We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alexis Dollé a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alexis thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Is your team able to work remotely? If so, how have you made it work? What, if any, have been the pitfalls? What have been the non-obvious benefits?

Yes, my team and I work remotely. Not only were we able to make it work but Mailbird was founded as a fully remote company from day one – and it’s been like this for the past 12 years. When I joined the company, I was living in Toronto, Canada. Then I went back to France for a few years, and I now live in Bali, Indonesia.

We now have a team of 30 people of 20 different nationalities living in about 15 countries.
Several times a year, a few of our team members meet in real life and enjoy some time together. Most of the time, they get together in Bali; quite a few of my colleagues are coming here regularly.

Remote work poses two main challenges:

– Timezone management. With people in every part of the world, eventually, you often have people up when others are asleep, but we still get to work together. So some days will be a bit longer than others, and late nights aren’t uncommon. But it also means you can take a few hours off during your day and get to spend them with your kids, while other parents see their children when they get back from work at 6 p.m.

– Productivity. This is also related to timezone management. If you aren’t on top of your execution, things can get delayed very quickly. For instance, you don’t deliver feedback or a task on time, and the people waiting for it might go to sleep and do it the next day. A project can suffer delays of weeks or months if you don’t take things seriously. One of the key solutions to this problem is to ensure direct but asynchronous communication. Some live Google meets also help to maintain efficiency.

As for the benefits of remote work, there are two non-obvious ones:

– As the team grows, you get to know people everywhere. Going to the Dominican Republic? José, our software engineer, can give me tons of tips. Planning a trip to Bali? The Bali team will make you feel at home.

– A systematic culture fit filter. Not everyone is fit to work successfully in a fully remote company. If remote work isn’t for you, then you won’t feel like you belong here. And eventually you’ll leave (or be let go). This filter helps build a stronger culture that thrives when working remotely. It’s a key foundation.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Alexis Dollé, Head of Growth at Mailbird, and I’m from France. I’ve lived in Canada, France, and now I’m in Indonesia.

When I joined Mailbird, the revenue had hit a plateau and we had about six months of cash ahead. Together with my team, we doubled revenue during those six months and eventually increased it by 30 in five years, after running over 300 experiments.

Launched in 2012, Mailbird has become one of the most popular email and app management platforms out there. As an email client, it provides a simple but efficient solution to manage all your email accounts in one place. With features like unified inbox, customizable themes, email signatures, and advanced search, Mailbird makes it easier to manage your different email accounts.

On top of that, it integrates with platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Asana, Google Workspace – to name just a few. So not only can you take care of your emails but also make sure you don’t miss any other important messages.

All of us experience the pressure of notifications and keeping up with messages and tasks across several platforms. Our goal was to alleviate some of that stress and give people a hub from which they can manage their most important apps and stay on top of their communication.

Initially available only on Windows, Mailbird has just expanded to Mac. Our team has spent the last few months fine-tuning the Mac application, and the anticipation was building in our community, too. There were more than 15,000 people who signed up on the waiting list.

Now that we unveiled it, it’s beyond exciting to see it in the hands of our users and to hear their feedback!

We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.

As a matter of fact, I did, when I was still in high school. While learning how to code at 15, I launched a few different websites. At 17, I started a funny gaming website that attracted about 10,000 users at the time. It brought in some revenue, but I was young and had other priorities, so a year later, I decided I would sell it quickly and move on.

I had no experience, no money, and it didn’t last very long, but that first entrepreneurial experience planted the seed of my determination to try again one day. Anyone can do it if they put in the effort and energy to make it happen.

Of course, I didn’t build an empire, but that was a foundational step to me as I learnt it was possible to make a living from something you start from scratch.

Some people in my classroom applauded me for doing this, others were doubtful. Their own parents said they shouldn’t hang out with me and they should avoid me like I was the plague. Who made money online in 2002 while still in school? No one, especially in a small town in the middle of Normandy.

Their rejection was based on fear and ignorance, but it hurt and I lost a few friends in the process. But I regret nothing – I did it because I was passionate about building something myself. I was even more passionate about learning new things that were not in the school books.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I did pivot in my career. After selling my gaming website in 2003, I entered a pretty “standard” engineering path going to an engineering school. Then I worked as an industrial engineer for five years.

Looking back, I didn’t really choose it, I did it because several of my classmates were set to follow the same path. I didn’t really question it or asked myself what I really wanted to do. My parents were happy, the teachers were happy, so I went for it. I basically did what was expected of me.

But even within my role as an industrial engineer, I started building my own new venture project inside the company, opening a new logistics division and managing my own business unit when I was 23. After giving in to the allure of a comfortable corporate job and the perks of an executive car, I felt like I needed to go back to it. I needed to start my own venture.

So I quit and started my data mining company. I was analyzing a lot of data in the engineering world, so I tried to do the same in the marketing world. And, guess what, I failed miserably. Not because I didn’t know how to do it but I was totally clueless about how to sell it.

I was an engineer doing engineering stuff and no one understood a word of what I was saying. People were amazed at how smart I was but they weren’t going to buy what I had to offer. After trying for three years, I gave up.

In 2014, I hit rock bottom. I got on social allowance but was lucky enough to have my dad to welcome me back home. I started to learn a lot about Marketing, Growth Hacking and how to sell better.

But isolated in my Normandy hometown, I knew I wouldn’t learn as much. I was getting back to my old habits and limiting thinking. So I decided to make a paradigm shift and flew to Toronto, Canada. I discovered a totally new environment, new incredible people and even a new sport – baseball! “Let’s go, Blue Jays!” (Europeans are usually quite clueless about baseball, but I really love it).

I quickly got a job at a new startup, then another one. And then Mailbird hired me to become their Head of Growth. That was a pivotal moment for me and it helped me become the professional I am today. I’ve grown a lot myself since I took on this role, and seeing what we’ve managed to accomplish keeps me pushing forward. It’s also made me bolder, and I know that when the time comes, I’ll be ready to continue my entrepreneurial journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: https//www.getmailbird.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mailbird/

Image Credits

Photos: courtesy of Mailbird