Ask HN: Running your company fully remotely bad idea?
14 comments
I've done more long term travelling than the average person, but 5 years is a long time to commit to being rootless. Do it because you are enjoying it and can balance it with the demands of your company, not for tax reasons.
You can have great fun meeting new people especially at first, but transitory friendships can feel quite different from longstanding friends and family. Then again, you don't have to move around much where long term visas aren't needed or difficult to obtain, and some places have relatively stable shared workspace communities, other recently-arrived expats and/or local people that find foreigners interesting to befriend. Remote Work and similar programmes might also be worth considering if you want a group to work and travel with and don't mind premium prices and moving to their next destination every month.
There's a tradeoff between "serious travelling and seeing the world" and growing a company though. Emphasising sightseeing and cultural immersion over scaling and selling is a perfectly reasonable choice for most people, but if you want to focus on scaling and selling then the challenges of a new city and culture every month or two is a distraction, four day treks to spectacular sites is something you might not have time for, and you might find big advantages from being near your market and employees. Some timezones work well for collaboration with a European team (some arguably much better if you're not a morning person or like an early rise and free afternoons!) and some really don't.
You can have great fun meeting new people especially at first, but transitory friendships can feel quite different from longstanding friends and family. Then again, you don't have to move around much where long term visas aren't needed or difficult to obtain, and some places have relatively stable shared workspace communities, other recently-arrived expats and/or local people that find foreigners interesting to befriend. Remote Work and similar programmes might also be worth considering if you want a group to work and travel with and don't mind premium prices and moving to their next destination every month.
There's a tradeoff between "serious travelling and seeing the world" and growing a company though. Emphasising sightseeing and cultural immersion over scaling and selling is a perfectly reasonable choice for most people, but if you want to focus on scaling and selling then the challenges of a new city and culture every month or two is a distraction, four day treks to spectacular sites is something you might not have time for, and you might find big advantages from being near your market and employees. Some timezones work well for collaboration with a European team (some arguably much better if you're not a morning person or like an early rise and free afternoons!) and some really don't.
Thanks, I took your commitment comment to heart and decided that 5 years is too long for me to commit. I am now looking for shorter options!
Are there any HNers here that run their companies completely remote?
I am the founder of ideatostartup.org, which is a fully remote company.
What issues have you encountered?
Running a remote company has many advantages over non-remote companies. However, obviously it also depends on the sector the company is in. Remote only companies are possible only for a few sectors.
Did you lose a lot of productivity? Is it harder to grow the company?
The productivity in remote company is generally higher because only the best developers can thrive in a remote culture.
Is it harder to grow the company?
A remote can hire a professional from any location on Earth. If you know how to access the global talent correctly, it will be much easier to grow the company.
I don't have a partner but I'm a very extroverted person, so I think I should be fine in terms of loneliness?
Loneliness depends on the environment. If you stay alone in a house for long, you will definitely feel lonely. But, if you have good family or people who you can hangout with, you will enjoy working remotely even more.
Hope this was useful. If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to me.
I am the founder of ideatostartup.org, which is a fully remote company.
What issues have you encountered?
Running a remote company has many advantages over non-remote companies. However, obviously it also depends on the sector the company is in. Remote only companies are possible only for a few sectors.
Did you lose a lot of productivity? Is it harder to grow the company?
The productivity in remote company is generally higher because only the best developers can thrive in a remote culture.
Is it harder to grow the company?
A remote can hire a professional from any location on Earth. If you know how to access the global talent correctly, it will be much easier to grow the company.
I don't have a partner but I'm a very extroverted person, so I think I should be fine in terms of loneliness?
Loneliness depends on the environment. If you stay alone in a house for long, you will definitely feel lonely. But, if you have good family or people who you can hangout with, you will enjoy working remotely even more.
Hope this was useful. If you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to me.
Thanks man, appreciate it. We are in the data hosting business.
I don't have a family (gf, kids). When you say people, is that new friends you found while travelling?
I don't have a family (gf, kids). When you say people, is that new friends you found while travelling?
I would say go for it.
From my experience, a company can't be partially remote. Fully remote is a much better option.
Communication breaks down when you do partial remote. Some people would attend physical meetings. The remote ones are out of the loop and a separate remote 'meeting' is needed to update them. The non-remote people are also very unlikely to get on Slack, Jira, or whatever. It falls apart, and you end up with non-remote people handholding the remote ones.
The one fully remote team I worked with was extremely productive. Our Slack had about 20,000 messages a day. People were very good friends with each other; it's amazing how shitposting at 4 AM builds relationships faster than face to face conversation.
We didn't even need meetings. Since we talked on Slack 24/7, it was clear what the next step is for everyone, what everyone was doing, what wasn't being done, and what possible risks crop up.
Other benefits including saving on office space and cost saving of being able to hire top tier people from cheaper countries. 25k Euro annually will net you a good software developer in Lisbon or Kuala Lumpur. Double that, which is about the median for Berlin, and you'll net top tier devs from these countries.
For big things like a full app design workshop or training session, you can still handle them in person, fly everyone in.
Take note that many people can't work remotely. You'll be hiring from a different pool of recruits, the ones who prefer remote.
I'm in the office before sunrise, back home at sunset. 7 to 7 sounds crazy, but there are naps in between, playing with the kids, and plenty of rest. I know a guy who does two 3 hour batches in the day, and 2 hours at night, and does grocery shopping or laundry in between, during his rest. You also get the night owls who are happy working 6 PM to 6 AM.
For that reason, we had stand up meetings at 6 PM, where one group clocked out and another group clocked in. Side benefit was that we could assign one group work at night and the management team did code reviews in the morning. When the night team was exhausted, a fresh pair of eyes might spot a solution they didn't see, and vice versa.
p/s if you want to leave a country just to avoid taxes, Malaysia offers entrepreneur visas. Top of corporate and income tax here is about 25%.
From my experience, a company can't be partially remote. Fully remote is a much better option.
Communication breaks down when you do partial remote. Some people would attend physical meetings. The remote ones are out of the loop and a separate remote 'meeting' is needed to update them. The non-remote people are also very unlikely to get on Slack, Jira, or whatever. It falls apart, and you end up with non-remote people handholding the remote ones.
The one fully remote team I worked with was extremely productive. Our Slack had about 20,000 messages a day. People were very good friends with each other; it's amazing how shitposting at 4 AM builds relationships faster than face to face conversation.
We didn't even need meetings. Since we talked on Slack 24/7, it was clear what the next step is for everyone, what everyone was doing, what wasn't being done, and what possible risks crop up.
Other benefits including saving on office space and cost saving of being able to hire top tier people from cheaper countries. 25k Euro annually will net you a good software developer in Lisbon or Kuala Lumpur. Double that, which is about the median for Berlin, and you'll net top tier devs from these countries.
For big things like a full app design workshop or training session, you can still handle them in person, fly everyone in.
Take note that many people can't work remotely. You'll be hiring from a different pool of recruits, the ones who prefer remote.
I'm in the office before sunrise, back home at sunset. 7 to 7 sounds crazy, but there are naps in between, playing with the kids, and plenty of rest. I know a guy who does two 3 hour batches in the day, and 2 hours at night, and does grocery shopping or laundry in between, during his rest. You also get the night owls who are happy working 6 PM to 6 AM.
For that reason, we had stand up meetings at 6 PM, where one group clocked out and another group clocked in. Side benefit was that we could assign one group work at night and the management team did code reviews in the morning. When the night team was exhausted, a fresh pair of eyes might spot a solution they didn't see, and vice versa.
p/s if you want to leave a country just to avoid taxes, Malaysia offers entrepreneur visas. Top of corporate and income tax here is about 25%.
Thanks, we are looking at Dubai with 0% income tax.
My 9-person company is 100% remote, but we have been from the start so we've always had that culture. Note however we all work from our own homes; we are not simultaneously travelling. I wouldn't take issue with someone doing that by the way so long as they could remain productive and within a reasonably number of timezones.
It's harder to grow the company because it's hard to hire junior staff that you train up to senior level. This is because junior staff need a lot of attention from senior staff to train them up (which is more challenging in a remote situation) and also they tend to be younger and don't necessarily have the discipline to work for long stretches of time without supervision.
On the other hand, this means we only have ever had senior developers working on the codebase so its quality is much higher than I have seen at other companies.
It's harder to grow the company because it's hard to hire junior staff that you train up to senior level. This is because junior staff need a lot of attention from senior staff to train them up (which is more challenging in a remote situation) and also they tend to be younger and don't necessarily have the discipline to work for long stretches of time without supervision.
On the other hand, this means we only have ever had senior developers working on the codebase so its quality is much higher than I have seen at other companies.
May I ask in what industry you are in? Are you selling a product?
You may be interested in the GitLab Employee Handbook, which describes the business practices of a several hundred person remote-only company.
https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/
https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/
This is a must read for anyone building a (first-time startup tech)business in general, especially so if you are remote. It has helped me scale our team at my previous co.
Thanks for posting that, that's certainly inspirational!
Founding and running a company is a lifetime chance, to take that I personally would want to be as productive as possible to make it a success. Traveling all the time is everything but being focused on the company. So yes, you will lose focus, you will lose time, you will be tired if you switch places all the time. You are not sleeping in your own bed, there are several factors that will make it less productive.
Yes, you will see the world, meet new people and have a great time, but you can have all of that if your company is a success as well, and make it 10x more fun. Having remote employees is fine, since you want to attract the talent pool from around the globe etc etc. but traveling as a founder, I don't know.
Yes, you will see the world, meet new people and have a great time, but you can have all of that if your company is a success as well, and make it 10x more fun. Having remote employees is fine, since you want to attract the talent pool from around the globe etc etc. but traveling as a founder, I don't know.
Thanks I decided to look for shorter term options based on your and Notahacker's comment.
An opportunity has presented itself for our company to go fully remote (our last in-house employee left so we have nothing holding us to a physical location any longer).
We are based in a European country and are looking to move the company to Dubai at the same time. I really want to build this company, yet I'm 30 years old and have not done any serious travelling and seen the world. At the same time, I'd save a lot on taxes. We need to stay out of our country for at least 5 years to not become income taxed on return. And I think I want to return at some point.
My questions follows;
Are there any HNers here that run their companies completely remote? What issues have you encountered? Did you lose a lot of productivity? Is it harder to grow the company?
I'm a bit scared of feeling rootless. I don't have a partner but I'm a very extroverted person, so I think I should be fine in terms of loneliness? I will be moving around living a few months in different places to start with.
What's your experiences?