In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Waikit Lau about the growth of remote work, and how RemoteHQ provides a virtual office for better collaboration between remote teams.
We talk to Waikit about the rapid growth in popularity of remote work, will it last, how did RemoteHQ launch and generate their first customers, should remote employees get paid differently, and how COVID affected his growth plans.
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- Waikit started RemoteHQ almost two years ago. They raised a seed round in 2019. RemoteHQ helps remote teams to collaborate by instantly making any website or web app added to RemoteHQ sharable.
- Waikit thinks the popularity of remote work will continue to grow, but a hybrid approach will likely be the most common approach. Most work will be remote, but companies will have flexible office spaces for some meetings that need to be in person
- Waikit saw the need for RemoteHQ after growing his last startup to 400 people and seeing how they needed to travel for in-person meetings.
- One of the most significant advantages of remote work is decoupling, where we work and where we want to live.
- Waikit and his team spent 4 to 6 months in discovery mode researching the problem they wanted to solve. After launching the product on Producthunt, they leveraged their network to generate initial customers. They've also got an influx of inbound demand from Google organic searches.
- RemoteHQ is a product-led go-to-market. Waikit made the entire platform free when COVID hit to help companies transitioning to remote work. Making the platform free has helped them get a lot of feedback on the product.
- RemoteHQ charges on a per-seat basis. Waikit knows if teams use the product weekly, they'll end up paying for it.
- Waikit and his team are still refining the way they describe the product, e.g., virtual office, virtual workspace.
- We talk about how companies should approach paying remote workers and if it should be based on location. It's a complicated topic with no one right answer. There isn't one answer that works for all companies.
- Waikit believes location still does matter for remote companies. There needs to be some overlap in the working day between employees.
- Waikit feels what's lacking in the remote workspace right now are virtual team building tools.
- Another business opportunity in the remote workspace is a company that organizes retreats for remote businesses.
- After COVID hit Waikit accelerated his product roadmap to take advantage of the increased demand for his product.
– Waikit on Twitter / LinkedIn
– Kieran on Twitter / LinkedIn / Medium
– Scott on Twitter / Linked / Medium
Topics: Podcast, Founder, Remote Work
