Feeling out–of–sync is one of the drawbacks I alluded to. It's part of it… we're actually thinking of ponying up to fly the whole team out together every year or so to combat that very thing. But if you're remote, in the end the work itself has to be enough motivation.

As far as no deadlines: it's a strongly ingrained belief shared by the founding members. Our mantra is more like: never promise a date. But if you promise a date, you must hit it, come hell or high water… so pad the living hell out of it. Like, to the point where there's no way you can miss it.

If you promise something in two weeks, the client doesn't give a shit if you killed yourself with 20 hour days and just barely made it. But if you promise something in a month and deliver it in two weeks, they'll love you.