Sid Pandiya has been building startups since he was 15 years old. First, he launched a competitive online debate platform, then a news site aimed at fighting media bias. When his third concept, an onboarding software program based on differences in communication styles, flopped in no uncertain terms, he took it as a challenge to figure out a better idea.
This all happened right before the Covid-19 outbreak. Remote and flex working were already gaining ground in certain industries, and Pandiya found himself curious about the culture of atomized office places. Just before millions of knowledge workers scattered to their home offices for years to come, Pandiya was ahead of the game, interviewing hundreds of managers to learn about the challenges that work-from-home employees were facing. What Pandiya found out will probably come as little surprise to anybody reading this now: teams that weren’t gathering in person were struggling to build camaraderie.
