#16 Raise a Family
Myth vs. Facts about running a remote team. There’s an ugly myth about businesses built on freelance talent. Find out how to talk to your investors about your remote team - and get the most out of the freelance future of work.
Myth: “Investors won’t like the fact that my team is almost all freelancers.”
Fact: Actually, that’s awesome. Think about why. An investor can see that you’re focusing on your core business, doing what you do best, and outsourcing the rest. Sure, you’ll have some open spaces on the team later on, but all you need to do is identify them as gaps and future hires.
Fact!: Engaging and managing a freelance workforce shows how you’re working smart and making best use of your two most important early-stage resources: time and money.
Fact!!: A bigger danger is trying to impress an investor by showing them how you’re doing it all on your own. Are you writing your web copy, managing your ads, designing your documents and crunching your own numbers?
Unless you’ve integrated an incredible bunch of productivity tools so that you only have to make the final flourishes and press GO - you’re wasting time and money. If your business is going to grow you’ll have to work with other people at some stage. You’re unlikely to attract investment before you’ve started on that learning curve.
Fact!!!: Investors like to meet founders who play nicely with others. The management of remote teams is becoming a significant and highly prized skill.
Every business is a family business - but what kind of family is yours? It doesn’t matter if everyone works under the same roof or in different hemispheres as long as you’re raising ‘em right by working productively and in sync.
To do that focus on your automation. What are you automating so you don’t need extra people? And what are you automating so that your sales funnel, customer relations, internal communications and workflow are working at optimal efficiency.
Unicorn works with freelance contractors in the EU and US. Our team enjoys great communication and productivity workflows, and it means we have a round-the clock operational presence for our clients throughout the world.
We work smarter together using G Suite, Trello, Slack, Calendly, Skype and whatever variations we need to keep in close communication and ensure at-a-glance oversight of who’s doing what, when for dozens of time critical projects.
Upwork has been a great way of connecting with clients and engaging the best freelance talent. It’s a concentrated pool of verified talent and it takes care of contracting and payroll.
A remote workforce of top talent brought together by the latest and most efficient productivity solutions has allowed Unicorn to grow at a staggering rate in record time. Despite our success - or perhaps because of it - we’ve never lost sight of our core reason for being: to create the business plan and pitch deck you need to show investors why your business is worth their time and money.
If you can show an investor what kind of family you’re raising and why you're building your business that way, that spells intelligent growth to them.
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