Why you should hire remote team members
Until your startup has built a reputable brand (and even then) it’s hard to find good talent. It’s serendipidous to meet someone who:
- Truly believes in your company’s vision
- Has the potential to grow into the role
- Will work for a significantly lower pay than what corporates offer
- Works well with the rest of the team
- Is ready to start next week
NewCampus accidently became a remote team. We were helping individuals learn together, from global entrepreneurs and experts, about emerging business, technology and cultural trends, and consistently building the skills they need to thrive in the changing world. We were building a global lifelong learning school with colearning campuses across the world.
One rule of thumb when building a startup is to understand why you’re the best person to be doing this, and the only people to be doing this.
So when hiring people for NewCampus, we would look for candidates that had a global mindset and loved to travel. If we were to be the ones helping others find career opportunities elsewhere, we should be doing it ourselves.
Finding someone who fits this bill, whilst also holding the five qualities above, was quite rare in Singapore. We had to be creative, and so ended up looking elsewhere. Here are some of our experiences in hiring a global team:
✨ Access to a global talent pool overnight
When we started looking for our first hires, the initial push was on local job platforms targeting interns in Singapore. Our company is registered there, and we had already met people in the local startup scene. Decent resumes came in, some with the right skills and the potential to grow into the company. Few of them had cross-border experience.
At that time we weren’t thinking of specialising as a cross-border company, but at the very least, we needed someone who understood Australian nuances (where our main users were), as well as could work well with the founders in Singapore. Our first all-rounder hire was a Singaporean who had studied and lived in Melbourne, and was interested in the startup scene. He is still with us today.
As QLC expanded into new product offerings and markets, we realised that local talent pools are capped. We needed people who could sell to Australian universities. People who could design content for American/British/U.S.-born-Chinese professionals. People who could connect with startups in Southeast Asia. Oh, and we needed them to start the next week.
Removing physical barriers to hiring will allow you to shorten your hiring cycles from months to weeks, diversify your talent pool to sophisticated and global-minded individuals and help you build awareness to enter new markets. We now have a team spread across Australia, North America, India, Singapore, China and the Philippines. Our headquarter is our email address.
💵 Reduced overhead
Unfortunately, most founders don’t have the luxury of working out of their parents’ garage. Office space is expensive. You also want to hold off being locked into long-term office contracts and getting swag furniture. The money you save on rent can be reinvested into growing the company and your team.
To save on office space, you can opt for the free wifi at Starbucks, trial passes at coworking spaces, or crashing at a more successful startup’s office for the week. Our “remote” office is spent mainly on subscriptions to SaaS tools we use to operate:
- Slack for team communication: $90/month
- Zoom for weekly standup calls: $20/month
- Google Drive for file sharing and storage: $100/month
- Basecamp for project management: $100/month
- Github for technology management: Free
Being frugal at the early stage of your company also instills a sense of responsibility to your team members. No, you don’t need ping pong tables to be a cool company.
⛹🏼♀️ Team members can enjoy life outside of work
There will be times where you’re staying up late for a proposal, or jumping on a call at 11pm. These things are required when you’re working remotely, or have global customers.
But your remote team will appreciate the freedom to own their schedule and figure out what lifestyle works for them. At NewCampus, we have weekly standup calls where all team members will dial into. We do this to establish the weekly strategy, understand blockers and just casually catch up with each other.
Of course we still collaborate outside of the call using remote tools. But the rest of the time, the team is able to work when they want, where they want, depending on their own commitments. Most of us love to travel every couple of months (visa runs and what not). Some of us have side projects and serious hobbies. Very few of us work out.
My routine is typically chilling at a nearby cafe for calls and emails in the morning. Then I join the Shanghai team for lunch and work at a shared coworking space until late afternoon. Then I meet up with friends at night for dinner and Dota 2. And if I feel like it, I head over to the pub for a beer and to prep for the next day.
Sure, you can make this work having a physical office. But you don’t want to be restricted to a schedule, in case you’re travelling or decide to work from home.
👩🏼🚀 Who we are
NewCampus is a lifelong learning school for people excited by change. We’re a gym membership for learning experiences, with daily classes hosted at a network of accessible colearning spaces. Members learn together, from global entrepreneurs and experts, about emerging business, technology and cultural trends, and consistently building the skills they need to thrive in the changing world.
We are a team of 10 passionate individuals from Australia, the United States, Singapore, China, India and the Philippines. 🌍
