# Startups & Remote Work

By [Abraham Litwin-Logan](https://paragraph.com/@abeisr) · 2023-07-15

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As a founder it’s a bit of a mixed bag: On one hand, I think everyone being in the same office pushes people to work harder and fosters a team-like environment which is positive.

But, on the other hand, being a remote company enables you to access a much larger pool of talent…which is: _game-changing._

I kind of think that in most companies it looks something like:

> by being remote, you can get _40-50% better talent_, but be _15-25% less productive_ and _50-70% less tight-knit_

Further, I think you should prioritize each metric in the following manner:

> 1\. quality of talent > 2. productivity > 3. tight-knit

Thus, the tradeoff for going remote seems very much worth it. UNLESS, you can recruit the best talent and also get them all in the same place → if we’re being honest this usually means you either have a ton of $$ or having a genuinely **excellent** network that just all happens to live in the same place.

Presuming you aren’t in the unlikely position of having the latter, I think the former is more interesting to consider:

> My conclusion is for startups where cash is super tight (say in broad strokes _Pre-Series C_) running a remote company is optimal, but when cash is in relative abundance (_~Series C+)_, you should probably look to recruit the best **AND** make the additional investment to have the whole team work in-person.

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*Originally published on [Abraham Litwin-Logan](https://paragraph.com/@abeisr/startups-remote-work)*