Companies building tools we love — embracing a culture of remote work.

Having the freedom to work wherever you’d like to roam is fun, rewarding, efficient and productive. Increasingly, companies large and small are embracing the work from anywhere, anytime culture. Still relatively new, this work style presents challenges that traditional, in-office teams and companies often don’t face.

Luckily, we can find numerous lists of tools to help those of us working remotely. But we wanted more than a list — we wanted to examine not only what teams are making, but how they’re making.

In our quest to find and meet remote teams, we discovered that some of our favorite tools are built by distributed companies! We quickly discovered more than we could possibly fit into a quick read — so consider this an introduction into the world of companies who cultivate and thrive on an independently collaborate culture.

Check them out! And stay tuned for Q+As with each team. Have a question you’d like ask? Leave us a note.

Buffer

What they do: Buffer is a social media tool that helps you manage and schedule your social posts across several platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and Google Plus.

Why we love them: Bootstrapping a startup means our time is stretched thin. Buffer helps us stay connected and ensures the right post goes out at the right time on the right social media platforms. And everyone we meet at Buffer is awesome. One of our earliest scouts turned us onto Buffer and helped us launch NYC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Github

What they do: A code sharing and version control platform.

Why we love them: We use Github to store our source code, track issues and prioritize our dreams. Beyond that, Github helps us keep track of old features and stay organized while we create new ones.

Sqwiggle

What they do: Remote team collaboration. Connect with your fellow teammates in the browser or apps via video conferencing and chat.

Why we love them: It’s simple. We wear more hats than … can fit into grandma’s hat boxes and have too little time to futz with software. Within a few minutes we were chatting. We can easily see who’s “in the virtual office” or off on an adventure. Feeling connected with each other is super important to us and Sqwiggle helps us keep those connections when we can’t be face to face.

Digital Ocean

What they do: A simple and fast cloud hosting provider built for developers.

Why we love them: Workfrom.co is hosted on Digital Ocean servers which has allowed us to scale within budget. Their cart-blanche servers allow us to play with a myriad of technologies without being locked into any stack or programming language. Their customer support is awesome. And we get the pleasure of working alonside some of their Portland folks at weekly Workfrom Portland meetups.

Product Hunt

What they do: Curated list of new products, updated daily. Did you first discover see Workfrom when it was hunted?

Why we love them: Not only is Product Hunt a great place to be introduced to cool new products and tools, it has helped us gain an early audience. We’ve made lasting connections through the forums and their first, global remote hackathon. Early adopters have let us know what they’d like to see, what worked for them, and what didn’t. Free feedback from an informed community is crucial for a startup!

Automattic

What they do: They built WordPress, which powers over 22% of the web. What!?! That’s amazing.

Why we love them: Workfrom.co started on WordPress. It allowed us to get a proof of concept up quickly with little investment. And from that we were able to test new product ideas, features and market early and often. We call it our Lean Startup Machine. Automattic has built one of the world’s largest communities and most popular CMS, all while living a location independent workstyle.

Speek

What they do: Super simple conferencing calls. Share a URL and chat on any phone or browser without having to install a thing. We use them for outside and team calls often.

Why we love them: No downloads! To get a conference call going for sales, partners, and teammates we send a link. Participants can join via the web, or have it call their phone. And for those of us who like installs, there’s an iPhone app. With Speek, our conversations start on time and that means they’re more likely to end on time.

Zapier

What they do: Lets you build workflows, business processes and connect your apps without any programming. Need to connect Tumblr with Twitter? There’s a Zap for that!

Why we love them: We love to test new systems and with Zapier, we can quickly integrate new products and systems into our workflows with little investment. Our data and processes are automated across the various cloud services we use — so we can spend less time on administrative stuff and more time being productive.

Workfrom

What we do: Workfrom is a community of people and places helping one another discover, share and support the best coffee shops, bars, cafes, coworking spots and other shared workspaces. We don’t have an office, choosing instead to work from the places shared on our site.

Why we love our community: Our community has sourced some of the best bars, coffee shops, cafes and coworking spaces to get work done all over the world. We use workfrom.co daily to find new and inspiring places to get work done while we roam.

This story was adapted for Medium from the Workfrom Blog.