Women Entrepreneurs: Why I Built a Remote Company
Founders and small business owners who have launched their own remote companies have been there: taking companies from ideas to reality—and all of the bumps, excitement, and growing pains in between. Though there may be fewer women entrepreneurs creating and leading them, hearing from those who have successfully done so just might encourage the next generation. So, if you’re still working in a traditional office job or have started freelancing but are looking for something more, read on!
4 Women Entrepreneurs on Building Remote Companies
CloudPeeps
Kate Kendall, Founder and CEO, on hiring
“You are more mindful about the people you recruit and the team you build, which I think is a huge benefit. Remote work suits a certain kind of autonomous individual who is comfortable managing and motivating themselves. Many workers aren’t used to this freedom or level of trust—and take a while to adjust. Some other big benefits are that it makes workers happier, healthier and more productive—while also distributing congestion from high-traffic hubs and regions.”
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
“Start by working on your company culture and having a good look at your founding or executive team’s values. It’s harder to build a remote work company if you don’t have buy-in from management. Ask yourselves what you want to prioritize and how you want to go about prioritizing it. If you want to ‘move fast and break things’ and get a lot out of all-night hackathons like Facebook’s culture, remote work might not suit.”
Greenback Expat Tax Services
Carrie McKeegan, Co-Founder, on the benefits of working remotely
“The biggest benefits are for our customers! With our ability to hire the best talent from around the world, our customers get the highest level of expertise and the very best expat tax advice available. That allows us to exceed our customers’ expectations, which has been the key to our rapid growth.”
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
“The key to a successful remote workforce is in the hiring. You must recruit highly skilled, professional team members who have demonstrated that they can operate independently (preferably in a remote position). In addition, establish set working hours for your team members—while some people say they work best at night, the lack of continuity and communication during more traditional working hours can seriously impact the team’s productivity.”
Packlane
Miriam Brafman, Founder, on transitioning to remote work
“Once we had more than one person, we worked in a small office together for the first 2-3 months, and slowly transitioned to just working from home. At a certain point it just wasn’t necessary to be working in the same room, and everyone had a clear preference for their home office work environment over the shared office.”
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
“Since you typically won’t be meeting with employees for casual face-to-face meetings like lunches, you need to find some unconventional ways to build informal rapport with employees and coworkers to maintain good morale within the remote organization. Check in with each employee periodically to make sure that they have an opportunity to openly vent any frustrations or concerns they might be holding back.”
Boldly
Sandra Lewis, Founder and Director, on Boldly’s remote work culture
“Working remotely is an integral part of our business model, we don’t work any other way! I believe that the world is quickly moving towards more flexible working arrangements, and that professionals will value more and more the ability to work from home, or from anywhere in the world! We wanted to give the opportunity to as many talented professionals as possible to join the industry and to find rewarding work no matter where they are located.”
Do you have a favorite quote or bit of business wisdom?
“I love this quote by Maya Angelou: ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel’ and try to apply it in all of my interactions by making sure I am mindful of how I make people feel.”
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By Kristi DePaul | Categories: Remote Management
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