The Expanly Playbook

At Expanly, our mission is to empower e-commerce brands to reclaim control of their advertising and unlock sustainable growth. To achieve this, we've built more than just a powerful platform; we've built a unique way of working.

This playbook is our operational blueprint. It’s the single source of truth that guides our culture, our processes, and our daily actions. We’re sharing it publicly to give our clients, partners, and future team members a transparent look at the engine behind our technology.

A core element of our identity is being a remote-first company. This is a strategic decision, not a perk. By removing geographical constraints, we build a stronger, more diverse team capable of solving complex challenges. It allows us to attract the best talent from anywhere in the world and provide the autonomy and focus needed to create real value.

We build our product iteratively, and we build our company the same way. This document is our commitment to that process, a living guide that we constantly read, question, and improve.

I. Our Remote-First Foundation: The "Why" and "How"

A. Why We Are Remote-First: Our Philosophy

Our decision to be a remote-first company is a direct extension of our business strategy. We are building a global product for global clients, and our operational model must enable that ambition.

1. Global Ambition Requires Global Talent: Our goal is to scale aggressively, first in the Nordics and then globally. To do this, we need the world's best engineers, data scientists, sales leaders, and customer success experts. Limiting ourselves to one city's talent pool is as inefficient as letting an algorithm run on historical data alone. Our remote-first approach is our competitive advantage in building a world-class team.

2. Speed and Capital Efficiency: In the early stages of a SaaS company, every resource matters. By eliminating the massive overhead of physical offices, we can direct our capital where it has the most impact: into product development, customer success, and growth. This lean structure allows us to be more agile, scale the team without scaling real estate, and enter new markets faster. This efficiency isn’t just a corporate advantage; it’s a direct benefit for you. We’re building this together, and our employee stock option program ensures you have a direct stake in our collective success, allowing us all to truly enjoy the fruits of the growth engine we’re building.

3. Deep Focus for Intelligent Work: The problems we solve are complex. Building a platform that gives clients "strategic control" requires deep, uninterrupted focus from our team. A well-structured remote environment is an "interruption factory" antidote, allowing for the focused work needed to build an intelligent, high-performing product.

B. Our Core Principles in Action

These principles are the bedrock of our remote culture. They are the human-driven logic that guides our work, just as our product provides business-driven logic for our clients. We separate them into our mindset and our actions.

Our Mindset:

• Be the Client's Champion: Our success is a direct result of our clients' success. Whether it's revenue increase or profitability improvement, we are obsessed with the results our clients achieve. Every decision we make, from a line of code to a marketing campaign, should be weighed against the question: "How does this help our clients win?"

• Driven by Outcomes: We measure success by the impact you make, not the hours you work. We set clear goals and trust you to deliver. We live by the same ethos we sell: tangible results are what matter.

• Ownership is Strategic Control: Our tagline, "Reclaim Control, Unlock Growth," applies to you, too. You are the owner of your domain. We provide you with the context and goals, and we trust you with the strategic control to execute. This culture of high autonomy and high accountability is non-negotiable.

• Transparency by Default: We believe the best ideas and decisions come from a place of shared knowledge. We use public channels for discussion, and we document decisions and their rationale openly. This allows everyone to understand the "why" behind the "what" and contribute their expertise.

Our Actions:

• Handbook-First: This playbook is the central repository for all our processes and knowledge. It's our collective memory. If you have a question, check the handbook first. If the answer isn't here, your responsibility is to flag it to your manager so that we can add it.

• Asynchronous by Default: We default to communication that does not require an immediate response, such as unprompted Slack Huddles. This respects time zones, protects focus, and leads to more thoughtful, well-articulated interactions. Real-time meetings are a valuable resource, used intentionally, not as a default.

II. Communication: The Lifeblood of Expanly

In a remote-first company, communication is the infrastructure that allows us to build, sell, and support our product effectively across different time zones. Our approach is designed to maximize clarity, protect focus, and ensure that information flows to where it's needed most. Using the right tool for the job is essential.

A. The Communication Stack: Our Tools & Their Purpose

Each tool in our stack has a specific purpose. Using them correctly prevents information silos and ensures we have a single source of truth for every part of the business.

• Google Workspace (The Single Source of Truth):

  • Purpose: Our central repository for all company knowledge, strategies, processes, and documentation. Our "Handbook" is a curated set of documents within our shared Google Drive.

  • Good for: Documenting strategies (Docs), creating financial models or data analysis (Sheets), and building presentations (Slides). All meeting notes and project plans live here.

  • Key Habit: We maintain a well-organized folder structure and an "Index" document that acts as a master table of contents for easy navigation.

• Slack (The Digital Office):

  • Purpose: Informal, real-time conversations and quick social interactions. It’s our hallway and our water cooler.

  • Good for: Quick questions, urgent alerts and non-work-related chatter (#random).

  • Not for: Making decisions, official task assignment, or critical discussions that should be documented elsewhere. A decision does not exist until it is documented in Google Workspace or the relevant system of record (Trello, Pipedrive, Custify).

• Trello (The Product Engine Room):

  • Purpose: The single source of truth for Product Development. This is where we visualize, track, and manage the entire process of building Expanly.

  • Good for: Managing the product backlog, planning sprints, visualizing work in progress on our Scrum board, and holding discussions related to specific development tasks (cards).

• Pipedrive (The Growth Engine):

  • Purpose: The single source of truth for all Sales and lead generation activities.

  • Good for: Managing our sales pipeline, tracking deals through stages, logging all communication with prospective clients, and forecasting revenue.

• Custify & Freshdesk (The Client Success Hub):

  • Purpose: The single source of truth for our existing clients' health and happiness.

  • Good for: Managing the customer lifecycle (from onboarding to renewal), tracking customer health scores, and handling all support requests via Freshdesk tickets. This is our primary source for direct user feedback.

B. Asynchronous by Default: Protecting Time & Focus

We default to asynchronous communication to respect our global team's time zones and to create long blocks of uninterrupted time for deep work.

• Provide Full Context: Never just say "Hi" in Slack. Write out your full thought with as much context as possible so your colleague can respond productively.

• Default to Public Channels: This makes information accessible to everyone and prevents knowledge silos. Use private messages only for sensitive or truly personal topics.

• Acknowledge and Set Expectations: A simple emoji reaction (e.g., 👀 "I've seen this," ✅ "I'll get this done") is a great way to acknowledge a message and signal that you've received it, even if you can't respond fully right away.

C. The Art of the Meeting: A Deliberate Choice

Meetings are the most expensive form of communication, so we treat them as a last resort, not a default.

Every meeting at Expanly must have:

1. A Clear Agenda in a shared Google Doc.

2. A Facilitator to keep the meeting on track.

3. Documented Outcomes in the same Google Doc, with action items assigned in the relevant tool (e.g., Trello for product, Pipedrive for sales).

4. Cameras On to Stay Connected: We always keep our cameras on during meetings. This isn't just a rule; it's a key part of how we build strong connections and truly collaborate. Seeing each other helps us pick up on subtle cues, understand intentions, and feel more like a united team. It’s about being fully present and engaged.

D. Our Communication Cadence: The Rhythm of Our Work

To ensure information flows effectively within and between teams, we operate on a clear cadence of communication rituals. These are our primary venues for synchronous collaboration and alignment.

• Daily Stand-ups (Asynchronous): To foster cross-company visibility and alignment, all team members post their daily updates in the unified #standup Slack channel. This is for tactical updates on progress and blockers.

  • How to Post Your Stand-up: Keep your update short and sweet to respect everyone's time. Use the following simple format so the team can quickly scan for progress and identify where to help.

    • Yesterday: [Your key accomplishment]

    • Today: [Your main focus]

    • Blockers: [Anything preventing you from making progress. If none, write "None."]

• Weekly Team Syncs (Synchronous, 30-45 mins): Each functional team (Product/Dev, Sales/Marketing, Customer Success) has one weekly tactical meeting. The purpose is to solve problems that are difficult to handle asynchronously, review the week's priorities, and align on the immediate work ahead. This is not a status report meeting.

• Weekly "Company Pulse" Meeting (Synchronous, 30 mins): This is our one mandatory, all-hands meeting of the week, held every Monday.

  • Purpose: To keep the entire company aligned on strategy and connected as a team.

  • Standard Agenda: 1) Key Topics or News from each department; 2) KPI Snapshot; 3) Open Q&A.

E. Foundational Policies for Global Communication

To ensure seamless collaboration across borders, we have two simple foundational policies:

• Our Official Language is English: All written communication in shared channels (Slack), documentation (Google Workspace), and internal tools (Trello, etc.) must be in English. This ensures that every team member has access to the same information, regardless of their native language.

• Our Reference Time Zone is EET/EEST (Helsinki Time): While team members work across multiple time zones, we use Helsinki time as the default for scheduling company-wide events like the "Company Pulse" meeting. This provides a single, consistent reference point for everyone.

III. Ways of Working: Our Build-Measure-Learn Cycle

Our entire company operates as a cycle designed to help us learn and grow as quickly as possible. We use two key frameworks to guide us:

• Lean answers "WHAT to build?": It is our strategy for discovering the right product for our customers. It guides our high-level decisions: what assumptions to test, what the next Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is, and whether we need to pivot or persevere.

• Scrum answers "HOW to build?": It is our tactical framework for efficiently building the product in an iterative way. It guides the development team's execution.

This creates a powerful loop where we use insights from the market (Lean) to feed a highly efficient development engine (Scrum).

A. Product Development: The "Build" Engine (Scrum)

The Product team operates in a lightweight Scrum framework, managed in Trello. This is where hypotheses from the Lean process are turned into tangible product features.

• Sprints: We work in two-week cycles called Sprints. Each sprint delivers a small, valuable, and potentially shippable piece of the product.

• Trello Board: Our board has columns for the Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, In Progress, Review, and Done. This provides full transparency on what is being worked on.

• Key Events:

  • Sprint Planning: We decide what will be built in the upcoming sprint.

  • Daily Stand-ups: Held asynchronously in Slack (#dev-standup) to share progress and blockers.

  • Sprint Review: We demonstrate what was built during the sprint.

  • Retrospective: We discuss what went well and what we can improve in the next sprint.

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B. Marketing & Sales: The "Measure" and "Learn" Frontline

The Marketing and Sales are the front-end of our learning loop. They test our value proposition in the real world every day.

• Hypothesis Testing: Every sales call and marketing campaign is an experiment. We are testing messaging, pricing, and features with potential customers.

• Data Capture: Pipedrive is our lab notebook. We meticulously log all interactions, objections, and feedback from leads. This raw data is a goldmine of insights. For marketing we track all relevant touchpoints, such as conversions, leads and website data. 

• The Output: The key learnings from sales and marketing are a primary input for the Lean process, helping us decide "WHAT" to focus on next.

C. Customer Success: Closing the Learning Loop

Customer Success provides the most crucial feedback: how our product performs with actual, paying users.

• Real-World Validation: Custify and Freshdesk are our reality checks. They tell us if the features we built are valuable, if they are easy to use, and what problems our customers really have.

• Quantitative and Qualitative Data: We track customer health scores and feature usage in Custify (quantitative) and gather direct feedback and frustrations through Freshdesk tickets (qualitative). In the future, we also track how our customers use our Expanly platform and deep dive into the data on how we can improve the customer experience.

• Fuel for Iteration: This feedback flows directly back into the product backlog in Trello, informing bug fixes, enhancements, and ideas for the next major feature.

• The Voice of the Customer Channel (#voice-of-the-customer): To ensure everyone stays close to our clients, we have a dedicated Slack channel where we share noteworthy feedback. This includes positive testimonials, insightful feature requests from Freshdesk, and key learnings from Custify. Every employee is encouraged to read this channel to build empathy and understand the real-world impact of their work.

D. Closing the Loop: The Milestone Product Council

The most critical part of our Build-Measure-Learn cycle is ensuring that "Learn" consistently informs what we "Build" next. To formalize this, we hold a tactical Product Council meeting every six weeks, which we call “Milestones”.

• Purpose: To review real-world feedback from sales and customer success and translate it into actionable priorities for the product team.

• Input: A curated list of key customer feedback from Custify/Freshdesk, and common objections or feature requests from Pipedrive.

• Output: Validated ideas are prioritized in the Trello Product Backlog, ready to be considered for upcoming sprints. This meeting ensures our product roadmap is always guided by the voice of the customer.

IV. People & Culture: Growing Together, Remotely

Our success is built by our people. This section outlines our commitment to your growth, well-being, and connection to the team. We are as intentional about our people operations as we are about our product development.

A. Onboarding: Your First 90 Days at Expanly

Your onboarding is a structured journey designed to set you up for success. Our goal is to provide you with the context, tools, and relationships you need to feel confident and effective as quickly as possible.

• Before Day One: You’ll receive all necessary hardware and a "Welcome Kit" at your home. We'll help you get set up on our core systems (Google Workspace, Slack, etc.) so you can hit the ground running.

• Week One: Immersion. Your first week is focused on learning, not doing. Your primary goals are to read this playbook, get familiar with our product strategy, and understand our company goals. You will be assigned a dedicated “Tutor”, who can help you with general topics not related to your job description. We also encourage you to reach out to anyone on the team for a quick introduction. 

• Your 30-60-90 Day Plan: You and your manager will co-create a clear plan with specific, achievable goals for your first three months. This document removes ambiguity and ensures you know exactly what "success" looks like in your new role. 

B. Performance & Growth: Your Trajectory at Expanly

We are a culture of continuous learning, for our product and for our people. Growth at Expanly is an ongoing conversation, not a once-a-year review.

• Outcomes, Not Optics: We manage by results. Your performance is measured by the tangible impact you have on your goals and the company's success. We value clear outcomes over "perceived busyness."

• The Monthly 1:1: Your monthly 1:1 meeting with your manager is the most important meeting you'll have. This is your dedicated time to discuss progress, get feedback, and talk about your development.

• Continuous Feedback: Feedback is a gift that helps us all improve. It flows in all directions, up, down, and across teams. We encourage direct, constructive, and kind feedback as part of our daily work.

• Clear Writing is a Core Skill: In a remote-first, asynchronous company, the ability to communicate ideas clearly in writing is not a soft skill, it is a core competency. We value and encourage the development of strong writing skills at all levels.

C. Well-being & Flexibility: Sustaining Our Engine

We trust you to be the expert of your own productivity and well-being. We offer flexibility not as a perk, but as a requirement for sustainable high performance.

• Your Work, Your Schedule: Outside of core collaboration meetings, you are the owner of your time. We trust you to structure your day in a way that works for you, your family, and your team.

• Communication Boundaries: We use Slack's "Do Not Disturb" features and respect them. We avoid sending non-urgent messages on weekends. Taking time to fully disconnect is essential.

D. Building Connection: We Are More Than Just Our Work

We are intentional about fostering the personal bonds that create a strong, cohesive team.

• Virtual Social Spaces:

  • #random: A Slack channel for sharing hobbies, weekend plans, and anything non-work-related.

• Annual Company Retreats: Once a year, the entire company gets together in person for a couple of days. This is our time to work on big-picture strategy and, most importantly, connect as human beings. The company covers all travel, lodging, and primary meal costs for this event. This is a critical investment in our culture.

• In-Person Team Workshops: In addition to the annual retreat, individual teams (e.g., Product, Sales) have the flexibility and budget to organize focused, in-person workshops. These are ideal for kicking off a major project, deep-diving on team-specific strategy, or solving complex problems that benefit from a concentrated block of face-to-face time. Depending on the need, teams can plan these 1-4 times per year. The company covers all associated costs for travel, lodging, and meals.

V. Tools & Operations: Your Remote-First Toolkit

This section outlines the practical tools, hardware, and security practices that enable us to work effectively and safely in a remote-first environment.

A. Essential Hardware & Home Office Setup

We are committed to providing you with the core equipment you need to do your job effectively.

• Company-Provided Laptop: You will be provided with a modern, powerful laptop for your work. You can choose between a PC or a MacBook, within a reasonable specification range approved by your manager. This device remains the property of Expanly.

• Home Office Stipend: To ensure you have a comfortable, ergonomic, and professional home office setup, new employees receive a one-time stipend. Your manager will discuss and confirm the specific amount for your location with you as part of the hiring process. This can be used for items that improve your physical workspace and your remote presence, such as an external monitor, a quality chair, a good webcam, a microphone, or dedicated lighting for video calls. If for some reason you can’t work from home, let’s discuss the possibility to rent a co-working space near you.

• Your Responsibility: You are responsible for providing a reliable, high-speed internet connection, which is essential for remote collaboration.

B. Software, Systems & Access

We use a specific set of cloud-based tools to collaborate and manage our work.

• Our Core Stack: As outlined in Section II, our primary tools are Google Workspace, Slack, Trello, Pipedrive, and Custify/Freshdesk.

• Getting Access: Your manager is responsible for ensuring you get access to all the systems you need for your role. On your first day, you will receive invitations and login instructions.

• Requesting New Software: If you need a new tool or software license to do your job better, please discuss the business case with your manager first. We will evaluate the request based on its potential impact and cost.

C. Security: Our Shared Responsibility

Our clients trust us with their business data. Protecting this data is a responsibility we all share. A security breach could fundamentally damage our reputation and our business. Therefore, we take security very seriously and require every employee to adhere to these core practices.

1. Use a Password Manager: You are required to use a password manager (e.g., 1Password, Bitwarden) for all work-related accounts to generate and store strong, unique passwords. Do not reuse passwords.

2. Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Our company policy is that 2FA must be enabled on every account that supports it.

3. Keep Software Updated: Always apply software updates for your operating system and applications promptly.

4. Lock Your Screen: If you step away from your computer, lock the screen.

5. Report Suspicious Activity: If you receive a suspicious email or see unusual activity, report it immediately to your manager and in the #security Slack channel.

A Living Document

This playbook is a living document, just like our company. It is not meant to be a static set of rules, but a reflection of our current best thinking on how to operate effectively.

As we grow, we will learn, adapt, and improve. We expect you to challenge the ideas here and contribute to making this playbook (and our company) better. If you see something that is unclear, incorrect, or could be improved, it is your responsibility to raise it.

Welcome to Expanly. Let's get to work.