By Michael Tessler, Managing Partner

In early March, Scott Hoffpauir, Jim Tholen, and I founded True North Advisory — a firm hyper-focused on helping entrepreneurs scale and grow their business. By mid-March, the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and the world began to shut down. Talk about timing.

Starting a business with trusted partners like Scott and Jim has brought familiarity to these uncertain times. However, launching a company during a pandemic has been an experience like no other. It’s been challenging, rewarding, and even surprising. Here are five observations from our first three months:

1. Video Replaces Voice: For me, one of the most fascinating observations is how quickly video has become the new dial tone. Messaging has been critical for the team to stay productive and connected, but almost every other interaction takes place via video — especially client calls.

2. Digital Adoption: Trying to set up a company virtually has revealed how many industries have not adapted to our mobile-first, digital world. One of the worst experiences we’ve had is with banking. Believe it or not, we were asked to visit a local branch to set up our bank accounts. Usually, I guess, a reasonable request. During a pandemic? Not so much.

3. Balancing Work and Life: We’ve also heard a lot about work-life balance from clients and former colleagues. Admittedly, work becomes tricky when the boundaries between your office and home are blurred. Some are lucky enough to have established home office environments, while others struggle to find a quiet spot to think. How many video calls have you been on where you see kids come running through, hear dogs barking in the background, or if you’re Scott, have cats jumping on your keyboard?

4. So Much SaaS: It’s incredible how many SaaS applications exist today. As a startup, we’ve reviewed countless vendors to find the right apps for CRM, accounting, project management, collaboration, and all the other areas of our business. The sheer number of high-quality offerings is excellent, but interoperability between each app is still a considerable challenge, getting the team up and running on each one, and picking the right one for your business is not easy. One of our easiest choices? Deferring on an expense reporting application. For now, that just didn’t seem that relevant for us under these work at home times. .

5. Improved Availability: Since we’re all working from home, our availability has increased significantly. No more time is wasted traveling, going out to lunch or driving to work. Essentially, no more fun. In all seriousness, we can arrange a video conference with a prospect or client in days, where balancing schedules for in-person meetings could take weeks. In fact, the application I use most on my desktop is the calendar. Some days it feels like the speed of business is increasing faster and faster. Is this a good thing? Time will tell.

Now that you’ve read my observations, we want to hear from you. What have you experienced while transitioning to a fully remote workplace?

For more information, contact us today at info@truenorthadvisory.us.