as a team and the quality of our work.
In this blog post, I want to share some of the key lessons I've learned during my time at Remotion, some as a product team, and some as a designer. All these have contributed greatly to my personal growth and, more importantly, have helped me get to where I am today.
At Remotion, we approach everything we do with great clarity. Whether we are starting a new project, onboarding a new hire, launching a research campaign, or choosing a new tool for a weekly sync, we always have a clear understanding of why we’re doing it and why we’re doing it in a particular way.
It sounds simple, yet it can be difficult for many of us. We often get lured into ongoing conversations, forgetting where we’re and why we’re talking about a particular topic. This can lead us to lose sight of our original thoughts and ideas.
One simple but powerful technique we always used was to zoom out. Were you stuck on a design decision? Zoom out to the Figjam file where we thought about the ideal user experience. Were you frustrated with your workload and not sure where to focus? Zoom out to figure out what your team was trying to achieve and where your strengths overlapped. When you zoom out, you tend to ask the right questions, and the right questions lead to discussions that unblock us.
The power of having great clarity not only allows us to turn high-level whys into action items but also helps us use high-level whys to inform our decisions when we get stuck at the surface level, like which button should be more prominent.