Building remote-first startups

Be generous, focus on deliverables, and provide lots of context — how to make remote work work in 2023

The work pendulum has swung from the office to remote work (prompted by Covid) and then back to the office, as companies have sought to maximize efficiency in changing environments. Currently, the trend is back in the office, as companies seek to leverage the efficiency inherent in in-person connections and avoid the complexities of remote work. And yet, two of Symbol’s (young) portfolio companies chose to be remote first.

Jiga is a B2B platform for custom manufacturing (with a team of 12, all remote) and Squire is a B2C app seeking to help older adults lead independent and comfortable lives (a similar-sized company). Despite these very different industries and business models, both companies decided on a remote work model from the start, and have found that working with fully remote employees around the world has a surprising number of upsides. Of course, a remote workforce is not for everyone, and Jiga and Squire will tell you that it’s not without its challenges, but that if the fit is right, the value far outweighs the challenges.

Both companies have a small office in Tel Aviv, but have most of their team spread across the world including in the Philippines, U.S., India, Spain, Britain, Ukraine, and Bosnia. Remote workers fill a range of roles, including engineering, design, ops, revenue and content writing. Here’s how they see it.

What works:

• Finding experts: It goes without saying that by hiring outside of your geo you are tapping into a much larger talent pool. But what quickly became evident to both companies was how skilled this pool is. By moving beyond geographical constraints, companies can focus on — and find — the skill sets they need to move forward.
• Hiring with confidence: Squire started by hiring remote employees on a freelance basis. This allowed them to assess skill sets and fit under “real life” conditions, and then hire those people who worked out well.
• Empowering employees: Being able to stick your head into someone’s office or yell down the hall definitely has its merits. However, working asynchronously forces companies to be clear about expectations and goals. It also leads to excellent documentation. Finally, according to Jiga, it leads to greater independence by employees, since work is set up — and people are trained — to work more independently.
• Focus on deliverables: Remote work shifts the focus to deliverables (vs. time in the office), which can help a small team move forward efficiently.
• Costs: Perhaps the most obvious upside is the lower costs of high-end talent when working with remote employees. This is due to the lower cost of living in many countries and the regional standards. This is in addition to the money saved on real estate and other expenditures.

What they’re still figuring out:

Of course, there are challenges to remote work (as there are to almost any aspect of running a business), and if you’re considering a remote workforce, it’s important to go into this model with eyes wide open.

• Support: One concern is knowing whether employees are working and engaged and how to ensure engagement. One answer is a focus on output. Another is a cadence of check ins. Squire, for example, has a 30-minute daily where everyone goes over what they have done and what they will be working on today. Jiga has weeklies both on the company level and per department.
• Context: How do you ensure the team has the full context of what is going on and feels connected, not just focused on their own tasks? Communication, or maybe even over-communication, seems to be the answer. It’s not just the cadence, which is important, but the WHY, including sharing the rationale behind decisions and task prioritization
• Team spirit: With no coffee breaks or lunches or happy hours, it’s hard to build a culture. The best advice from Jiga and Squire is to be deliberate and proactive: create routines that include informal chatter before meetings, celebrate professional wins and personal moments, both happy and sad, play a game once a week, and consider an in-person offsite (more on that in a coming post).
• Cultural differences: Clearly, people coming from different countries, languages and religions will have different perspectives, sensitivities and even senses of humor. And many cultures aren’t as straightforward as Israelis (to put it politely). When managing a diverse group, it’s important to come with an open mind and sensitive ear, and also to encourage people to speak their mind. And as noted in the ‘Good,’ both Jiga and Squire talk about the charm of working with people who bring a wholly different perspective and experience to work.

Tips

A few suggestions on making remote work work:

• Treat remote employees as a core part of your team: Ask for their opinion, brainstorm with them, and be clear on the value of their expertise.
• Be very explicit about assignments and deadlines: This will force you — in a good way — to think through projects and avoid wasting time on whims.
• Put things in writing (or video): One of the upsides of remote workers is the documentation it creates. Make sure you create guidelines for sharing information. (At Jiga, for example, people often tape a short video explaining progress they’ve made so that meeting time can be used to move forward rather than review work already completed).

Be generous: A startup that pays high (Israeli) salaries has little wiggle room to go beyond and be generous. When working with employees in regions where salaries are more modest, companies can afford to be generous with benefits, such as PTO, pension, and options, making employees happy and engendering loyalty.

• Assume good intent and embrace cultural differences: when working with people you see only on a screen, it’s easy to forget that they too have leaky pipes, irritating neighbors, and migraines. You might also misread social cues from time to time. Be kind and assume good intent.

In an early-stage startup, getting outstanding employees AND cutting costs sounds almost too good to be true. Clearly, there are tradeoffs and the team fit has to work. But full-time remote work, if done right, allows companies to get top talent and extend their runway, and even add some unexpected charm to their team.

Curious to learn more about secret weapons and other things that interest pre-product-market fit companies? We’d love to hear from you