Building Remote Teams

I've hired remotely since I started building teams, first mostly in Southeast Asia and then a lot in Eastern Europe. I lived in those countries for stretches, partly so I could have a beer with people I'd hired online and get to know them.

Both companies had to multiply their headcount inside a year. That meant hiring people I'd never met, in time zones I didn't share, and still getting work that came out the way I'd do it myself.

Hire the person, then train the method. A remote team can take the best talent on the planet and pick the exact personalities it wants, so I hired for skill and character wherever they were. Every media buyer I hired went through the same training, step by step. Then the team ran on one meeting a week and Slack for everything else, across Europe, Asia and US time zones, and people were judged on what they actually produced. If someone did the job well in fewer hours, more power to them. The leads I relied on most were people who had done their craft for years in countries where nobody gave them the chance to scale it.

• One written training method for every media buyer
• Slack, plus one weekly meeting
• Judged on output, across three continents
• Remote hiring in Europe and Asia

One company went from 4 people to more than 20 and another from 3 to more than 30, each in about six to eight months.

My two main leads worked from two different continents by 2021, and my company ran as a nomadic team on one weekly meeting. I could travel, and the work kept moving.

Find people who've done the craft for years without anyone paying them to scale it. Train them on one method and judge the output instead of the hours.