In today’s environment of Covid-19, many aspects of life have moved to a virtual format. However through innovative platforms, “virtual” doesn’t have to mean “disconnected.” In fact, our selected tech platform this week prides itself on creating remote work and experiences as “liberating, not exhausting.” For this installment of the series, we are diving into the remote collaboration platform, Virbela.

The end of the year always brings about a sense of reflection and introspection. After this especially challenging year, we have often found ourselves looking back on the journey that got us to this point. Here, Beth pens a letter to her 2017 self, right after she had been laid off and was standing at a fork in the road. With the wisdom, hindsight, and experience of 2020, read on to see Beth give her past self the encouragement she needed to take a leap of faith.

Eight months into this global pandemic, we have done some reflecting and realized all of the valuable lessons we were forced to learn. BLME wanted to share these lessons with the world, in hopes of helping our fellow entrepreneurs.

For many, these unprecedented times caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic have elicited feelings of loneliness and isolation. These feelings have occupied not only people’s personal lives, but their professional lives as well. However, during this ongoing crisis, we need to work together, sharing ideas, solutions, and alternatives, more than ever. Read on to explore BLME’s tips and ideas for professional collaboration in the COVID-19 era.

About 8 years ago, I was a vendor at, what was promised to be, ‘the largest event showcase’ in my home city of Philadelphia. At the time, I was working full time for a well-known, high-end catering and event venue and took the entire day out of the office. Between setting up the booth, manning the booth and leaving myself time to network, it was a huge undertaking.

There must have been over 200 vendors that filled the Convention Center floor—everyone from lighting companies to staging, venue representatives and event designers packed the space. We were set up 15 minutes prior to the start of the event as instructed…and we waited.

And waited.

Oh, and waited some more.

Let’s start here: I’ve always been the person who finds more efficient ways to perform tasks. In my corporate past, I’d find ways to streamline communication between managers who worked opposite schedules, or to make meetings more efficient. In the startup world, I found that remote work was the most efficient use of my time, rather than shlepping between work spaces throughout the day. Now, with my clients, the onboarding process typically sees me finding ways to make working together more efficient. After all, many businesses have a handle on internal communication, but bringing in an external and/or remote team can be challenging.