Back in August 2018, the Designlab team met up for their second ever in-person retreat, in beautiful Breckenridge, Colorado!
Bringing together colleagues from around the world, this was a time of team-building, goal-setting, and future-planning.
Here’s who joined the event:
Patrick Multani
Based in Germany
Designer, Framer addict
Madi Waggoner
Based in Colorado Springs
Director of Operations, extraordinary organizer
Will Anderson
Based in Lexington, Kentucky
Growth lead, lo-fi hip-hop advocate
Daniel Shapiro
Based in New York City
Founder & CTO, Sublime’s biggest fan
Renee Tracy
Digital Nomad
Operations, camping connoisseur
Harish Venkatesan
Based in New York City
Founder & CEO, champion of chill
Teresa Lamb
Based in Tampa, Florida
Front-end developer, knitting ninja
Andrew Wilshere
Based in Lisbon, Portugal
Editor, Rice-A-Roni expert
Sandy Chen
Based in Brooklyn, New York
Mentorship, K-Wave Queen
Lauren Lankford
Based in Brooklyn, New York
Student Success, meme manufacturer
CJ Dreiss
Based in Long Island, NY
Full-stack developer, brisket enthusiast
Manuela Odell
Based in Bend, Oregon
Business Development, secret celebrity
Austin Basallo
Based in New York City
Operations Associate, muscle philosopher
Recent recruits Gina Medranda (Portugal), Josh Parolin (San Diego), and Diego Torres-Galvan (Long Beach) weren’t able to join us this time, but we look forward to meeting up soon!
Purpose of the retreat
As we grow, we’re moving towards holding retreats twice a year. Designlab is a fully remote team, and the opportunity to meet in person every six months helps us to get to know one another better, and maintain deeper connections for the rest of the year.
Retreats are also a chance for us to review company strategy and progress together, to spend time on targeted product sprints and brainstorms, and to share our personal tips and challenges when it comes to remote work and working while travelling—particularly how to stay productive and maintain a healthy work/life balance.
In tune with that aim, we didn’t spend all of our time on work stuff. We reserved about half of each day for downtime, general getting-to-know-each-other, eating out, going on hikes, playing pool, and learning obscure board games (Daniel, our CTO, is OBSESSED).
We also split into two teams for an Iron Chef competition, played a bunch of Nintendo Switch, and drank delicious Colorado beers and ciders (apart from Madi, who’s expecting—congrats, Madi!)
Read on for more details about what we got up to!
Arriving at Breckenridge. Andrew (center) adopts unconventional Rice-A-Roni method, to collective alarm. Photo by Patrick.
CJ and Madi get the brisket ready for dinner! It was prepared abundantly by Madi’s husband (thanks Madi’s husband!) The brisket became a collective emotional focus for the trip. Photo by Patrick.
Here’s where we were staying! Photo by Austin.
At our winter retreat, we had Secret Santa. This time, we shared a birthday party! (Using the Secret Santa method.) Here, CJ admires his Ampersand t-shirt, perfectly kerned by Teresa. Sandy looks on with joy. Photo by Patrick.
We got some pretty stellar views from the cabin. Photo by Austin.