You employed your first few individuals as a result of they had been sensible, scrappy, and prepared to leap on a name at bizarre hours. Then immediately you might be coordinating time zones, onboarding somebody you will have by no means met in individual, and questioning if “remote-first” means versatile or simply chaotic. Most founders really feel this rigidity early. You need entry to world expertise and focus time, however you are concerned about tradition, execution pace, and shedding management earlier than you will have actual processes.
To place this information collectively, we reviewed founder letters, interviews, and documented practices from leaders who constructed distant or closely distributed groups early. We targeted on what they really did within the first 10 to 50 hires, not summary tradition speak. Sources embrace public writings and talks from GitLab’s management, Automattic’s long-running distant playbooks, early Stripe and Zapier interviews, and First Spherical Assessment case research the place founders described particular working choices and outcomes. The objective was to extract repeatable practices that labored beneath actual constraints.
On this article, we’ll stroll by means of easy methods to design, rent, and function a remote-first crew with out slowing execution or diluting possession.
Why Distant-First Issues Early
For early-stage founders, hiring is a leverage determination. Each position you fill shapes pace, burn, and morale. Distant-first issues now as a result of it expands your expertise pool whereas forcing readability. When persons are not co-located, obscure expectations break sooner. That’s painful, however helpful.
Within the subsequent 60 to 90 days, success seems to be like this: you’ll be able to rent your subsequent two roles with out relocating, onboard them in beneath two weeks, and ship weekly with out fixed synchronous conferences. Should you get this mistaken, you drift right into a hybrid limbo the place nobody is aware of when to be on-line, choices stall, and tradition turns into no matter occurs on Slack that week.
Distant-first is just not about letting individuals work from anyplace. It’s about designing the corporate so location is irrelevant to efficiency.
What “Distant-First” Truly Means
Distant-first is an working mannequin, not a perk. GitLab’s founders have constantly defined that remote-first means each course of is designed as if nobody is in the identical room, even when some persons are. In follow, meaning documentation earlier than conferences, written choices, and default transparency.
That is totally different from “remote-friendly,” the place the workplace continues to be the middle of gravity and distant workers adapt round it. Early-stage founders typically underestimate this distinction and pay for it later with uneven data circulation.
For you, remote-first means three issues:
- Work is designed to be carried out asynchronously.
- Info lives in shared methods, not in heads or hallways.
- Efficiency is measured by outputs, not hours on-line.
Step 1: Design the Work Earlier than You Rent
Earlier than posting a job, outline what success seems to be like in writing. Zapier’s founders have described how early roles had been scoped with clear consequence paperwork that spelled out what “good” seemed like after 30, 60, and 90 days. This readability lowered onboarding time and prevented over-communication.
Write a one-page position transient that features:
- The core downside this position owns.
- The outputs you count on weekly or month-to-month.
- The selections they’ll make with out approval.
This forces you to confront whether or not the position is definitely able to be employed. Should you can not describe outputs clearly, the position will battle remotely or in an workplace.
Step 2: Rent for Autonomy, Not Simply Talent
Distant-first groups fail after they rent individuals who want fixed path. Automattic, the corporate behind WordPress, has written extensively about screening for self-management early. Candidates had been evaluated on how they structured their very own work and communicated progress with out prompting.
In interviews, ask for particular examples:
- “Inform me a couple of undertaking the place you had minimal oversight. How did you resolve what to do subsequent?”
- “How do you retain stakeholders up to date when priorities shift?”
Search for proof of judgment, not simply execution. A powerful distant rent exhibits you the way they suppose, not simply what they constructed.
Step 3: Default to Asynchronous Communication
Stripe’s early engineering tradition emphasised written design docs even when groups had been small. Founders have defined that this follow scaled as a result of it lowered determination thrash and created a document of why selections had been made.
Asynchronous communication means:
- Selections are written down with context.
- Conferences are used to resolve disagreements, not share data.
- Folks can contribute with out being on-line on the similar time.
For founders, this feels slower at first. Writing takes longer than speaking. However inside weeks, you acquire pace as a result of fewer choices are revisited and new hires ramp sooner.
Step 4: Construct a Single Supply of Reality
GitLab famously runs the corporate from a public handbook that paperwork every little thing from values to incident response. Whereas you don’t want that degree of element early, the precept issues.
Create a shared workspace the place:
- Technique docs stay.
- Processes are up to date.
- Selections are logged.
This may very well be a easy Notion or Google Docs construction. The secret is consistency. When somebody asks a query, the reply ought to be “it’s within the doc,” not “ask me later.”
Step 5: Change Presence With Output Metrics
One of many hardest shifts for founders is letting go of seen effort. Distant-first corporations substitute presence with output. Zapier’s management has shared that early managers had been skilled to outline success in deliverables, not responsiveness.
For every position, observe:
- What shipped.
- What moved a metric.
- What choices had been made.
This protects excessive performers who work in another way and surfaces underperformance rapidly with out micromanaging.
Step 6: Onboard Like It Is a Product
Distant onboarding is the place most groups stumble. New hires lack context and confidence, which ends up in silence or over-communication.
GitLab and Automattic each emphasize structured onboarding with checklists, mentors, and early wins. The follow that exhibits up repeatedly is assigning a small, significant undertaking within the first week.
In your startup:
- Day 1: Share the corporate narrative and present priorities in writing.
- Week 1: Assign a scoped undertaking that produces a visual output.
- Week 2: Assessment that output and modify expectations.
This builds momentum and belief sooner than limitless intro calls.
Step 7: Be Express About Tradition and Availability
Distant-first doesn’t imply always-on. In reality, the most effective distant groups shield focus time aggressively. Automattic’s leaders have described setting clear expectations round response occasions and deep work blocks.
Write down:
- Core collaboration hours, if any.
- Anticipated response home windows for async messages.
- When it’s okay to disconnect.
Readability right here prevents burnout and resentment, particularly because the crew grows throughout time zones.
Widespread Errors Founders Make
Distant-first failures are normally predictable.
First, founders hold choices of their heads. This creates bottlenecks and forces fixed conferences.
Second, they over-hire earlier than methods exist. Extra individuals amplify chaos if workflows are unclear.
Third, they keep away from arduous suggestions as a result of it feels awkward remotely. In actuality, written suggestions with examples is commonly clearer and kinder.
Lastly, they confuse flexibility with lack of requirements. Distant-first groups want larger requirements, not decrease ones.
A Easy Comparability: Workplace-First vs Distant-First
| Dimension | Workplace-First | Distant-First |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution circulation | Verbal, meeting-driven | Written, documented |
| Hiring pool | Native | World |
| Efficiency sign | Presence | Output |
| Onboarding | Shadowing | Structured docs + tasks |
| Data retention | Casual | Systematic |
This desk is just not about superiority. It highlights tradeoffs. Distant-first forces rigor early, which is why it fits disciplined early-stage groups.
Do This Week
- Write a one-page position transient to your subsequent rent with clear outputs.
- Doc your present priorities and choices in a shared workspace.
- Change one recurring assembly with a written replace.
- Outline response-time expectations for Slack or e-mail.
- Create a easy onboarding guidelines for brand spanking new hires.
- Determine one determination you retain answering verbally and doc it.
- Audit your final week of labor and listing outputs, not hours.
- Rewrite one job interview query to check for autonomy.
- Assign a small, seen undertaking to your latest crew member.
- Ask your crew the place async communication breaks down most.
Ultimate Ideas
Constructing a remote-first crew is just not about avoiding an workplace. It’s about constructing an organization that runs on readability as an alternative of proximity. The founders who succeed right here don’t romanticize distant work. They design for it intentionally, doc relentlessly, and measure what issues. Begin small. Write issues down. Let output substitute presence. The habits you construct with 5 individuals will resolve the way you scale to fifty.
