As a founder, you’re bombarded with tips and tricks on how to secure funding and woo potential investors… but what happens after that? What do you do with their advice? And what happens if you don’t agree with their suggestions?

That’s why I called up Heini Zachariassen, Vivino ’s opinionated and vocal founder, who’s got tons of experience listening to — and not listening to — his investors to shed some light on this awkward little dilemma.

You’re the right person to lead the company

For Zachariassen, the most important thing to remember is that you landed a financial backer based on your vision and ideas: “Investors know that the best person to run a company is the founder. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have invested in the first place.”

And it seems this philosophy has really paid off for Vivino. The platform, which emerged from Zachariassen’s simple frustration of not knowing which wine to buy, has now grown to a community of 50 million users. It’s also raised $221 million in funding and rolled out a global wine marketplace.

You know your company best — that’s why Zachariassen believes you shouldn’t let investors get involved with details.

“We have product and engineering teams that work all day and night on the product, so they are going to decide what that button is going to look like and what color it is. Not the investors. There’s a level of granularity here that’s important. Investors shouldn’t get operational because they’re simply not qualified to do so.

Be careful though, this doesn’t give you a blank cheque to do whatever you want and just ignore your investors. Sure, in the early stages of Vivino, Zachariassen and his co-founder Theis Søndergaard fought investors to postpone their demands for profitability in order to secure the market. But in later stages, he followed one of the most seismic suggestions from his investors: moving to Silicon Valley.

This was a big change that reached far beyond just the scope of the startup. It meant Zachariassen had to uproot his entire family and all the challenges that come with that (there’s actually a whole documentary on this journey on Amazon Prime Video). But this was a big-picture suggestion from investors that Zachariassen could get on board with, as the connection between being based there and winning the US market was clear.

So you should sometimes listen to investors… and sometimes not? That doesn’t sound particularly helpful.

Don’t worry though, Zachariassen breaks down his approach to listening to investor feedback. The first point is to be aware of is at what stage the investor joined. The second, investors will eventually ‘pull rank’ — but when they do, confirm that’s really what they’re doing and then deal with it accordingly.

Angels aren’t divine

“Getting angel investors can be a bit of a minefield. It’s the point where you have the biggest risk of getting someone on board that’s… really shit. The further you go up the chain, usually the better investors you get. That’s at least my experience,” says Zachariassen.

Of course, Zachariassen isn’t denying how important angel investors are to founders — he’s even made a whole video about how to attract them on his YouTube channel, Raw Startup .

Instead, he wants to point out the simple fact that at this stage in your startup’s journey, you’re unlikely to attract specialized investors. And because these angels aren’t professional investors, they might be more prone to pushing for making returns quickly — rather than focusing on long-term growth and pay-off.

“The solution is just making sure you get new investors in that are more ambitious all the time. Then you can keep postponing major shifts until you get people on board who are aligned with you,” Zachariassen recommends.

The best situation would be to get the perfect investors on board early… but you usually don’t have the luxury to decide that kind of stuff. So be open to angel investors’ input, but try to kick the can down the road until you’ve got experts on board.

But should you then do everything bigger investors say?

The great thing about bigger venture funds is they think, uhm, bigger . Zachariassen really enjoys working with VCs like Balderton as they’ve seen multiple companies they’ve invested in become unicorns.

“They know if we do this right and keep going, this could also become a unicorn,” says Zachariassen. “But that doesn’t mean they say you should do a particular thing. A good investor doesn’t do that.”

Zachariassen actually just finished a script for his next YouTube video which goes into the six signs of bad investors, and getting too operational is definitely one of the cardinal sins.

“Good investors will nudge and say things like ‘have you thought about this?’ And provide examples from other portfolio companies. They should never tell you what to do, but they should definitely influence your direction.”

Sounds good enough, but what happens when an investor you’ve already committed to working with puts their foot down?

“When it comes to the later stages — or actually as early as A and B rounds — the truth is that most of these people are really fucking good,” Zachariassen emphasizes. “They’ll rarely say to you ‘I’ve seen this 100 times, you’re doing it wrong,’ but they will use that card at some point. And when they do, they’re usually right.”

But there’s an important caveat here: you shouldn’t fold as soon as you hear a partner or a fund say that. Zachariassen says you should always push back if that’s your conviction, to make it absolutely clear that the investor is indeed pulling rank. Because once you do, you know it’s serious enough to listen to.

“Founders always say the same thing, ‘yeah you’re right, but we’re different.’ You always think you’re so fucking special, but maybe you’re not. Certain things are just the same no matter what.”

So be careful of letting angel investors dictate your strategy, especially when they’re not thinking big enough. Then find smart, experienced investors to nudge you in the right direction and when they play the ‘I know better than you card’ — confirm that they are, then fucking listen.

Update: Heini Zachariassen is speaking at TNW Conference 2021 on September 30th and October 1st about the personal challenges entrepreneurs face. There he’ll be joined by 150 other amazing experts who will share their latest insights from the world of business and tech.

How my company successfully changed my role from on-site to remote

The modern workplace is evolving lightning fast . It’s becoming increasingly distributed. After realizing that remote work leads to a healthier, happier and more productive workforce, more and more companies are now transitioning roles from onsite to remote. And that was before the coronavirus pandemic struck.

Having recently (before the coronavirus) switched my role as a Product Marketing Lead for Finturi, permanently from on-site to a remote one, I thought I could share some advice for startups and employees on key things to do, to make such a transition successful.

Key tips for startups:

#1 Set up an employment agreement

As a startup, if you want to transition a role from on-site to remote, then the first thing that you need to understand is how the employment agreement will be set up. This is especially important if the employee will be working remotely from a different country. You need to think about questions like:

Are you authorized to directly employ a person in that country?

Do you need to register an entity in the new country where the employee is going to work from?

Would it be faster and cost-effective to just use an international PEO (professional employer organization)?

#2 Define the degree of asynchronicity

Asynchronous work comes with many advantages but as a company, you need to decide how asynchronous do you want your team to be. Decide on a minimum number of hours you want to be overlapping for the entire team to make collaboration easier. Once your company gets used to remote work, you can reduce the overlapping hours or increase them depending on your needs.

The number of overlapping hours can also vary by role. For example: In my case, being a product marketeer, I interact quite frequently with the product, sales, management, and customer support teams. Hence we decided to have at least 4 hours a day overlapping.

#3 Finalize your collaboration plan and tools

As a startup you might be used to having standups every Monday or weekly meetings or town halls every month, going remote means, you need to do all of this effectively remotely. So decide on when and how you will do these meetings. Decide on which tools will you use for different activities like video meetings, project management, file sharing, team communication, etc.

There are multiple tools like Zoom, Teams, Trello, Jira, Google Drive, One Drive, Slack, etc. out there. Evaluate which one is the best for you and set up the tools. Make sure all employees are trained to use these tools. Also, decide which meetings will be audio and which will be video. In my experience, video meetings give the best experience and all meetings should be video.

#4 Keep your employees motivated and engaged

In a remote setting, keeping employees motivated and engaged can be a challenge. Think of innovative ways of doing so. For example – You can have remote coffee meetings frequently and a company outing every 6 months.

Encourage your employees to set up remote coffee meetings with each other, these can be short meetings and a good way to discuss random things outside work which will foster better connections among employees.

If you have multiple remote workers in the same city, encourage them to plan a meetup once a month or plan a team building activity for them. Most importantly, make sure there is frequent communication, may it be via chat, email, audio or a video call. This will make sure employees feel engaged.

#5 Conduct initial reviews and keep iterating

Remote work can be done and managed in multiple ways. Once you decide on the above points, make sure to set up periodic reviews with the team. Get their feedback, and adjust your plan accordingly until you find a sweet spot that works best with you.

Key tips for employees:

#1 Setup a fast and reliable internet network

You need a fast and reliable network connection so that you can have seamless collaboration. In my experience, an internet speed of 20-30 Mbps is good for working from home. There are multiple sites where you can check your internet speed. Check the speed there, and if it is lower, upgrade to a higher speed plan or a different service provider.

#2 Set up a dedicated workspace

To discipline your mind as well as the body, you must set up a dedicated workspace. Get a nice ergonomic chair, a height-adjustable table, display screen if you need and set it up in a quiet place in your apartment. This will ensure that your mind is trained to think of this space as work and the rest of the house as home. It will give you a distraction-free environment and also make sure that your posture is maintained while you work.

#3 Discipline yourself

Self-discipline gains the utmost priority while you work remotely. Finalize on a schedule and stick to it. Get out of your pyjamas and dress up like you would if you went to work. Take time out for exercise or meditation to increase your focus and stay fresh. Set clear work/home boundaries. Let everyone know when you will be available for household chores and when you won’t be available for them and finally, don’t forget to schedule your distraction-free working hours.

#4 Communicate frequently and carefully

Over-communicate! This is crucial to make sure everyone is updated and feels engaged. Make sure you know how to use all the communication channels. Take the initiative to set up catchup meetings with colleagues and schedule periodic reviews. This will help everyone get comfortable with the remote work environment and help you get the most out of it. Make sure you are careful with the language you use while communicating, and that there is no confusion during any communication. If you think there is, then jump on a call and get it resolved immediately.

#5 Stay socially active

One of the biggest challenges remote workers face is the lack of social interaction. Remote work can get super lonely after some time. Make sure, you plan some short breaks during the day. Plan some activities for those breaks. Join some classes in the morning or evening. Take some strolls in the park and if you are an extrovert, consider finding a co-working space nearby and just work from there for a couple of days a week. This will make sure you don’t feel lonely.

In conclusion, remote work is possible and is highly effective. It just requires a change of mindset, for both employers as well as employees. If you follow the above steps you will be all set for successfully working remotely.

Should designers learn how to code?

Did you know we have an online conference about product design coming up? SPRINT will cover how designers and product owners can stay ahead of the curve in these unprecedented times.

A large section of the design community is locked in debate over whether designers should code. Some favor seeking out the unicorns who can do both, while others claim they don’t exist, or only get in the way.

Many designers think that designers and developers need to collaborate, but each discipline should stick to what they know. Others see no problem with professionals wearing multiple hats. Many developers see designers who code a threat, while others see them as welcome collaborators who have learned to speak their language.

The sweet spot, which is called “shared understanding,” is probably somewhere in the middle. Knowing a bit about code doesn’t mean a designer has to become an expert coder, but simply understand a developer’s perspective.

The UI, or the “presentation layer” is a designer’s playground, but focusing on that alone is akin to only considering the facade of a building. Great designers understand that being familiar with the technological underpinnings that deliver their designs not only makes a designer more impressive, it significantly boosts their career prospects.

As Aaron Walter, VP of Design Education at InVision, stated in a Toptal Design Talks article : “It’s not going to kill a designer if they knew a little bit about how to write some HTML and CSS, maybe a little bit of JavaScript.”

The whole “should designers learn to code” topic is hotly debated. Though some great designers are also good at coding, many believe that undivided focus on a particular skill will make a professional stronger. Many also believe that today, being a multi-skilled designer is a big plus, and that there should be nothing in the way of a designer having another useful skill, such as coding, under their belt.

The question is, how much coding should designers know? Would designers be wasting their time, or crossing boundaries into the developer’s territory and potentially stepping on toes?

The benefits of knowing basic HTML and CSS

Designers would benefit greatly from acquiring some foundational knowledge of what’s called the “front end” (the presentation layer) driven by HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, a language that describes the component styles in an HTML document), and would perhaps be surprised by how easy it is to learn the basics.

HTML and CSS don’t involve programming logic. The letter M in HTML stands for “Markup,” a way to describe the coded structure of page elements which are the building blocks of pages. HTML with CSS and JavaScript , form a triad of foundational technologies for the World Wide Web.

In layman’s terms, HTML is an architectural map that tells the browser what to display, and CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is the code that tells the browser how to display things.

Metaphorically speaking, if HTML is the skeleton of a page, CSS would describe the height, the body shape, the skin, eye color, hair color, etc. The language has a very simple code structure that determines typography, colors, positions and dimensions.

Understanding code and how to code is understanding pixels

Learning how to code the front-end UI and previewing it, gives designers the opportunity to immediately see how things are displayed when viewed on various devices. If designers play with HTML and CSS, they’ll notice that everything is measured in pixels (there are other measurement units such as “ems” and percentages that will ultimately be converted to pixels).

Understanding measurements and code structure, ihow pages are displayed, will provide a deeper understanding of the front-end development process. That in turn will cause designers think more deeply about their designs and how to make them more efficient for that process. They will know what can be easily achieved and what would be more challenging.

Front-end JavaScript and Ajax know-how make a design a unique asset

This is where things can start to get complicated, but it’s also where a lot of fun happens. If a designer is an analytical thinker, or exceptionally motivated, they’ll get a lot out of learning JavaScript and Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). Why?

Demonstrating front-end UI technical knowledge and being conversant in Ajax will go a long way to earning the respect of developers. Being able to reference JavaScript and Ajax and how to use them will boost a designer’s ability to articulate a particularly sophisticated design idea to developers, e.g., the design of a specific functionality in the UI.

A designer’s perspective will broaden if they are comfortable knowing exactly how far technology can take them, and how far they can push it to innovate. Going deep into coding and various technologies is not necessary—if a designer knows the basics of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with a sprinkling of Ajax, they’ll already be miles ahead of the competition. They will be a unique asset to any company and the product team.

Designers can take it to the next level with JavaScript basics

Although designers could stop here and have the back end (the data access layer) implemented by developers, they can make a design more dynamic by adding some scripting. Enter JavaScript (a scripting language), which is a programming language for the web.

In the early 2000s when the web was still evolving, agencies such as Fantasy and Firstborn made a big impression on the web design community when they took advantage of JavaScript in unusual, innovative, and creative ways.

JavaScript can update and change both HTML and CSS, and can calculate, manipulate, and validate data. It can be used to display dynamic interactions, animate elements, create responsive communication with the back end or server, and more.

There is no limit to what can be accomplished with JavaScript in front-end development. It is a programming language: functions, objects, logic, conditionals, math, math, and more math—which can be a little challenging for some. But it’s not that hard to learn, especially considering what the majority of clients require.

Learning to code will improve collaboration with developers

Would romantic relationships be easier if men and women could read each other’s minds? Some people think so. The same thing applies to designers and developers.

Knowing how developers think, and what they need to be able to do their job, will make a designer a great asset to any multidisciplinary team. This approach is useful for internal communications as well as idea pitches because they will have more of an idea about what to expect from the other members of the team. If designers can do this, they will be in a much better position to propose more robust solutions to clients.

Designers who code will see more job opportunities

In every design job opportunity, knowing how to code can make a big difference in the screening processes as well as the day to day work. At Toptal , we see a bunch of opportunities for professionals with this hybrid profile, and startups out there are eager to find people that can take over both the design and front end of their early-stage applications.

Still, there are some designers and programmers who dislike one another prying into each other’s business. Some may be threatened, some may be challenged, and some may be too lazy to learn something new. But the truth is, each should analyze their options, and focus on what will increase their chances of success.

Designers may not have enough time to learn everything, but knowing vanilla HTML and CSS should be enough to add a significant distinction between a flourishing career and a dead-end one. It should be a quick and easy process for designers to take the first steps. The more they know, the more they can expand their horizons when it comes to job opportunities.

Should designers learn to code?

Adaptability and flexibility working with other teams, the ability to tackle a variety of projects, and a wide set of skills with which to take on various responsibilities is always in high demand. Is there a designer anywhere who wouldn’t want to have an edge over others when it comes to highly-coveted jobs at exciting startups, or big established tech companies?

Designers have their approaches, processes, arsenal of design tools, and deliverables, but that’s only part of the equation. Exploring, and garnering an understanding of how UI designs are delivered using various digital technologies, can take designers to the next level and boost their ability to deliver great designs.

Increasingly, more and more work opportunities in the design field include “nice-to-haves” such as basic web-development and prototyping skills using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s for each designer to decide how much to take on; clearly the need is out there.

Is AI going to eliminate front-end developers?

One question remains though: Is coding for designers going to stay relevant in the longer term? There is an inkling among designers that with AI and machine learning , designers will soon be able to design without code. Just drag-and-drop and move things around on the screen, then press a button and AI codes the whole thing. In other words, jobs for these types of front-end developers will quickly disappear.

Where designers are concerned, the answer may lie in thinking short-term vs long-term. In the near future, AI will not take over, and designers who code may still be in high demand. For the short term, designers who want to stand out should keep certain basic coding skills such as JavaScript and Ajax in their arsenal.

Mastery of coding for designers will boost careers

UI designers who have a desire to grow and boost their skillset have a few options at their disposal. They can brush up on a variety of design skills and move into other roles such as visual design, UX, or even UX research. They can also incrementally climb the ladder into more senior, principal, lead, manager, and director-level roles.

However, to really boost their careers, designers may want to delve more into development. Acquiring deep knowledge of various technologies that drive digital products today will equip them with a highly desirable set of skills. That in turn will open more doors to job opportunities at companies big and small.

Should designers code? Maybe, maybe not. But designers who code, or at least demonstrate deep knowledge of various technologies, will become a great asset to any multidisciplinary team, and it will definitely pay off in the long run.

The Toptal Design Blog is a hub for advanced design studies by professional designers in the Toptal network on all facets of digital design, ranging from detailed design tutorials to in-depth coverage of new design trends, tools, and techniques. You can read the original piece written by Jon Vieira here . Follow Toptal Design Blog on Twitter , Dribbble , Behance , LinkedIn , Facebook , and Instagram .