Hi, I’m Mike and I’m Head of Marketing at Panther.

Panther’s mission is to provide users with privacy when interacting with decentralized finance, preserving competitive advantages and individual freedom. Panther allows users to execute private DeFi transactions across multiple blockchains and provides financial institutions with a clear path to compliantly participate in DeFi.

I lead all marketing initiatives, including content, community, social, PR, events, and anything else that has to do with growth. I’m also heavily involved in partnerships and overall strategy.

How big is it?

‍Right now our team consists of four members:

1. Head of Content
2. Head of UX/UI (who splits time between marketing and product)
3. Community Ambassador
4. Customer Service Manager

But we have plans to scale up quickly. We will bring in a Head of Community, Content Writer, a Social Media Manager, a graphic designer, and a few other positions soon!‍

Where are your teammates located?‍

All over the world! We have teammates in Amsterdam, Mexico, France, and various cities in the US.

‍What does your team do? What are you responsible for?‍

We are responsible for the growth of our community. This includes users of our products (which will be retail and institutional users), buyers of our cryptocurrency token $ZKP, and general supporters. We are also the stewards of the Panther brand and responsible for increasing its awareness.

In order to grow our community and brand, we create educational content around what we’re building, interact with community members via AMAs, engagement campaigns, and other events, engage on social media, and more.

The first component of a strong remote culture lies in our attitudes toward work - we all need to have a “default to action” mindset. Because we’re not all in the same office nor time zone, we can’t always perfectly coordinate, collaborate, and get approvals for everything. So everyone needs to be able to run with tasks and projects on their own without having to ask for permission or guidance. It’s OK if mistakes are made; I would rather have someone take initiative and mess up, than not do anything at all.

Second, for “default to action” to work, we need to trust each other’s capabilities to get work done. We need to trust that everyone is spending their time on the most important and productive tasks that will contribute to the good of the organization. That trust builds when everyone continually executes at a high level.

Finally, we need to communicate well. We have synchronous daily stand-up meetings to make sure that we’re all on the same page. But we also use apps like ClickUp, Discord, Telegram, and email for more asynchronous communication. Everyone communicates differently, but we make it work.

We are extremely open and honest with each other. Anyone can speak their mind and all teammates will be supportive and work together to improve and solve any problems. All criticism is taken as constructive, and anyone is open to providing it. This openness is extremely important in keeping the team engaged and pushing everyone to be better.

As mentioned above, trust is super important in keeping the team happy. Everyone trusts each other to get our jobs done, which makes the team really cohesive.

And we have fun! At our daily stand-ups, we’re always cracking jokes and talking about our personal lives. It shouldn’t be all serious work all the time!

The time difference. Sometimes I’m asked to deliver tasks very early in the morning, and other times I’ll need information from someone else late at night. More planning is required to operate efficiently while not impeding on our personal lives. It can be a tough balancing act.

I’ve only been with my organization for just over a month, so we haven’t done any team building activities yet. But we are planning a senior management retreat, and I’ll meet some of my co-workers at conferences soon. I’m excited to meet team members in real life, and not just on a messaging or video app!

These primarily have been recaps of fun things we’ve done over the weekend.

ClickUp project management is key in helping us asynchronously communicate on projects and tasks. We often use Google Meet and Zoom for conference calls, and Discord, Telegram, and WhatsApp for messaging. Lots of tools!

First Round Capital’s blog, the First Round Review, has provided invaluable information on how to operate and lead in a startup environment.