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One Room, Three Days, Nobody Defending Their Own Plan: Inside Vase.ai's Q3 All Hands

A look inside Vase.ai's Q3 All Hands: how we plan a quarter, pressure-test each other's work, and keep the team sharp. We're hiring.

Tiago Gouveia
Tiago Gouveia

Sep 09, 2026

Good plans get argued with first

Every quarter we shut the laptops and get the whole company into one room for three days. Q3 was about sharpening what we want to be known for, and making sure every team's plan had been properly argued with before it became the plan.



What's Inside Our Q3 All Hands Recap




1. The Positioning Conversation

We asked what we want to be genuinely known for, and where we choose to compete. The whole room worked through it, not just marketing. Some of it landed. Honestly, a lot of it didn't: getting brand positioning to align across Sales, CS, Panel, Product and Engineering is hard, and we'd rather leave it open than force a decision just to make the agenda look tidy.

 

Vase.ai All Hands Q3
Vase.ai All Hands Q3
Vase.ai All Hands Q3
Vase.ai All Hands Q3
Vase.ai All Hands Q3
Vase.ai All Hands Q3
Vase.ai All Hands Q3
Vase.ai All Hands Q3
Vase.ai All Hands Q3



2. Pressure-testing the plan

Each team got an hour. Twenty minutes to present, no interruptions. Twenty minutes where the room splits into a Build team and a Challenge team, sides assigned and rotating. Then the last twenty minutes: both sides present back, and the team that owns the plan says nothing. No defending. Just notes.

That silence is the whole point. Take away the right to reply and the feedback gets braver. Nobody left with the plan they walked in with.

 



 

3. Big ambitions, small team

We want to do a lot, probably more than our headcount and hours can actually support right now. So one rule cut through every session: if a number is red, that's what you fix first. New ideas are always more exciting than the metric that's been quietly off track for a month. Saying that out loud kept the ambition honest.

 



 

4. What actually makes it work

Underneath the process, it's simple: we genuinely like working with each other, and that's what lets us push hard on each other's plans without it turning personal. It's also what we think shows up on the other end, in the experience and the product our clients get.

We closed with circle time, everyone says what they're taking home. Least structured half hour of the offsite, the one people remember most.

 


 

5. Taking this into the quarter

Every All Hands leaves us with a few things worth carrying into the weeks ahead. These are the ones we are taking with us.

  1. Positioning is everyone's job, not just marketing's.
  2. A plan nobody has argued with isn't finished.
  3. Red numbers before new ideas, always.
  4. We can't do everything at once, and that's fine.

 


 

Think Like Us? Work With Us.

None of this works without a certain kind of person in the room. Someone who will take apart a plan they had nothing to do with, then hand over their own to be taken apart on the next round, without sulking either way.

We are a Kuala Lumpur-based team building Southeast Asia's leading consumer research platform, and we are growing. We are looking for people who:

  • Think clearly and are not afraid to say what they actually believe

  • Take ownership without waiting to be told

  • Build alongside others rather than around them

  • Care about doing the work well, not just getting it done

If any of that sounds like you, we would love to meet you. See what we are building, check out our open roles, or just reach out directly. The next All Hands is already on the calendar, and we would love to have you in the room.

Vase.ai: Adapting and thriving in remote work

 

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