Hardal

The distributed team uses a working principle that prioritizes asynchronous communication through writing, Slack and Linear.

How it works

Written and tool-mediated communication is the default for a team spread across time zones.

Why it is used

It reduces dependence on simultaneous availability.

Trade-off

Written coordination can slow urgent ambiguity resolution.

Best fit

Distributed teams able to document context.

Public Slack channels are primary for daily conversations; avoiding DMs is encouraged.

How it works

Conversation is kept in public channels unless a direct message is necessary.

Why it is used

It preserves context for the team instead of isolating it in private threads.

Trade-off

Public channels can be noisy and are not suitable for every sensitive issue.

Best fit

Teams needing shared operational context.

A stock-option plan for every team member and a continuing profit-sharing approach are described.

How it works

Grants are issued to team members, with four-year vesting, while profit sharing remains part of the approach.

Why it is used

It connects people building the company to potential ownership and financial outcome.

Trade-off

Equity value is uncertain and vesting delays realization.

Best fit

Early-stage companies able to explain equity risk and terms.

Team members in every country receive Hardal, Inc. common-stock options with four-year/one-year-cliff/monthly vesting, up-to-ten-year exercise, and double-trigger acceleration.

How it works

Vesting, post-departure exercise, and acceleration on acquisition plus termination are defined in one plan.

Why it is used

Makes ownership not just a grant but a realizable, employment-protected arrangement.

Trade-off

Final value is uncertain; a longer exercise window can affect cap-table and accounting cost.

Best fit

Fair, comprehensible option programs in cross-border early-stage companies.

The handbook explicitly defines “Focus Time”; communication preferences are designed to protect uninterrupted production time.

How it works

Async default and public written context work together to reduce the expectation of immediate response.

Why it is used

Reduces continual interruption of deep work by distributed coordination.

Trade-off

Urgent ambiguity can resolve more slowly and needs emergency-channel discipline.

Best fit

Product and engineering teams able to build written context.

Hardal runs product work through intake → triage → ready → planned → in progress → testing → done → learning. In daily triage every item gets a visible outcome (backlog, ready for cycle, needs evidence, documentation, deferred, cancelled, duplicate, urgent response); backlog is not a commitment. Each owner has one primary in-progress item.

How it works

A second active item is allowed only for a named dependency, an urgent interruption or a small unblock, with its reason and check date visible. Moving to testing needs a named environment, acceptance criteria and an assigned tester; “done” is defined per work type, and learning closes with a success metric, owner and date.

Why it is used

Giving every request an explicit outcome prevents silent backlog build-up; the single-active-item rule reduces half-finished parallel work.

Trade-off

The source describes a team of roughly 15; because different handbook pages describe planning and release cadence differently, only the states and WIP rule are reported here.

Best fit

Small and mid-size product teams whose intake is scattered and whose backlog has turned into an implicit commitment.

At Hardal individual contributors sit at L1–L6 and managers at M1–M3, and every level maps to a USD band benchmarked against remote-first software companies. Pay is set and communicated in USD regardless of country, with no automatic cost-of-living adjustment. Salary, promotion and bonus are handled in two formal reviews, in January and July.

How it works

Position within a band is set by impact and scope, not tenure or negotiation; ranges come from the market rather than what a candidate will accept. Promotion recognizes that someone already works at the next level.

Why it is used

Removing negotiation keeps similar pay for similar work and evaluates teammates in different countries on one scale.

Trade-off

Band figures are not published in the source; fixing pay in USD can leave currency and local-price risk with the employee, and two review windows delay mid-cycle corrections.

Best fit

Remote teams hiring across countries that want pay fairness decoupled from negotiation skill.