[InsOp]

I have created a software agency 4 years ago. we are full remote and 5 fulltime and 7 partime workers (some working students included). I pay myself 70k p.a. and reinvest the rest into the company. it is growing around 100% in revenue each year. in the beginning I asked myself whether it's worth it not to just develop for a big company, but now it pays. I don't even have to work the full 8 hours a day.

[artemonster]

Quick question: what software „stack“ do you use to manage a fully remote team? What erp (if you have any), project tracking, cloud storage, chat, etc. I am really interested in logistics of running such a company. Thank you for your time!

[InsOp]

im glad you asked: we try to use Foss as much as possible. I have a Kubernetes cluster in hetzner with split horizon DNS (for DNS I use googles DNS solution), for VPN I use openvpn. for Chat we use Mattermost. for video chat First jitsi then discord (jitsi is hard to selfhost). for project management Gitlab professional. we use notion for documenting as much as possible but we want to switch to outlined soon. dockermail for email (but not yet automated forwarding and filtering). file transfer with Nextcloud. tracking time with toptals toptracker. docker remote workspaces with kasm (we require working with Linux OS only so if you don't bring Linux, then you have to use our docker workspace). we get that question a lot and are currently working on a simple solution to create such an environment with a few clicks (powered by helm and the cloud of your choice)

[artemonster]

Wow, thank you for such a detailed answer, much appreciated! Maybe, if you find a minute, a couple more: 1. why such a focus on foss? You like tinkering, supporting foss or its a money saver? 2. why switch from notion to outline?