Reflections on Remote Work
We are a remote-first company. It started as a temporary solution during the 2020 pandemic response, and we stuck to it.
Ledger Investing has a small New York office but offers every employee the option to work remotely. As a consequence, every team chose to be fully remote.
Global without giant HQs
I edited this post in a café in Paris. Colleagues in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle schedule calls daily. Yet, our company does not have central headquarters. This possibility is a result of efficient organization and clean technology workflows.
Better apps support better conversations
Slack, Google workspace, Figma, Git, and Jira had become part of Ledger workflows before 2020. Oculus VR headsets are newer for us. We initially adopted these collaborative tools, like most companies, as an addition to our physical office presence.
The apps available today are more performant, responsive, always connected. They allow for a balance between asynchronous task completions and meetings. Throughout the pandemic, within Ledger teams, we became power users. It has now eclipsed the need for a physical office presence.
Moreover, we find our conversations more meaningful than the traditional office setup. With the various video platforms, we are more engaged in the dialogue of meetings. We’re either in a “camera environment”, close to the camera where active listening takes place, or in a “document environment” where collaborative edits and focus happen live.
Digital nomads working with stay-at-home parents
The diversity of lifestyles within Ledger Investing is extraordinary. We learn from each other and benefit from different perspectives. Work from home policies encourages co-existing, cross-team collaborations. Everyone's choice of communication medium naturally facilitates the expression of ideas. The spectrum of options ranges from emails to videos, from web app to Jupyter notebooks.
The variety of experiences, environments, and perspectives make for great teams in practice! We have a different perspective on problems because we are each experiencing them differently in the world. The weather, economies, crime, food, politics, and time zones are much different in all of the various remote locations. And occasional in-person meetups in groups still take place every few months.
Talents!
Full-remote was a business decision. Startups fight to hire the best people. Employees can work from home because we firmly believe in hiring the best talents wherever they are.
For applicant candidates, the ability to live where they please is a perk. There are merits to bringing gyms, pools, and laundry on-site for employees. That makes office life less painful. However, maybe the best office is no office.
The best for everyone
Ledger employees can live wherever they feel at home, from the beach to the northern part of Canada. There is no longer a requirement to adapt life plans to geographical constraints—some favor staying closer to family while some choose to explore the world's cafés.
Our startup
Ledger Investing is our startup, and we are building a marketplace for insurance securities. These securities are attractive to outside investors looking to gain access to pure insurance risk. They also result in a lower cost of coverage for insurers and MGAs.
We have the expertise in insurance risk origination, capital markets, data science, software, and legal matters to help investors understand the insurance risk they’re buying.
We are hiring, contact us!
