Hypergrowth the Right Way - How Remote Scaled to Hundreds of Millions in ARR

Remote grew from zero revenue in 2020 to hundreds of millions in ARR within 3 years, scaling from 40 to 600+ employees in 2021 alone

Core growth drivers included:

• Deliberate choice of company name and domain (remote.com)
• Direct outreach to prospects on LinkedIn from day one
• Timing with COVID accelerating remote work adoption
• Strong technical foundation with Elixir stack
• Focus on solving complex payroll/operational problems

Key operational challenges during hypergrowth:

• Constant firefighting and breaking systems at scale
• Managing organizational restructuring every time company doubled
• Balancing rapid hiring while maintaining culture
• Processing billions in payroll across global entities

Leadership lessons:

• Continue speaking directly with customers even at scale
• Focus on foundational operational excellence
• Kill underperforming projects quickly
• Take care of personal wellbeing (sleep, exercise, eating well)
• Accept that hypergrowth brings constant problems to solve

Success factors:

• Previous experience building distributed teams at GitLab
• Clear documentation and handbook-driven culture
• Focus on real customer problems vs just building features
• Willingness to do difficult operational work
• Strong founding team with complementary skills