Hey, I'm Benjamin 👋
A Passionate Digital Entrepreneur 🖥️ with 14 years of experience in IT, marketing and building start-ups.
Advantages of Remote-First Teams
Introduction
Every company I have founded has been remote-first. Not because it was trendy, but because it was the only model that made sense for what I was trying to build. When you are running a software company out of Germany but need specialised talent that does not live within commuting distance of Essen, you either accept geographic limitations or you rethink how work gets done. I chose to rethink it, and I have never looked back. Here is what running remote-first teams has actually taught me.
1. You Hire the Best, Not the Nearest
This is the most obvious advantage, and it is also the most impactful. When I needed a backend engineer who understood real-time data pipelines for PriceFeed, I did not have to settle for whoever happened to live in the Ruhr area. I could find exactly the right person regardless of where they lived. That single hiring decision saved us months of development time. Multiply that across every role in your company, and the competitive advantage becomes enormous. Geographic constraints are an artificial filter that has nothing to do with ability.
2. Lower Overhead, Higher Investment in What Matters
Office rent in any German city is not cheap. When you cut that expense, along with utilities, office management, and all the hidden costs of maintaining a physical space, you free up real money. At Codestep, we redirected those savings into better tooling, better salaries, and actual product development. The trade-off is obvious: would you rather pay for a fancy office that impresses visitors, or invest in the people and tools that build your product? For a SaaS company, the answer should be straightforward.
3. Happier People Produce Better Work
I am not going to cite studies here -- I will just tell you what I have observed. The people on my teams who have the flexibility to organise their day around their life, not the other way around, consistently produce better work. They are more focused during their working hours because they are not resentful about a pointless commute or a rigid schedule that ignores their personal reality. Retention is higher too. When someone has a good remote setup and genuine flexibility, the threshold for leaving is much higher than when they are just another person in an open-plan office.
4. Scaling Without the Landlord
One of the most underrated benefits of remote-first is how it simplifies scaling. When we grew at Codestep, adding new team members did not require finding a bigger office, negotiating a new lease, or rearranging desks. We onboarded people into our systems, paired them with their team, and they were productive within days. Try doing that when every new hire requires a physical desk, a parking spot, and six weeks of facilities planning. Remote-first companies scale at the speed of talent acquisition, not real estate negotiations.
5. Productivity Is About Output, Not Presence
The biggest fear managers have about remote work is that people will slack off without someone watching them. In my experience, the opposite is true. Remote work forces you to measure what actually matters: deliverables, code shipped, campaigns launched, problems solved. You stop rewarding people for looking busy at a desk and start rewarding them for results. That cultural shift is valuable regardless of where your team sits. It just happens naturally when you cannot physically see your employees and are forced to trust the work itself.
