Hiring Tools for a Startup

Step 1: Hiring the right founding team

Many founders have a great idea but lack the team or network to build it, so that begs the question —

How do I hire the right people and get them paid?

In this post, we’ll go over some best practices for hiring as you grow your startup, and give an honest review of some of the tools we used.

Many of the barriers that once existed with hiring have been reduced or eliminated entirely in this remote post-COVID world. Hiring is no longer geographically restricted, rather, companies can take advantage of the fact that they can hire anywhere in the world.

At dope.security, we hire the best talent who are experts in their respective areas, regardless of their location.

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Step 2: Onboarding and paying your people

Once you’ve decided who you want to hire, the process of onboarding and paying the new team members is the next challenge. Each region has different rules for taxes, pensions, annual leave, etc. How do you manage all these moving parts and get your people paid while remaining compliant?

There are two options available:

1. Manage it yourself through international entities (Hard)
2. Leverage third-party software designed to specifically handle this. (Easy)

I highly recommend the option two, as option one requires more time and effort than you would ever want to spend on this.

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Let’s look at the tools we used — Remote and Deel:

The Good:

• Both platforms allow you to hire immediately and they handle local payroll compliance.
• Employees can submit PTO requests and expense reports through the platform.
• Deel allows organizations to onboard employees as contractors which significantly reduces the monthly fees (Remote says they do this as well, though we haven’t tried it).
• Running payroll is also automated and employees are automatically paid in their local currency or USD.

The Bad:

• Unfortunately, customer support for both can be somewhat hit-or-miss.
• For Remote, the company must put up a 10% refundable deposit upfront for all contract employees they onboard until they reach 10 employees. After that, it switches to a line-of-credit model. That can be a lot of cash upfront.
• Remote only recently introduced auto-billing and the somewhat inconsistent invoicing can make it difficult to forecast cash flow.

Some helpful hints:

• Employees hired through Deel/Remote are technically employees of their in-country entity. They will sign a contract with that entity and their pay slips reflect Deel/Remote as the employer.
• To protect the company and limit liability, have each employee sign an employment contract/NDA with your company as well.
• Use ACH to avoid credit card processing fees.

Both platforms proved useful and took a significant burden off of our company. Incorporating in every region we hire would have required a lot of time and energy better spent building and innovating.

Hiring is a priority for any young company, but don’t overcomplicate it.