How to build an international ecommerce company 

![How to build an international ecommerce company](https://storage.googleapis.com/sm-content/blog/966a6654690f5f5ae42f0f3e478060cf95362dd5)

Last year, Sticker Mule shipped to __87 countries__. It's been a long process to lay a foundation to support international customers and we still have a lot to do. Since the decision to go international is one faced by every ecommerce company, I thought it’d be worth sharing our approach. 

Anyone looking to go international should understand 2 things before embarking on the journey: 

* International business is difficult and initially unprofitable. In order to effectively support foreign customers, you’ll likely take a loss early on as you build international volume. 
* Shipping worldwide is expensive and customers don’t want to be penalized for being far from your fulfillment center. 

Despite the costs involved in growing internationally, there are a number of upsides.

## Why you should sell internationally 
Aside from the obvious potential to acquire international revenue, there are three additional benefits to growing internationally that are worth considering.

### There's a lot of international web traffic to acquire.
Between paid and search traffic there’s a tremendous amount of international traffic to capture. International markets are not as saturated as the U.S. so it's easier to build both paid and organic search traffic.

> International markets are not as saturated as the U.S. so it's easier to build both paid and organic search traffic. [Click to Tweet](https://ctt.ec/2mgNH)

The downside is you need to manage a variety of country specific SEO & SEM strategies whereas in the U.S. you need to execute one strategy for a large market. 

### Internationalizing exposes you to additional partnerships.
I loosely define partnerships to include anyone that can send you traffic. By supporting an international audience you'll quickly notice that the variety of websites and people willing to send you traffic grows. Even bloggers that have a primarily domestic audience want to write about companies that support their foreign readers. 

### It aids your recruiting efforts to become international. 
Recruiting internationally is a tremendous benefit to us. The best talent and potential team members live all over the world. To date, only 10% of our development team works domestically. We pay domestic wages regardless of location because it’s fair and hiring the best people is more important than saving a buck. 

## 13 steps to building an international ecommerce company

Our 13 steps to becoming international are roughly sorted based on difficulty and importance. Steps that are easier and more important are at the top. We suspect most businesses will find it advantageous to implement these improvements from top to bottom.

### 1. Ship to foreign countries
An obvious starting point, but easier said than done. To start here, you’ll need a shipping system that supports international shipments. Initially, we used a 3rd party application until we were ready to build our own. 

### 2. Ship to foreign countries with tracking
Initially, it’s tempting to ship without tracking because it’s considerably more expensive to provide it. However, as your international volume grows you’ll find not having package tracking is a substantial burden. Delays and lost packages are more common internationally so tracking is necessary to troubleshoot problematic shipments. 

### 3. Ship to foreign countries quickly and with delivery estimates
Once you add support for package tracking you’ll find the next concern for your customers is to get their packages faster and with guaranteed delivery dates. This is mostly possible but at a considerable expense. 

### 4. Support international currencies
Inevitably it will make sense to add support for international currencies too. We started with the most popular ones including Canadian Dollars, British Pounds and the Euro. 

### 5. Support the metric system 
Depending on your product offering this is more or less important but since size is a critical aspect of our product line we decided it was necessary to support the metric system. 

### 6. Internationalize address forms
International addresses have different formats and it’s ideal to provide customers with an experience they recognize to help them fill in addresses correctly and avoid shipping delays. This is something I haven’t seen anyone implement effectively but it’s on our roadmap. 

### 7. Internationalize text content 
There are a variety of translation services and agencies to help with internationalizing content. It can be a considerable expense initially and challenging to maintain, but it’s a necessary step to becoming completely international. 

### 8. Internationalize video content
The next step beyond internationalizing your text content is to internationalize videos. We took a small step in this direction with internationalized captions but eventually we want to internationalize the voiceovers and footage too. 

### 9. Internationalize images
Familiar images help make customers feel more comfortable with your brand. Product photos, customer lists and screenshots all benefit from internationalization at some point. 

### 10. Internationalize hosting
As your international traffic grows it’s worth looking at how to further globalize your hosting configuration. Your site might be fast domestically but you’ll want to ensure visitors from your most popular regions have a similar experience. 

### 11. Provide customer support in foreign languages
Foreign customers are always happier to receive support in their native language. This is a considerable challenge and one we only started to undertake. 

### 12. Operate international fulfillment centers
Hopefully, international revenue will grow to the point where you can justify regional fulfillment centers which will finally position you to provide foreign customers with the same experience you provide customers in your home country. 

### 13. Advertise in international markets
Inevitably, you’ll want to build out an international advertising strategy. This is likely easier to do profitably once you operate regionally, but you could consider doing it sooner to build volume faster. 

International advertising tends to be less expensive, but, unless you’re operating locally, your margins may already be so diminished that justifying an ad budget is difficult. 

## Concluding thought
At Sticker Mule, our small team works from 8 countries including England, Ireland, Poland, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Italy, Canada and the United States. Cultural diversity has been immensely beneficial. It’s both encouraged and enabled us to build a platform for international growth. 

We still have a long way to go to fully execute the international roadmap identified this article, but we’re excited to continue growing our community of customers and colleagues worldwide. If you believe you can play a part in our international growth, [we're hiring](https://www.stickermule.com/careers?ref=blog).

Building an international ecommerce company isn't easy. So we've broken down the steps we've been following to help you get started. 

Characteristics we look for in Sticker Mule team members 

Recently, we decided to codify the characteristics we look for in new team members to help maintain our culture as we grow. Since our inception, we have always hired for a particular type of person although it was never explicit. As hiring became more distributed we spent a while thinking about what it is that unites us.

> Culture is even more important when you're remote.

The importance of culture isn't immediately apparent when you’re small but it becomes quite obvious once you grow. Without care, culture can change quickly; especially when you’re hiring fast. It only takes a few people that do not fit your model to create a cultural change that quickly spreads. That’s why we are relentless about hiring people that strengthen our culture and avoiding people that don’t. 

Culture is even more important when you're remote. Since we spend little time together in person, and in some cases never see each other, a shared outlook helps us understand each other even if we never met. We might come from all over the world, but we all tend to be humble, independent, logical, thoughtful and autodidactic. We try to hire other people that have these characteristics too. 

Here's a glimpse at the characteristics of people we look to hire at Sticker Mule and why:

## Humble
Possesses a modest view of one’s abilities and importance. 

__Why:__ People fail when the disparity between what they can do and what they think they can do becomes too vast. Humility is a prerequisite for improving and in a fast growing company there’s a constant need to scale your abilities as the needs of the company change. 

## Independent
Good to work with but able to get stuff done on their own too. 

__Why:__ Time is finite so it’s important to respect each other’s time by working independently when possible, yet being pleasant to collaborate with when necessary. The best teams, in companies, sports or otherwise, are comprised of talented people that know how and when to interact to achieve a goal. 

## Logical
Strong decision making skills that we can trust. 

__Why:__ Success is the result the sum of our decisions and actions. Decision making skills are incredibly hard to train so we avoid people that lack them. Responsibilities change as we grow, so we favor logical people over those who are merely experienced.

## Thoughtful
Concerned about the well-being of others and the company as a whole. 

__Why:__ People that put the well-being of each other first can be trusted to make optimal decisions. Anyone that is inconsiderate towards the feelings of others is difficult to trust no matter how intelligent, logical or experienced because they tend to optimize for their own benefit. 

## Autodidactic
Willing and able to learn from others and on their own. 

__Why:__ Organizations require new skills as they evolve. People that are unable to self educate run the risk of eventually becoming a burden because it can be hard to place them if our needs change.

## Concluding thought

At Sticker Mule, we hire for two things: skill and personality. It’s hard to pass on a skilled person because their personality doesn’t fit, but if you aim for longevity it’s critical that you do. We intend to be around for a long time. I suspect and hope most of our team will retire from Sticker Mule. 

If you feel like you will fit in well with our team then you should [apply to join us](https://www.stickermule.com/careers). We'd love to hear from you.

We look for 5 characteristics in new Sticker Mule team members to help maintain our culture as we grow. 

Hidden costs of a/b testing 

There's plenty of literature on the merits of A/B testing, but little information on its pitfalls. Most people in ecommerce, tech and startups would have you believe A/B testing is a must do activity when, in reality, it's often unnecessary and counterproductive. 

At Sticker Mule, we recently stopped actively A/B testing and I thought it'd be helpful to explain why. I should preface this by admitting we ran more than 70 conversion tests before making this decision and had only 3 significant winners. I don't know a normal ratio of tests to wins, but I suspect our situation is common. This isn't to say we don't believe in constantly working to improve conversion--we've found different ways, which I detail later. 

![The Hidden Costs of AB Testing](https://storage.googleapis.com/sm-content/blog/64feff7f772f6956dd6752f42069c17b12f845f0)

## The 6 hidden costs of A/B testing

### 1) Time
Resources are finite. Time spent on A/B testing cannot be spent elsewhere. How you use your time determines your growth trajectory. A/B testing is a growth tactic, but it's not always the best use of your resources. 

### 2) Lost conversions
Most conversion tests fail and underperforming variations cause you to lose conversions while they run. These lost conversions are an investment you make to improve your long term conversion rate, but don't forget they are a real cost. 

### 3) Performance
Related to lost conversions, A/B testing tools make your site slower and this also reduces your conversion rate--even for the control. The additional conversions you lose because of this performance hit are another, often ignored, cost of A/B testing. 

### 4) Confusion
A/B tests potentially confuse your team and customers. Customer service may struggle to properly service a customer if they don't know which variation the customer is viewing. You can educate customer service about the various tests you're running, but, regardless, you're making their job more difficult. 
 
### 5) Speed
A/B testing slows down your organization's decision making. Some ideas are obviously good and adhering to a strict A/B testing process reduces your time to go live. Time is finite and the number of improvements you implement per year has a major impact on your growth trajectory. 

### 6) Focus
Usually, organizations congratulate themselves for investing heavily into conversion. This is evidenced by a Head of CRO or paying consultants. The largest cost is not the salary of those persons, but changing the focus of other team members such as designers, customer support, and developers. The success of a Head of CRO is usually at the cost of making other colleagues less successful in their primary roles. 

## How we improve conversion without A/B testing
Stepping away from A/B testing does not mean we have abandoned efforts to improve conversion. Rather we are improving our conversion through other methods (yes, A/B testing isn't your only option).

You can monitor your long term conversion trend rather easily via Google Analytics to gauge if you're making good decisions. And you can add more precision to this method of conversion rate monitoring by looking at your conversion rate trend by channel. 

With that in mind, we're doubling down on the following to improve our conversion rate:

### Usability principles
Adhering to thoroughly researched [usability principles](https://www.nngroup.com/) generally yields good conversion optimization results. 

### Design principles
In addition to usability principles, there are basic [design principles](http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-Revised-Updated/dp/1592535879/) that tend to improve conversion when followed. 

### The golden rule
"Do unto others..." is a guiding principle for most of our decision making and it works great with regards to conversion optimization.

### Solving problems
Solving actual pain points our customers experience is the primary way we've been able to improve our conversion rate and strengthen our brand. 

## We haven't abandoned A/B testing entirely
I should admit that we still A/B test some ideas. Rather than adhering to a strict A/B testing process, we let our team to A/B test ideas they're curious about. 

To minimize the likelihood of testing too much, we turned off our 3rd party A/B testing tool and integrated split testing into our code base. That means, in order to run a test, we need help from development to set it up. This extra effort discourages running careless tests and has the added benefit of eliminating the performance hit that comes with using a 3rd party tool. 

Finally, we're now able to A/B test entirely different versions of our code which is much more interesting than merely testing basic design changes via a 3rd party tool.

If our approach of improving conversion rate by solving problems rather than using an A/B testing tool appeals to you, you share some of [the characteristics we look for in team members](https://www.stickermule.com/blog/characteristics-we-look-for-in-team-members). 

Feel like you'd fit in well with our team? [Apply to join us](https://www.stickermule.com/careers). We'd love to hear from you.

A/B testing has multiple hidden costs. We decided to mostly stop a/b testing for 6 reasons. 

Prerequisites for rapid growth 

![Illustration of growing plants](https://cl.ly/2V3z1C1Z2k0f/prereq_blog.jpg)

To date, we’ve been fortunate to grow by focusing on our passion for manufacturing, design, software development and customer experience. This attitude let us grow for 5 years without a single person in marketing. Last year we started building a marketing team and noticed our growth curve bend.

> Our team is still small and, while there are obvious benefits to staying that way, there’s also long term risk associating with ignoring opportunities to grow faster.

Our team is still small and, while there are obvious benefits to staying that way, there’s also long term risk associated with ignoring opportunities to grow faster. Without outside investors forcing growth on us, we’ve been able to create an environment where talented people seem to enjoy working (our [eNPS](http://community.netigate.net/employee-net-promoter-score-how-engaged-are-your-employees-11861.html) is [90](http://cl.ly/2U2q3f3Q1J23)!). If we accelerate growth, it’s important that we don’t diminish the environment & culture that enables us to do great work.

Given our hesitation to make changes that could negatively impact our culture, we identified a few areas where we need to improve to grow faster. As we start 2016, to grow faster, we need to:


### Prioritize effectively organization-wide
Our future is determined by the projects we pursue. Time spent doing less valuable activities is not spent doing more valuable ones. The better we get at prioritization the faster we will grow.

### Minimize average time to go live
We spend resources upon starting a project and don’t get a return until we go live. It’s wasteful for good ideas to sit idle and worse to invest time in a project that get’s shelved or stalled.

### Learn to scale job responsibilities
New responsibilities accumulate quickly in fast growing organizations. We need to be flexible when it’s necessary to adopt new responsibilities or adapt to a new role.

### Identify, recruit and fill key positions
We can’t do anything without the right people. So our potential is constrained unless we identify significant roles and fill them with the best people.

### Develop an effective hiring processes
To hire at scale we need exceptional recruiting, hiring and onboarding processes and a commitment to caring about the success of new people. Productivity and morale deteriorate when companies hire without a plan.

### Raise standards
We must be committed to mastering new skills while continuing to improve where we already excel. People learn from each other and a deterioration in standards can quickly spread as we grow.

## Concluding thoughts
While these principles are particularly relevant to our current situation I suspect they’ll continue to matter indefinitely. Prioritization and execution speed are easily the two biggest determinants of long run growth.

Beyond that, it comes down to filling the right positions with the best people, enabling them to succeed and encouraging everyone to stay flexible so that the organization can quickly adapt to change. Finally, a commitment to constantly raising standards is perhaps the best safeguard to the decay the most organizations experience as they age.

If you agree with these principles and are seeking an organization where talented people enjoy working, [we are hiring](https://www.stickermule.com/careers?ref=blog).

We've identified a few areas where Sticker Mule (and other companies) need to change or improve in order to grow faster. 

Announcing custom sticker ideas 

Since the early days of Sticker Mule, we have always been surprised by the creative designs, uses and applications from our customers. Today, we're announcing an effort to capture and display those ideas: [custom sticker ideas](https://www.stickermule.com/uses).

## Why we're excited
From handmade goods to school fundraisers to weddings to building a great company culture, there are endless ways to use custom stickers, magnets, buttons and more.

[![Custom die cut sticker business cards](https://cl.ly/2V2D0p2G0s2V/chop-shop-barber-business-card-stickers-main.jpg "Not so standard business cards")](https://www.stickermule.com/uses)

Over the years we've posted and reposted many customer ideas and photos on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/stickermule/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/stickermule/). However, these images and ideas are lost to the noise on social channels.

So we've collected 100+ of the most popular ways to use custom stickers, magnets, buttons and more to inspire you to make your own custom printed products.

[Check out the ideas here](https://www.stickermule.com/uses).

## Share your idea
We also want to provide an opportunity for the best ideas to come forward and inspire others.

We've published stories on our blog that explore how customers in different industries are using their [stickers to market a business](https://www.stickermule.com/uses), [label products](https://www.stickermule.com/uses), [drive traffic to a site](https://www.stickermule.com/uses), or [raise money for a Kickstarter project](https://www.stickermule.com/uses). In the coming months, we'll be featuring more stories from customers.

[![Texas Beard Co Story](https://cl.ly/0F2S0g3s0K1n/BeardOil4x.jpg "Growing beards and a brand with Texas Beard Co.")](https://www.stickermule.com/uses)

So if you've used your Sticker Mule products in a unique way, let us know and we'll share them with the community. 

Take a look at [the 100+ ideas featured here](https://www.stickermule.com/uses) and then [share your own idea](https://stickermule.canny.io/products) with us.

[![](https://cl.ly/3I06350X0z31/ideas-blog-gallery.png)](https://www.stickermule.com/uses)

<ButtonCta text="Share your idea with us" href="https://www.stickermule.com/support/contact?ref=blog" />


See 100+ ways to use custom stickers, magnets, buttons and more.

Introducing automatic discounts 

Sticker Mule aims to be the fastest and easiest way to buy custom stickers. That's why we're announcing a new feature that we quietly released six months ago: [automatic discounts](https://www.stickermule.com/automatic-discounts).

It's common to not know your exact sticker size when ordering. Automatic discounts saves you time and money by automatically determining your correct size during proofing.

Now you can quickly choose an approximate size, upload artwork and always get the right price based on your exact size.

<WistiaVideo videoKey="automatic_discounts" />


### Save money
Since launching automatic discounts, more than 80% of [die cut sticker](https://www.stickermule.com/products/die-cut-stickers) customers have saved on their orders. Often the difference is minor, but sometimes it's substantial.

For example, you might order a 3" x 3" sticker that is really 3" x 2.3". We automatically identify the difference and lower your price. Since we don't charge you until proof approval, the price you pay is based on the final size identified during proofing.

### Save time
Don't waste time determining your exact size. Order the closest size you can guess and we'll figure it out. This is especially helpful when ordering large stickers like [floor](https://www.stickermule.com/products/floor-graphics) and [wall graphics](https://www.stickermule.com/products/wall-graphics) where you might have a desired width but not the height of your design.

You can simply order the largest square your design fits within and we'll determine both dimensions. For example, if you want a 48" wide wall graphic, you can order 48" x 48" and we'll determine the correct height and update your price. This works well to help you order smaller stickers faster too.

### Try automatic discounts
Don't waste time figuring out your exact size ever again. [Automatic discounts](https://www.stickermule.com/automatic-discounts) is a Sticker Mule exclusive that we're incredibly excited about. 

Try it by [ordering an approximate size](https://www.stickermule.com/custom-stickers) and let us know what you think.

Automatic discounts saves you time and money by automatically determining your correct size during proofing. 

Dribbble global meetup sponsor 

With hundreds of meetups happening around the world in 2016, Dribbble's online community of designers is fast becoming one of the best offline communities for designers too. [Dribbble](https://dribbble.com/) is a place to show and tell, promote, discover, and explore design. It's a community that [Sticker Mule](https://www.stickermule.com) has been a part of for years.

Sticker Mule and Dribbble both started in 2010. We've had a great relationship with the team, located in Salem, MA, from the start. Dribbble has become more than just a social network to us—it's become our favorite community to engage with and be a part of. Here's what Dave, our lead designer, said,

> Dribbble is the single most important social network for anyone that cares about design. It’s done more to help us build our team and brand than Facebook, Twitter and Instagram combined.

## 2016 Global meetup sponsor

This year we decided to make our "relationship" with Dribbble official by sponsoring [hundreds of meetups](https://dribbble.com/meetups) in cities like Toronto, New Delhi, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City and more.

As an official partner along with [InVision](https://www.invisionapp.com), we're sending meetup kits to cities around the world. The kits include branded Sticker Mule and Dribbble stickers (including our newest product [transfer stickers](https://www.stickermule.com/products/transfer-stickers)), sample stickers, and [Sticker Mule gift cards](https://www.stickermule.com/products/gift-cards).

## Kicking it off

Last month, [we kicked off the partnership](https://dribbble.com/stories/2016/01/26/global-meetup-sponsor-sticker-mule) with what became a Legendary Playoff shot ["Free Custom Stickers for Everyone"](https://dribbble.com/shots/2483034-Free-Custom-Stickers-For-Everyone). The shot was viewed more than 14,000 times, rebounded over 600 and received a record breaking 1,553 likes. Although the deal has ended, we have much more in store for the design and Dribbble community.

## What's next

In addition to sponsoring global meetups, we plan to continue the monthly playoffs we began mid-2015. With a theme and unique prizes for winners, each playoff presents a unique opportunity for Dribbblers to see their design in real life as a sticker or a [button](https://www.stickermule.com/custom-buttons).

[Visit us on Dribbble](https://dribbble.com/stickermule) to see past playoffs, upcoming deals, and new shots!


We're sponsoring Dribbble meetups all over the world with meetup kits, stickers, and more. 

The Sticker Mule guide to Asana 

![The Sticker Mule Guide to Asana](https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.stickermule.com/blog/2016-02-12-the-remote-team-guide-to-asana/sticker-mule-guide-to-asana.png "The Sticker Mule Guide to Asana")

[Asana](https://asana.com/) is Sticker Mule's task management platform. We use it to create, track, assign, discuss and complete every task that isn't managed by a specialized system. Asana is flexible and feature rich which makes it intimidating at first. There's no definite way to use Asana correctly. To get full value requires upfront effort and a willingness to agree on conventions to standardize use.

We wrote this guide to explain how we use Asana at Sticker Mule. We designed it as a reference for our team and have published it for other teams that may find it useful.

##How we organize tasks in Asana
Asana encourages you to create teams of people that manage projects comprised of tasks and subtasks. We generally do not use it in this manner because most of our projects are small. It doesn't make sense for us to create hundreds of projects so we redefined Asana's conventions to categorize our work.

> It doesn't make sense for us to create hundreds of projects so we redefined Asana's conventions to categorize our work.

We use teams to create top level categories and projects to create subcategories. A task within a project (i.e. subcategory) can be a discrete task or a project that's organized using subtasks. Occasionally, we use Asana projects to track actual projects too. Our top level categories, which are setup as teams, are:

### Product design
The product design team categorizes improvements to our product (i.e. web site & related apps) by placing them in categories (via projects) for each functional area (i.e. cart, checkout, reorders, reviews, etc.). 

Periodically, we prioritize tasks within each functional area (i.e. project) using section headings to sort tasks by priority. When we start work on a particular area, we can quickly scan a list of related improvements sorted by priority. For example, if a developer is working on the cart, they may look at the cart project to quickly grab a few extra tasks to complete.

### Development
The development team categorizes development work by creating projects to track: defects, rough edges, high priority tasks and our roadmap. The roadmap provides a high level overview of the main improvements we intend to make. 

We also stay focused by using a "rough edges" project to categorize non-critical improvements that won't be noticeable by most users. Most "rough edges" are rather easy fixes and our team will tackle a few in between pursuing more substantial projects. 

Finally, we will sometimes create projects to track actual projects our dev team is pursuing if they are substantial in size.

### Operations
The operations team organizes work that's related to operational improvements. Since most operations projects are substantial, we use Asana projects within this team to track actual projects. The projects are roughly sorted by priority from top to bottom so anyone can monitor them. 

Additionally, we have a catch all project called "Ops ideas" that tracks ideas that may lead to operational improvements. Anyone is free to post an idea to the "Ops ideas" project. If a task within that project is green-lit, and seems substantial, we may convert it to an actual project.

### Marketing
The marketing team includes projects that categorize work by functional area (i.e. email, advertising, content, conversion, launches, etc.). Within each project we use section headings to sort tasks by priority. Additionally, we have a "Marketing ideas" that tracks tasks which don't fit into an existing category. 

Ideally, one person would own each area, but our team is still small so most people oversee a few areas.

### Customer Service
The customer service team includes a "CS ideas" project that tracks tasks that lead to customer service improvements, a "FAQs" project that tracks FAQs we need to create or revise and a "Rush" project that tracks orders which must ship early. 

Anything posted to the "CS ideas" project is intended to have 2 specific results: improve customer service efficiency or reduce the need for customers to request help.

### Human Resources
The human resources team includes a "Positions" project that tracks all open & potential positions. We use subtasks within each position to track additional tasks that need to be performed to fill the position (i.e. post ads, create job description, etc). 

We also have an "Onboarding & Training" project where we create tasks to represent each new hire and subtasks that reflect the onboarding and training tasks for that person.

## Asana tips & tricks

### Task naming conventions
1. Start task names with verbs (i.e. Consider, Send, Fix, Add, Design, Implement, Order)
2. Use sentence case. It's Easier To Read.
3. Be concise.

#### Example task names:
1. Consider using Google Tag Manager
2. Redesign invoice PDF
3. Design custom labels early access landing page
4. Implement custom labels early access landing page
5. Fix issue with address validator presenting identical addresses
6. Send email announcing custom labels
7. Order new chairs for the office.

### How to write a good task description
1. Use headings to give structure to a task description (CMD + B to bold)
2. Include screenshots & screencasts whenever possible using [Cloudapp](https://www.getcloudapp.com/)
3. Be concise and comprehensive. Needless words waste an assignee's time but so does making them ask for clarification.

### Turn off email
To speed up Asana adoption we encourage everyone to turn off email notifications to get used to relying on the Asana inbox.

### Assign tasks during onboarding
We give everyone Asana tasks as part of their onboarding so they start using the platform immediately. Example onboarding tasks we'll assign include "Place a free order using store credit", "Review and sign company handbook", and "Turn off email notifications in Asana".

> We give everyone Asana tasks as part of their onboarding so they start using the platform immediately.

### Use today, upcoming and later
Asana lets you organize your personal task list by putting tasks in either today (Tab+Y), upcoming (Tab+U) or later (Tab+L). Generally, we put current tasks in "today" even if they're not to be done today and use "upcoming" to track pending tasks. "Later" tracks tasks we might do.

### Projects aren't required
It's helpful to categorize work using projects but don't agonize trying to find the correct project for every task. The important thing is to create tasks, assign them to the proper person and notify the relevant people using the followers feature.

### Tasks can belong to multiple projects
We often put tasks in multiple projects. Most team members only care about a limited set of projects (i.e. task categories). To better coordinate, we sometimes categorize task in multiple projects so that relevant people can quickly view them. For example, a task could be in the "CS ideas" and "Checkout" project if it's both a benefit to our CS team and related to our checkout.

### Use Tab+Q
We encourage everyone to create tasks using the "Tab + Q" keyboard shortcut. It speeds up the task creation and helps you quickly put all of your tasks in Asana.

### Encourage task creation via other channels
We encourage each other to create tasks Asana when they're identified via another channel (i.e. in person or Slack). Usually, this is as simple as saying "Can you make a task in Asana and assign it to (me, yourself, another person)". This is especially important with new team members so that using Asana becomes habit forming quickly.

### Copy & paste templates
Asana's [templates feature](https://asana.com/guide/team/advanced/save-time-in-asana) is imperfect so we maintain our templates in a Google Doc. Often we'll post templates to a project description for quick access. For example, our "Onboarding and training" project includes a template of common onboarding tasks. A team members can copy & paste this list of tasks to create subtasks that need to be completed to onboard a new hire.

Hopefully Asana builds a real templating engine to make it easy to manage lists of re-usable tasks that can be added as subtasks to existing tasks or as tasks to projects.

> It's common for new team members to embrace Asana reluctantly only to become emphatic proponents within a few weeks.

## Concluding remarks
Since Asana is more complex than other task management platforms, it's common for new team members to embrace it reluctantly only to become emphatic proponents within a few weeks. Without Asana, and our conventions for using it, we wouldn't be able to gracefully coordinate and grow a remote team. 

While Asana is a big help, it can just as easily become a big mess without care to keep it well organized. As we continue to grow and launch new products (like [custom magnets](https://www.stickermule.com/products/custom-magnets)), our documentation and conventions will continue evolving. 

Our team works extraordinarily well together not just because we share the same tools, but because we share a similar perspective on work. We all tend to be [humble, independent, logical, thoughtful and autodidactic](https://www.stickermule.com/blog/characteristics-we-look-for-in-team-members). 

If you have these characteristics too, [we're hiring](https://www.stickermule.com/careers?ref=blog).


Although there's no definite way to use Asana correctly, Sticker Mule shows how it organizes and grows its remote team with the platform. 

Sticker Mule goes to Italy

Today we officially launched [Sticker Mule Italy](https://www.stickermule.com/it) so it seemed fitting to explain how we got here. 5 years ago when we started Sticker Mule our vision didn’t reach beyond the United States. International business is complicated and we were a small startup. We thought it best to focus on growing at home and set out telling everyone we could about Sticker Mule. 

Our background made us inclined to engage with designers and developers so we tried our best to befriend these communities. It didn't take long to realize that that the Internet is international and many of the best developers and designers live outside the United States. 

To properly engage these communities we needed to ship internationally at a minimum. So, early on, we contacted UPS to get rates, added international ship methods to our web site and naively thought we were done. Shortly thereafter, the complaints came in: "my order is stuck in customs" "my order is late" "I got hit with an unexpected $80 charge to clear customs." It turns out selling internationally isn't as simple as adding international ship methods to your web site. 

We eventually developed our roadmap on [how to become an international ecommerce business](https://www.stickermule.com/blog/building-international-ecommerce-company). This guided our progress as we quietly made numerous improvements to help our international customers including:

1. Shipping worldwide quickly and with tracking. 
2. Ensuring orders clear customs without problems.
3. Eliminating import duties (we pay them for you).
4. Reducing shipping costs worldwide.
5. Introducing free shipping to Western Europe.
6. Supporting the metric system.
7. Supporting the Euro.

Along the way, our team grew to become international as well. More than 50% of our core team lives outside the United States. [David North](https://twitter.com/davidnorth) has been with us since our inception and lives in England. 

[Brian Quinn](https://twitter.com/bdq) works out of Ireland. [Lucas Húngaro](https://twitter.com/lucashungaro) is in Brazil. And, [Andrea Giannangelo](https://twitter.com/Facens) & [Stefano Di Luca](https://twitter.com/pennadl) are in Italy. Already, we've seen tremendous growth internationally, year over year we grow faster abroad than in our home country and that will accelerate as we execute our roadmap. 

If it seems as though we stumbled into becoming international that's because we did. We didn’t plan to have an international team or sell internationally. Our sole intention was to build an amazing customer experience and it turns out expanding beyond the U.S. and hiring the best people in the world were necessary to pursue that goal. 

Admittedly, we even stumbled into starting our international expansion in Italy. One night, I came across the [Unixstickers](https://www.stickermule.com/unixstickers) website and started a live chat session with Stefano Di Luca who happened to be Italian. You don’t have to chat for long with Stefano to realize you would love to work with him so we kept in touch. 

Eventually he introduced us to his partner Andrea Giannangelo who also left an amazing impression on us. We immediately knew we wanted Andrea & Stefano on our team and I’d like to think they knew right away they’d enjoy working with us. A few months later Sticker Mule Italy was born. We haven’t decided what country we’re headed to next, but if you’re interested in being a part of our journey [we’re hiring](https://www.stickermule.com/careers "Sticker Mule careers"). :-)

We recently launched an Italian version of our website. Here's a brief overview of how we stumbled into the Italian market. 

On phone support 

We discontinued phone support recently. Our rationale is explained below:

### Phone support is difficult to scale.
You can't easily put a new person on the phone since you have limited control over the difficulty of calls they take. By contrast, you can let newer support agents respond to easy emails until they are comfortable handling more difficult ones.

### Phone support is difficult to monitor.
It's time consuming to listen to calls, but scanning emails is quick and efficient. It takes me an hour per day to read all of our customer service communication, but it's incredibly useful. Our core team reads the majority of our emails as a source of ideas and to keep a pulse on how we're performing.

### Phone support increases head count.
Phone support is more human capital intensive than email support. It's difficult to maintain the quality of your organization when head count grows quickly. Erring on the side of needing fewer people makes it easier for us to ensure all of our people are top notch.

### Phone support is difficult to automate.
Email support can be automated by developing faqs, macros, videos and efficient routing systems. It's not possible to automate phone support to the same extent.

### Phone support is not concise.
We aim to be clear, concise and comprehensive in how we respond to your questions. Often that means taking a moment to research an answer and review our response with coworkers before replying. It's not possible to handle a difficult phone inquiry in this manner without putting you on hold or calling you back later.

### Phone support is not documented.
Special arrangements made on the phone must be documented by an agent who could record them inaccurately. By contrast, all email inquiries are associated to your account and can be viewed by our entire team so that we are all familiar with your needs.

### Final thoughts...
Since implementing this change, we have been diligently reviewing every customer interaction, documenting problems and developing solutions to prevent common problems from recurring. Most support inquiries exist because we failed in some regard. Either our process had a hiccup or our ordering experience was confusing. Already we have fixed dozens of small problems and more improvements are coming soon.

### One small, related bonus...
We removed the phone number field from checkout for all US customers. Filling out forms isn't fun, but we hope cutting one needless field makes checkout a bit more pleasant.

Contemplating a similar decision? You may want to read [Wistia's](http://wistia.com/blog/scaling-support-why-we-removed-our-phone-number-from-our-website/) blog posts on this topic.


We discontinued phone support recently and explain why in this blog post. 

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