1. Hey, can you please introduce yourself?
My name is Lars Lima, I am the VP of Business Development for Desktop.com and like the rest of the Desktop.com team have a history in the domain name industry where I have worked as a domain broker and as a business developer for a number of startups and established businesses. Today I am working tirelessly to land the right partners for Desktop.com and to develop our commercial scope.
I am based in Denmark, a dad of three, a husband of one and very much a nerd that enjoys cooking, reading and the occasional bout of trampoline jumping (don’t worry we have a very strong trampoline that can take some abuse).
2. What motivated you to choose remote working?
I have been working remotely for close to a decade. Early in my life I just knew that commuting for large swathes of my life would not fly for me. So when the chance came up to start working remotely and entirely cut away my commute time I was sold.
Often remote work also entails a large degree of flexibility and freedom to coordinate your work hours as you see fit. As a dad and husband that actually enjoys the company of his family this is invaluable for both me and them. I enjoy being able to participate in family activities in the late afternoon and then pick up work again in the evening after the kids are tucked in.
3. What were your initial months like? Did it live up to your expectations?
Diving into remote work took a bit of discipline before routines were established and positive habits formed. I remember initially enjoying the flexibility it entailed but missing the human contact. As a social human being it did take a bit of getting used to not being physically around your work colleagues and collaborators. It’s not entirely the same experience to send a giphy to your colleague as sending them a quick pick me up remark across the desk. It does come close though, so thank god for giphy 🙂
4. How did you find remote working roles?
The domain industry is small and is characterized by a number of fragmented service providers. Since the human talent pool is small there is a tradition for remote work in our industry. I found my current position through my network. But I did not actively search out a remote working role, that was just the role of the dice.
However if you are actively looking for remote work there are a number of websites devoted exclusively to disseminating these types of positions. I previously used Remote.co and Dynamite Jobs which both feature exclusively remote positions.
5. What have been the best, good and worst aspects of remote working for you?
The best aspect of remote working is being able to spend time with my kids while they are awake. They look cute sleeping, but are much more fun when actually interacting with me. Remote working with a team across the globe means that it makes little sense to schedule a 9 to 5 type work day. A more fragmented work day allows me more freedom with my children while they are active and gives me more flexibility to respond to collaborators across various time zones.
A good aspect of remote working is that I always have a great chef making my lunch. When there is time for even having lunch 🙂
The worst aspect of remote work for me, is as mentioned, not being physically together with your colleagues. Humans are flock animals and it’s just not the same without the pheromones.
6. What tools do you swear by while working remotely?
The core of my tech stack is the Desktop.com app. It connects all my web assets and tools into one UI, allows me to chat and call with collaborators, it stores my credentials and logs me into most services using SSO. It provides the backbone for my online work and personal life.
To organise our tasks we use Jira which, although having some issues with sorting and filtering of tasks, is one of the most usable and approachable task management tools I ever used.
Another very very important app for me is.. Notepad. I never grow out of having to paste temporary notes and remarks for myself and always have at least one notepad list open.
7. Your most exciting/ hilarious experience since you started working remotely.
One of the most exciting moments that stands out for me was the day/night we launched the Desktop.com MVP version. It had been a long 8 months haul working on a product that had never seen the light outside of a staging or development environment. Finally our baby was ready to see the world.
The internal team made plans to meet up late at night (mid day and early in the morning for some) and celebrate remotely, we each had a glass of champagne (or similar) and cheered in unison when we went live. Not only was it a pivotal moment for our company, but also for our team cheering together at the moment our labour came to fruition.
8. What is your golden advice to a new remote worker?
The number one golden rule is.. Get a good internet hook up! Remote work entails a large degree of online collaboration and no-one likes to wait for poor connectivity or noise on the line.
Be disciplined and organised. You have to keep up, no one is there to pace you directly. Also have your physical environment setup for success. You need good seating, lighting and soundscape, you probably won’t find a workplace environment engineer to advise you, so you have to figure out your surroundings yourself. Investing in a good microphone, lamp and chair will save you and your collaborators more than one headache.
9. How do you see your career shaping up and your goals?
Although I am an ambitious person career wise, my family has always been paramount. I want success but not at the cost of the wellbeing of my family. So I expect remote work to be part of my career going forward. It was already a norm in my chosen industry before the pandemic and in order for me to marry my professional and personal goals I find that remote work has many of the aspects needed to do so successfully.
My short term career goal is to ride the wave that is Desktop.com to new heights and to teach people how groundbreaking this tool is for their online workflow and we are well on the way already.
10. How do you expect remote working to evolve in the future?
I expect remote work to become the norm. The convenience and flexibility for both workers and employers entails less time and resources spent on setting up and reaching the physical workspace. Further during the pandemic where home/remote work became prevalent, sick leave fell by an average of 15% in Denmark. So I think that remote work has proven itself to be a cost saving tool for both employers and workers alike.
The added focus on remote work will probably also entail that future homes will be designed to accommodate physical workplaces to a much larger degree than what we see today. Overall I expect the circumstances around remote work to ease up and further facilitate this work form once society begins to acclimate to this new way of living your life.
11. Where can we follow you on?
I am not much of a social poster but if you would like to connect feel free to reach out via:
If you are interested in remote work you will probably find it much more interesting to follow Desktop.com: