Live snakes and wasted money: Why most company off-sites don’t work

I wish I could have the dollars back on almost all of the off-sites I held as a founder.

I probably spent over $1 million throughout the years in various companies flying people in from around the world (we were in four countries so that made off-sites particularly expensive). We would organise fun and sometimes quirky things to help build camaraderie and team cohesion. A particularly embarrassing example was organising live snakes to be snuck into the hotel for a “let’s face our fears” session. The hotel found out when one of the participants was bitten, and was then seen showing off their bite in the restaurant.