Guarapo Labs is a software development studio in Barranquilla, Colombia. Charly Palencia and his co-founders started it in the middle of the pandemic, working out of Charly's apartment, and grew it into a team of around 25 that builds custom digital products and augments engineering teams for clients across the United States.
As they grew, they invested in a real home base.
"We rented a big office, a nice one, meant for around fifty developers. We wanted to give the team a comfortable place to work, somewhere they felt good about being."
Then the team's own flexibility started to empty it out.
"We have a very open policy about working from home, so people started moving back to their houses to be with their families, which is good. But I began feeling that we were losing that touch we had with each other. It's really different from being in the office and talking to everyone. Once people spread out, that stopped happening, and honestly it frustrated me a little."
Charly went looking for something to bring the team feeling back. The usual tools didn't fit.
"Chat tools like Slack or Mattermost are specific for one job. They're fine for talking to a customer and keeping the history, but you're not creating a solid team with them."
He found Cosmos, and rather than rolling it out top-down, he let it spread.
"When I looked at the options, I saw Cosmos, and it fit the way I wanted us to work. We started as a test with two or three people. Suddenly the others just started joining on their own. We didn't say anything. They formed their own groups and started talking in the rooms. It was fun. They felt like they were in an office again."
The clearest change was speed. Remote work had quietly doubled the time it took to solve a client's problem.
"Before, when someone was remote, everything took double the time because of the back and forth of messages. Now we solve issues for our clients the same way we did in the real office. How the team communicates is really similar to being there in person, and the solutions come fast."
Presence is a big part of it. Charly can see who is around without asking.
"Sometimes I'm busy and I don't have time to walk over to someone, but I can see everyone there, in green. It's not like Slack, where you send a message and wait. You can see they're there, and you just jump in."
Charly is clear that he never forced the team onto Cosmos. He made it the place worth being.
"If you push people to do something, you get no value. It's like a child: force them and they'll do anything but that. So instead we added value to Cosmos. Where's Charly? In Cosmos. Where's HR? In Cosmos. Where's the dev team today? In Cosmos. If you need us, you come there. The team grew into it not because we pushed, but because the people they need are there."
That principle shows up from a new hire's very first day.
"A new developer's first conversation is with our HR director, in Cosmos. They just start talking about anything. It shows them it's not only a tool, it's the place where communication happens, the virtual office."
The space has become theirs. One team member has quietly appointed herself its decorator.
"One of the team decorates the office for every season, Christmas, Halloween. Nobody asked her to, she just does it, and everyone loves it."
They have extended the same sense of ownership to clients, giving them their own rooms inside the office.
"We give our clients their own rooms, with their logo, so they feel ownership of the space. It helps them feel part of what we're doing."
Cosmos hasn't replaced everything, and Charly is happy with that. Mattermost still holds the history; Cosmos is where the team actually talks.
"There's a tool for everything. I keep Mattermost for my threads and history. But when I need to talk, I go to Cosmos. I don't schedule anything, they're already there. I just jump in and start talking."
Charly Palencia
Founder - Guarapo Labs
Create a supportive community of learners in Cosmos where they find like-minded peers to talk-live.
Get Cosmos Free
