Remote Done Right: Why Connection Is the New Competitive Advantage
Lexi Anderson
July 23, 2025
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81% of workers now say remote flexibility matters more than salary when choosing a job (Archie, 2025). After spending a week with my entirely remote team in Cartagena, Colombia, I understand why that number is so high and also why so many companies are still getting remote work completely wrong.
I've been thinking a lot about what makes remote work actually work, not just the surface-level pieces like flexible schedules, but the deeper challenge of building real connection when your team is scattered across time zones.
At Vivun, I've watched our team tackle this head-on with genuine intentionality. Remote work here isn't just what happened when everyone went home during the pandemic. Rather, it's been baked into our company DNA from the start, with real thought put into how human beings connect and work toward shared goals
While many organizations still struggle to make remote work sustainable, research shows it can deliver when done right: 83% of employees report being more productive at home, and 82% say it improves their mental health (Neat, 2025).
There's a rhythm to how we do things that I find really thoughtful. Monthly half-day Fresh-Air Fridays, to company-sponsored local meetups, and weekly virtual group activities, and more, come together to create a steady drumbeat of connection that feels so natural rather than forced fun.
But then there's Vivun's Kickoff (VKO), which takes all of that remote connection and amplifies it in person once a year. This year's trip to Cartagena was truly something special.
Vivun’s Kickoff isn't a sales-only kickoff (though the name might suggest it). It's for everyone: engineering, sales, marketing, customer success, leadership, the whole company. Watching people who mostly know each other through Slack and Zoom suddenly be in the same place is remarkable.
Cartagena was the perfect backdrop. There's something about being in a beautiful, slightly unfamiliar place that helps you step outside your usual patterns.
As a member of the planning team for this year's trip, I saw firsthand how much thought goes into creating that balance: enough structure to make it meaningful, but enough flexibility for those spontaneous moments of connection to happen.
The week had structure (team breakouts, strategic sessions, group dinners) but also plenty of space for the quality conversations that happen when you're walking through cobblestone streets or hanging out on a rooftop at night.
The energy was palpable. You could see people making connections across teams, having the kinds of conversations that just don't happen in scheduled video calls. There's this particular magic when you put innovative, thoughtful people in the same space and give them permission to just be human together.
And it manifests ideas and actions that drive our business forward in new ways every year.
One of the most memorable experiences of this VKO was our company-wide values exercise. Now, I know what you're thinking: corporate values exercises can feel pretty hollow. But this one felt different.
Everyone split into small groups and brainstormed what values they felt actually represented Vivun. Not aspirational values, not consultant-speak, but what we all really see in our day-to-day work. Then each group presented back to everyone, and we voted.
What emerged was a remarkably aligned set of values: Take Ownership, Stay Curious, Set the Standard, and Fast & Focused. These weren't manufactured in a boardroom. They were observations about how people already work, captured and crystallized.
We lead, innovate, and create competitive advantage for our customers in ways others can't match. We challenge assumptions, rethink industry norms, and take a distinctive approach in how we work and build.
We step up to tackle the hard things and follow through with excellence. We hold ourselves and each other accountable and operate with transparency to lead with confidence.
Curiosity drives us to learn, listen, and improve. We challenge our thinking, share knowledge, and experiment boldly— staying ahead by evolving and adapting.
We seize fleeting opportunities and move fast by embracing uncertainty, making confident decisions, and relentlessly pursuing progress without sacrificing quality or integrity.
There's real power in employees being part of creating the values rather than just receiving them. It makes us feel genuinely invested in how the company operates.
I'm a huge believer in remote work. The autonomy, the focus, the way it fits into life...it's transformative. But there's something about sharing physical space that video calls can't quite replicate. It's the casual conversation while walking to dinner, the way you pick up on someone's energy when they're excited about an idea, the collective momentum that builds when you're all working toward the same goals in the same place.
VKO isn't just a nice perk. It's a cornerstone of how we strive to make distributed work sustainable and meaningful. It's proof that you can build something real and lasting even when most of your collaboration happens through pixels and wifi.
These in-person moments create relationships that persist long after everyone goes home. Suddenly that person you only knew from their Slack picture becomes someone you grabbed coffee with in Colombia, hiked with in Vietnam, or skied with in Chamonix. It fundamentally shifts how you collaborate, how you communicate, how you think about the work you're doing together.
Making remote work really work requires this kind of care. It's about creating connection points that feel genuine rather than mandated, designing a culture that works across screens and time zones, and investing in the kinds of experiences that remind everyone why they chose to work together in the first place.
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