Existential checks are when we have to detect whether or not a variable has a value - that is, checking to see if a variable exists. If the value is null, undefined or otherwise falsy, then it fails the check. This usually takes the form of an if-statement.

Let’s say you’ve created a SaaS application that lets customers keep track of their vendors. Things are going well and you’re adding many customers. One day, a curious customer starts messing around with the IDs in URLs and stumbles across a vendor they shouldn’t have access to. This is Very Bad™, especially if your customers are relying on your application to store sensitive information!

If you’ve been following along in this three-part series, perhaps you’ve started to pick up on a theme: We believe that intentional culture design is necessary for creating a center that holds on a distributed team. And a large part of that design work lies in establishing clear expectations around what work needs to be done, and how it should be done.

We're passionate about building a diverse team of talented people who accomplish great things together, regardless of where they are. We know that our ability to achieve our mission is contingent on ensuring our team performs at a high level and making Aptible the best environment to support that kind of team. We can’t control what’s happening outside of Aptible, but we can be certain that we have a greater chance at long-term success if our center holds. This means that the core of Aptible—our team and its culture—must be strong, through every phase of growth.

It was 2014, and our CEO (Chas) and CTO (Frank) had been working side-by-side in New York, NY on the beginnings of Aptible. They were ready to grow the business and found a talented Product Designer to join. The only challenge was that said Product Designer lived in Indianapolis, IN, and he wasn’t planning on moving any time soon. Could an early stage startup successfully get off the ground with hundreds of miles between its founding members?

Sydney Shea didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a Product Designer — she didn’t even know Product Design was a possibility. It took traveling down many paths, including earning an Architecture degree in college, to learn the skills and discover the opportunities that helped her get to where she is today.

At Aptible, we’ve spent years thinking about how to run a high-performing remote team. Key to our ability to make important business decisions and promote collaboration as a team is something Skylar Anderson, Aptible’s VP of Design (and our first employee) describes as “having a culture of knowing when to make things permanent.”

Here at Aptible, we've been fully distributed since Employee #1. We have colleagues everywhere — from Vancouver to New York — who've enjoyed the flexibility to work from home or a local co-working space of their choice. We invited Aptilians to share their workspaces and advice for making remote work really work for them.

Aptible's internal response to COVID-19 began on Monday, March 9, and we've been updating it every day since. As of Wednesday, March 11, all Aptible team members will be working from home, and all company travel has been suspended, until further notice. We will continue to update our policies as the situation changes, in order to promote the safety and well-being of our team, their families, and our customers.