Remote work and events are on the rise, as they allow for more flexibility and convenience. However, one of the main seeming drawbacks is the drop in the team spirit and isolation. But since remote work is here to stay, those challenges need to be tackled.
For those companies that work across different time zones, it can be particularly tricky to arrange team events. With remote work, technology makes it easier. To boost the collaboration and support the remote team members, new solutions are needed. A digital agency called Planetary created such a solution called Pizzatime, and it’s about much more than ordering Italian delicacies.
Pizzatime: Throw a pizza party for your remote team https://t.co/nTLk0cyX4R pic.twitter.com/oGG10AVPKc
— Winson Tang (@winsontang) October 16, 2021
Virtual pizza party
Initially launched in 2019 and then re-launched during the pandemic, Pizzatime can help arrange virtual events and experiences, such as pizza parties, sales lunches, Happy Hour, or other food-related events. Wherever your team members are in the world, the company takes care of the logistics, ordering, and delivery of the food to the employees’ homes.
The idea was born out of a virtual party that Pizzatime’s founder Joshua Gross had in 2019 with his remote team members. Despite being shut down in 2019, they nonetheless received many requests to return once the COVID-19 pandemic hit. According to Gross, the company had over 1,500 a day by the end of 2020.
No-code pizza
The product is built with no-code solutions, Webflow, Typeform, Zapier, and Airtable. It’s quite simple to order an event from Pizzatime. The data from Typeform on the Webflow-built website is sent or “zapped” to the team’s Airtable, and the order link is provided for sharing on the team’s channels like Slack.
https://twitter.com/cadenceconnect/status/1487087461306023936
From there, the platform coordinates deliveries to each city, state, or country, and the team members receive a Zoom link to join the event. Pizzatime also offers team-building experiences like Stand-up comedians, Trivia parties, or Virtual escape rooms.
In the post-pandemic world, many such businesses are struggling to recover after being shut down in most of the world for almost two years. I believe that solutions like Pizzatime’s offerings can help them break more into the digital markets and even find new audiences.
What are the costs to arrange a Pizzatime meeting?
Based on the Pizzatime website the costs for a pizza party via video call start at $25 per person for a pizza, $20 per person for a coffee and breakfast session, $28 per person for a lunch meeting, and $49 per person for a drinks session. Maybe not the cheapest option out there but if you need to arrange a virtual party with food and beverages in multiple locations or even countries, things can get complex and time-consuming as well, so there might be some savings on the administrative end of things.
Remote work is here to stay. And given the popularity of virtual events and pizza, I reckon that we’ll continue seeing Pizzatime’s success for quite some time.
Photo credit: The feature image is symbolic and has been taken by Natasha Fedorova.
Sources: Ryan Hoover (Medium) / Deb Tennen (Zapier blog) / Danielle Abril (The Washington Post) / Michelle Cheng (Quartz)
