Remote is one of the biggest SaaS success stories in recent years. And from a laser focus on the mission to hiring and delegating to impactful leaders there’s multiple reasons why.
But perhaps most notably it’s because they really practice what they preach. Remote not only helps companies like Semrush and Gitlab hire globally, it’s also scaled to over 2000 employees as a fully distributed company itself.
At SaaStock Europe, CEO and Co-founder Job van der Voort joined Dogpatch Labs Principal Menno Axt to talk about the journey so far and how founders can make sure they hire the right talent, globally.
Solving the hard problem
“It’s much easier to be motivated by something that’s really hard and has a real impact on the world than it is to just make money.”
Job started his journey as a neuroscientist before changing track after excitedly discovering Hacker News. From there, he joined GitLab, an early pioneer of remote working. And it was this experience that sparked the idea, Job explained:
“[Gitlab is] still completely remote and it worked really well. We never felt the need to open an office. But there was one problem we struggled with, and that was, if we hire people all over the world, how do we pay them? We found many solutions. They were all universally, absolutely terrible.”
Believing that companies operating like GitLab–without borders–was the future of work, Job set out to “solve the problem that international companies face, which [is] paying people anywhere on the planet.“
While now a successful employer of record, there were a couple of other routes that Job and Co-founder Marcelo Lebre could have taken:
“…We realised we have two paths to choose. One is we’re going to build a lifestyle business where we’re going to make some revenue and sustain ourselves, or we’re going to do this big, audacious goal, which is what we end up doing.
“We knew that if we did a big, audacious thing, we had to raise money for it, which is why we didn’t in the beginning say, we’re going to start an employer record. We’re going to open 200 entities and we’re going to do all this.
“So, we knew we had the choice. And then after two months, we said let’s do the crazy stuff….We raised money immediately and started working on employer of record.”
The case for remote work in 2025
“I understand companies that want to feel a sense of control by having people back in the office. I understand it [but] I don’t agree with it. And effects speak against them. We know people are more productive on the aggregate if they work remotely.”
Knowing the company background and Job’s clear belief in remote work, Menno followed up with “the elephant in the room”—the controversy and big companies like Amazon going back to the office—on this, Job said:
“So, there are many facts that we know…More than half of people, if given a choice, would actually choose a remote or flexible job over any other job. We know that productivity is higher and it goes down once you get people back to the office.”
He went on to explain how businesses actually restrict themselves if they only hire in close proximity to an office:
“The supply of talent is limited and if you hire remotely, the supply of talent is virtually unlimited. It solves so many large problems that it doesn’t really matter if somebody like Amazon sends people back to the office because, in the end, companies will need to hire remotely if they want to be able to grow fast and hire sufficient talent. I really don’t see any other way around it.”
While clearly an advocate for remote work and the benefits for business and candidates, there’s also a deeper motivator and real-world impact that drives Job to keep going:
“I think the world is incredibly unequal. If you are born in the wrong place, in the wrong time, then you don’t have access to great jobs. And even if you do, you might be really poorly paid. With the Internet, there’s no reason for that to be true.”
“There’s amazing people born in the wrong place in the world. Why shouldn’t they earn really well and be able to lift themselves and the people around them up? So trying to have as large of an impact as possible on the world in that sense, creating somewhat more equality or equity in the world, that’s ultimately what I hope to achieve.”
Scaling Remote to 2000+ employees
As we said, Job and team practice what they preach and operate fully remotely with team members distributed all over the world. Now at 2000 employees, Menno wanted to find out what lessons Job has learned and how other founders can find the right people for their businesses.
Ultimately, it came down to transparency: “If you advertise a job and you say “I want to hire somebody and you can live anywhere in these time zones and I will pay you reasonably well and this is the salary,” you’re going to get so many applicants that you don’t know what to do with them.”
Which makes whittling down those applications and selecting the right person the hard bit . Here, Job said it’s about being up front and clear about what you want from the role and avoiding “pattern matching”.
“If you are selecting somebody who looks like you and acts like you, you’re not selecting for the actual ability of the person to do the job really well. And so you should focus on that.
“In your interview process, give people tests and questions that give you an impression of how good this person is at this actual job rather than how much this person looks like me and how much of a good time I will have with them.”
In practice, this involves really clear frameworks on how to interview, what kind of questions to ask, what does good look like, what does bad look like–a toolkit Remote has had since the early days.
Building culture without walls (Literally)
In a small startup culture just “happens,” especially when you’re based in an office. Creating this organically is more difficult in a remote company and harder again as you scale. Job told us how it’s really about living and breathing your values because “there aren’t any walls to put them on”.
“We did a few things first. We said this is the scaffolding of our culture.
“So, we have our values and we want you to align with those. We were really specific about what kind of behaviours we like and don’t like. And there’s a few important ones. One is that we’re always kind to each other, that was really important so that there’s no space for genius assholes. And we were always very transparent.”
From here, it’s about committing to and delivering against those values from the top down:
“If you do those things and you make sure that people talk enough with each other, then you can build a really nice culture in the company as well. That’s ultimately what culture is. How do people interact with each other? And they do that in a particular way.
“And so one of the values we had was kindness but also what do you do if somebody’s not aligned with those values? So, if somebody is doing well at their job but is a terrible human, we fire them. And that’s a pretty good way to give people in your company confidence that this is actually a safe place to be. And if it’s a safe place to be, it’s easy to talk to each other and you start to build a better culture.”
Learn more about Remote’s journey
One thing that comes through in any conversation with Job is the fact that as a founder, you just have to keep going. On our podcast he cited Dory’s famous Finding Nemo line “just keep swimming”, a sentiment echoed in his parting piece of advice for founders in this conversation:
“Just don’t give up. Keep being really, really, really realistic with yourself and your company and try to make it work. That’s all you have to do. And then never give up. You can just never give up. That’s the whole thing about a startup.”
It’s a mantra that’s seen Remote continue to reach new heights year on year. Check out the sessions below to hear more about the Remote journey and lessons learned along the way:
