
InVision has no physical headquarters and all 700 employees work remotely - aviv
https://www.businessinsider.com/invision-startup-all-employees-work-remotely-2018-9
======
pixelmonkey
Perhaps more interesting is that Elastic, the company behind Elasticsearch,
just IPO'ed on NYSE, and they, too, have a fully distributed team of over 700
-- might even be trending toward 1000 by now. Zapier is another one at multi-
hundred-person scale, and is a YC company. A couple other scaled-up ones on
this model include Automattic (company behind Wordpress), DataStax (company
behind Cassandra).

There is also Wikimedia, Canonical, and Mozilla -- perhaps those 3 are less
interesting since they have a non-profit mission tied to the internet-as-
community and FOSS.

It's worth mentioning that when I started my startup back in 2009 as a fully
distributed team, VCs viewed that as a major -1 strike against the company. So
much so that we chose not to mention it during initial pitches. We ended up
finding Series A/B financing, and these days, those investors ask us to advise
companies on how fully distributed teams work, so new portfolio companies can
decide for themselves. They were early believers in the model, but they tell
me they have noticed a major change in attitude among fellow VCs toward
distributed teams. That is, they understand the tradeoffs (finally), and
believe the model can scale.

We now have a fully distributed staff of 70, over 400 customers, and millions
in revenue. So 1/10 InVision scale, but it works well (and nicely!) at this
scale. These days we also have an NYC office, but we refer to it as "the
Internet cafe", about 20 of our 70 people "so happen" to work out of there
regularly, with everyone else in home offices or co-working spaces. Our NYC
office is also used for team gatherings, client events/visits, and board
meetings.

I wrote my initial views on the different scaling models for teams here in
2012:

[https://amontalenti.com/2012/05/14/distributed-
teams](https://amontalenti.com/2012/05/14/distributed-teams)

Also wrote a little about how the fully distributed team needs to be
complemented, from time to time, with f2f interaction. This was in 2016 after
several years of experience scaling hiring and organizing team retreats --
"Fully Remote, But Here For Each Other":

[https://blog.parse.ly/post/4736/mission/](https://blog.parse.ly/post/4736/mission/)

~~~
sytse
GitLab being all remote has been a problem during fundraises. We mentioned it
since we're transparent and inevitably investors will want to visit your
office.

During our latest D round it was a smaller problem since later rounds are more
based on financial metrics and comparables (GitHub, Atlassian, Jfrog). But I
wouldn't say that it is no longer a problem with VCs, many still have scaling
concerns.

As one of the best investors said that passed on us: we're in the pattern
matching business and all remote doesn't match the pattern. It might very well
work but we will invest only in a handful of businesses anyway, we might as
well pick ones that are a complete match.

~~~
avip
Let me get it straight: You are increasing potential hires pool tenfolds, save
a fortune by not playing the real-estate bubble game, effectively double your
work day to almost 24 hours by spreading over timezones, and likely enjoy a
6-days work week - and VCs are worried about your ability to _scale_? This is
just astonishing to hear.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
A lot of people don't work well remotely. Me, for example. I found that out
the hard way.

> _likely enjoy a 6-days work week_

Wait, what? Are remote workers expected to work Saturdays or something?

~~~
DoreenMichele
_effectively double your work day to almost 24 hours by spreading over
timezones, and likely enjoy a 6-days work week_

My assumption is they mean that M-F covers 6 days if you have people in enough
time zones, while still paying them for five days.

------
strikelaserclaw
I think remote works well when the company caters to remote employees as a
main priority (maybe through adoption of remote friendly processes). I've
worked in teams where i was the only remote employee and everyone else was in
the office, suffice to say that i missed out on a lot of important
information.

~~~
denimnerd
I'm in that situation now. Well kind of. I am in the only team member not
colocated with the rest of the team.

At the start it was really hard. They would all be in a room together and I
could barely even hear them over the phone, much less speak up and say
something over their rapid fire conversations. It's gotten better since I've
brought these concerns up I'm only on week 4.

We've setup twice a week cisco telepresence meetings and the plan is I fly out
every few months for a week.

I'm not too keen on this long term but at least the team is really experienced
so I stand to learn a lot. I hope I can take what I learn to my own team soon.

~~~
ryandrake
At a lot of companies, teleconferencing systems are astonishingly bad. Like,
“why did they even consider buying this” bad. Often the first 10 minutes of a
meeting will be spent figuring out how to use the conf system or rebooting it
because it’s not working. Then figuring out which cable to plug into in order
to project remotely. Then asking if everyone is here. Then telling Karen to
mute her microphone because she’s apparently in a hurricane. Then Roger is 30
minutes late because he had the wrong dial-in code...

~~~
billyggruff
Teleconferencing systems with a 'communal' screen and camera do not make much
sense to me nowadays.

Most employees have at least 2 devices with built-in cameras and a screen that
can be utilized for videoconferencing.

Give everybody a headset. Done.

~~~
denimnerd
we do that on many days, but the audio quality is so much better on the
"mainframe" cisco setup.

~~~
ghostly_s
Bizarre, do you have some really cheapo headsets or something? (Or let me
guess...using your iPhone earpods?) In my role I've tested a _lot_ of pricey
speakerphone systems, and we find headset audio quality to be far superior in
every circumstance.

~~~
denimnerd
no, the issue is that part of the team ends up in one conference room with 1
shitty conference phone. people don't speak up loud enough, don't speak into
the mic, etc.. look up cisco ix5000 which is what I'm talking about. it's a
whole 'nother beast.

yeah when everyone is on a headset it's fine as long as people mute themselves
but when it's a few people on a headset and most in a conference room it's
terrible.

------
pier25
700 employees? That sounds like an awful lot for a product like InVision.

Bohemian Coding, the company behind Sketch, employs a few dozen people.

Also, I don't think the web is ready for UI/UX design tools. The ones I've
tried feel really slow on my 5K iMac. Maybe in 5-10 years when web assembly is
polished and related tool chains...

~~~
saudioger
Guessing they're mostly sales/service related employees. When you get on their
enterprise plan the service is fairly personal.

Invision also has a wider breadth of tools than what Sketch does (though
Sketch does what they do in a much deeper way).

Sketch doesn't do personalized enterprise-level service plans (or Basecamp,
for a similar example)... so they can be a lot leaner.

~~~
pier25
Still, do you think enterprise custom plans add enough value to pay for, let's
say, 500 employees?

I don't know, it still sounds like a lot of people to sustain.

Edit: apparently InVision's revenue is about 10M, so yeah, still running on VC
fuel.

~~~
RickS
I've been involved in the invision enterprise purchase process.

1) They're very high touch. Rep-with-a-name, etc. So they definitely employ
staff for this.

2) The markup compared to regular invision is huge.

Their tiers go from "we're very small" (5 people on a team) to "pay us for
enterprise" way too soon IMO. There exists a design team size (<25-50?) where
the cost:workflow tradeoff makes continuing to share logins for a non-
enterprise account the smart thing to do.

The teams that tire of, or never play, the shared accounts game bring in a lot
of revenue. Big seat costs for very nearly the same thing.

------
klohto
While this is no doubt great I don't really believe a statement "But most
importantly, Frein said, it helps InVision build a better product". Under what
metric? I don't believe that people who are forced to cooperate with video and
screen sharing options can deliver a better product than these, who can walk
up to a colleague and ask them in person or use a whiteboard to explain their
problem. In the end, remote workers are logically forced to spent much more
time in meetings that their "in-office" counterparts.

EDIT: You're very much all correct, but I still don't believe that I would be
effective without any personal contact. Guess the experience is personal!

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I've remote worked for decades, and that isn't my experience.

Video/screensharing meetings are far more productive in my experience, but
only if everybody is using the tool. Its frustrating to hold an in-person
meeting at the office, and try to add remote folks. The local ones shut out
the 'voice on the phone' and start drawing on boards and paper and it breaks
down.

I spent 10 years in a company that had all meetings online, even if you were
in the office. It was very productive, with all the automation tools at
everyone's disposal at every meeting.

Also with our tool, it took an average of 30 seconds to get a meeting started.
Vs the 15-minutes-late average starting time of in-person meetings

~~~
beambot
> start drawing on boards and paper

Sounds like important brainstorming activities. How do you deal with this when
you're remote?

~~~
manigandham
Plenty of real-time whiteboarding tools. Something simple like a shared google
doc works well for 90% of it.

~~~
beambot
Which collaborative whiteboard solutions do you like?

~~~
manigandham
We use [https://www.notion.so/](https://www.notion.so/) for notes, tasks, wiki
and project management. Google Docs for quick stuff or formal writeups.

Occasionally we'll use OneNote online or
[https://awwapp.com/](https://awwapp.com/) which has more freeform drawing if
we need it, but otherwise it's usually just typing stuff out in lists.

This is all on peoples computers, no fancy video-conferencing setups. Those
are almost always a waste of money and never work well.

~~~
beambot
Hrm. None of these really seem like whiteboarding though.

~~~
manigandham
I'm not sure what you mean then, what is whiteboarding exactly?

------
mr_tristan
This is a little light on details - but it's good to see some more "happy
words" on remote success stories. I've been remote for a couple of years and
would like to stay that way. Puff pieces like this do help.

What I've noticed:

\- When people write things down, communication is improved. \- Ad-hoc
communication is far easier with tools like Slack.

My current company is about 1000 employees now. Communication is actually
better then my last couple of companies, and I think it's mostly because we
have fewer "gatekeepers" of information.

------
kowdermeister
I underestimated how high the competition is for remote work. All my attempts
failed so far despite having well customized application materials. I didn't
submit to hundreds maybe around 20. Most of the time I never even reached a
technical test at these companies which I thought would be the hardest part.

~~~
ParanoidShroom
Why is remote such highly requested? I work remote but, not cause I HAVE to.
My team is just all fully remote.

~~~
Draiken
Honestly, saving 1-4 hours of commute every single day equates to an _absurd_
amount of extra time.

People underestimate how long commuting takes away from your day. Just the
time you take getting ready, waking up early to get breakfast first or even
getting out to eat lunch. Normally people don't add those times to the commute
total and count only the actual car/bus/metro time.

No matter small those are, they add up and you don't ever get that back. Even
if you only take 1 hour a day commuting (rare in my experience) you will get
at least 5 hours extra in a week that you can use to... live.

Be it learning time, family time or even just relaxing time, it's 5 hours that
seemingly come from out of thin air.

~~~
closeparen
Your experience is atypical. The median commute time in the United States is
25.4 minutes each way. The HN zeitgeist's insistence on living in major cities
and taking public transit has a drastic cost in terms of commute time as well
as money, one that most Americans do not pay.

~~~
Draiken
The US is only one country in the world. I imagine this median goes up if we
include more countries.

Regardless, my point stands. with that median we'd have 50 minutes every day
which would total to ~4h/week literally wasted moving around.

------
jasode
I don't do UI design so I never heard of InVision before. I googled around and
Crunchbase says they've gotten $235 million in funding[1]. A youtube channel
shows some demos[2].

Is InVision considered the best of the design tools compared to competitors?

[1]
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/invisionapp#section-...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/invisionapp#section-
locked-charts)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCndfHdRdEiGOyCOgxQ4W9YQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCndfHdRdEiGOyCOgxQ4W9YQ)

~~~
2to15characters
They used to be, they filled an unmet need in the design tools space
(clickable prototypes) for years. Lately tools for interface design (Figma,
Framer X, Quartz Composer, Origami, etc) have Invision’s main feature baked
into their software (where the work is being created) so there‘s less need for
designers to use it. Invision intended to get into the creation tools market,
but suffered a poorly-managed rollout of their application, and has been
floundering since.

~~~
bbarn
They also had a fairly drastic price increase that made our company scale
licenses back to only designers, which has reduced the collaborative aspect it
once had.

------
djrogers
Found it interesting, and likely a very good idea, that they have set ‘office
hours’ which are the same for everyone globally. That might be very
inconvenient if you’re in a locale where you wind up working nights, but it
does give a level of predictability and ensures that everyone is available at
a given time.

~~~
simias
Clearly unworkable if you're on the other side of the globe though, unless
you're willing to live at completely different hours as the rest of the
society you're part of.

I suppose if that ever becomes an issue they could settle on two or three time
zones to try and accommodate almost everyone. It can be inconvenient but it
can also sometimes be efficient for tasks that lend themselves to working in
"shifts". Like you develop your software, you send a version for testing, you
go home, you return next morning and people on the other side of the globe
have had time to test it and give some feedback.

Of course it can also easily lead to a huge waste of time if you're stuck and
you need some feedback from people who won't be available until late in the
afternoon in your timezone. It definitely requires very good logistics and
planning.

~~~
nradov
Is it really unworkable though? Shift work has always been common in
factories. Outsourced call centers in Asia sometimes work during US daytime
hours.

~~~
ghaff
For most professionals? Yes.

Now, if we're talking early morning and late night conference calls--even on a
semi-regular basis, that's one thing. That's pretty common for a lot of co-
workers I know. But day-to-day office hours that are in the middle of the
night? Not so much.

It's relatively straightforward to schedule some overlap between the Americas
and most of Europe. But there's no way to also do APAC in a way that isn't
really painful for someone.

------
anon4lol
I had an idea for a business idea that never got off the ground. However,
before it flamed out, I wanted to hire some overseas people that I personally
knew to help. However, I got conflicting advice about how to actually pay
them. I wanted to do it the legit/legal way, so they would have taxable income
and pay their withholding. I got advice from just pay them with PayPal to
bank-to-bank-transfers to forming a back office in the foreign country.

I strongly suspect these distributed teams are taking shortcuts.

With contingent employees in the U.S., you can just 1099 them at the end of
the year; W2 employees will require reporting and withholding depending on the
state they live in. But what about foreign employees? I'd love to hear from
anyone who has done this.

How would this actually work in practice? Do bank to bank transfers, or are
all of the workers simply contingent employees that invoice and paid in USD or
local currency? I suspect they are avoiding paying payroll taxes and not
reporting to the foreign taxing authorities.

~~~
anon4lol
Never mind. I found the answer. The prevailing advice now is: call them valued
employees, but pay them as contingent/contract workers. Some companies have
"perks" that include reimbursement for accounting/tax preparation in the
"employee's" host country -- they deal with the income reporting, health care,
and tax issues.

------
buboard
I wonder if there are startups working on this space, helping setup remote
companies. People seem to use a basket of various tools, none of which was
explicitly made for remote work. My ideal setup would be a virtual space, like
a game, where employees can virtually interact. Most communication is written,
complemented by voice chat when needed. It gives an understanding that "there
are other people out there" and not everyone working alone. It would also
enable all kinds of functions that happen on the sidelines of "traditiona"
office work. My biased opinion is that remote work is the natural way, and
forcing people to go through traffic etc just to "talk" to screens all day is
the absurd way. I believe business needs a revolutionary disruption to that
direction, and we are now technically in a position where this can happen.

~~~
carlosdp
Someone above mentioned this:
[https://www.sococo.com/](https://www.sococo.com/) which is video conferencing
that gives a map of where everyone "is" in a virtual office and makes getting
on chats lower-touch. Seems to solve part of that puzzle.

~~~
buboard
right , this is a good start. Not sure why this kind of gamification is not
used more often. It creates a certain sense of being together more than simple
email/slack, plus it can be more fun than just looking at pixellated webcams
during meetings.

------
philip1209
The average age of developers is increasing. A generation is leaving SF to
start families in other cities. Fewer people want to come to SF due to costs
and low quality of living, and startups are no longer expected to be in the
Bay. Coding schools are graduating new developers all over the country (and
the world). The future is remote.

I have a contrarian viewpoint: I think employment doesn't work with remote
work at scale. People want independence and flexibility. A 9-5 workday isn't
great for at-home knowledge work, and people want exposure to a variety of
projects. I think the future is contract-based. That's what I'm building with
Moonlight [1]: a distributed, contractor workforce.

"Contract engineer" has negative connotations in most companies. But, if you
can have a multi-month, ~40 hr/week relationship with a contractor, it's easy
to get hard work done. Developers work on their terms. Companies get access to
amazing people. Hiring takes days, not months. There's no bullshit of
traditional employment - like open offices, limits on vacation, or dress
codes. The hardest part of becoming a freelancer is the scarcity mindset -
building a network, finding jobs, collecting invoices, and lining up your next
job. We're solving that by basically becoming a talent agent. To make a
freelance lifestyle sustainable, we need to solve other parts of this model -
such as community and career advancement. But, we're working on it!

It sounds aspirational. But, over half of Moonlight projects continue
indefinitely. When companies like working with somebody, they don't stop.

[1] [https://www.moonlightwork.com](https://www.moonlightwork.com)

~~~
matchbok
Thanks but no thanks. Contract work overwhelming benefits the employer.

Also, spam.

~~~
dang
Please be respectful.

It's not spam for an HN user to link to their work in a relevant context. If
he were doing it in lots of threads it would be a different story, but that's
not the case here.

------
new_here
How do employment / legal contracts work with employees in this case? Are they
just anchored to the legal system where the company is registered? Do
employees need visas to work for the company remotely and so on?

~~~
pixelmonkey
If it is a US-based company, for US-based hires, your best option is to use a
good PEO (note: all PEOs suck, but some suck less than others), which will
have presence in all US states and thus be able to handle benefits, payroll,
and local employment laws. For international staff, you need to hire a lawyer.

------
BadassFractal
I really wish there were more case studies available out there to show whether
the "always remote" startup approach can work.

Having to be in the same room for many years at the very beginning of building
a high-growth venture-backed startup is considered a law of the universe at
this point, and it would be interesting to know how much not following it
actually hurts you.

Does this only work for people who really have their shit together and maybe
have started / sold successful businesses before?

------
alexashka
It looks like InVision is stuck between Sketch and Affinity Designer from the
low-end, to Adobe at the high end.

They'll be squeezed from both ends of the market, hard. Seeing how they
already have 700 employees, I don't see any break-through technology coming
from them, so they're stuck in a highly competitive, stingy market, with VCs,
wanting billion dollar returns on investment.

Yikes - unless their entire strategy is one of 500px - to get acquired, by
Adobe in this case.

------
dyeje
Remote team or not, their product is super slow.

~~~
rehemiau
Really heavyweight for the browser, and definitely not optimized for Firefox.

------
mcculley
> "After all, when you walk down the aisles of a standard company these days,
> people are on YouTube, social media," he said. "The modern knowledge worker,
> the technical worker, is going to focus on what engages them."

If you are not working, it doesn't matter where you are.

------
OptionX
Nice to see such a transition. Give more opportunities for developers by
removing the geographical constraint. And on a more personal note, the part I
hate the most from my job is the commute and it feels so much better when I
get the opportunity to work from home.

------
esseti
any good tips/reference/book/whatever that explains/teach how to manage a
distributed team? maybe something learned during the time. i've read the
gitlab handbook so far, sounds good, but I would love to have something for
the owner of a remote company on how to manage people and work (and how to
find the right people)

------
ArchTypical
DeviantArt's development team is 100% remote, iirc I dunno about the rest of
the company.

------
SSLy
This redirects to a 404 on a .pl domain. WTF, BI?

------
maxraz
Nice to know this fact.

------
anoncoward111
I moved from the software sales industry to waiting tables in a rural area. I
have a 10 minute commute by car or moped, I breathe fresh air, and I make
enough money to support myself.

My colleagues are my friends and my boss has never once slighted me on
anything.

There is something to be said about the perks of working remotely, but for
once it is nice to work in a supportive, engaging environment that is close to
my house.

~~~
thfuran
I work in the software industry, have a 10 minute commute, breathe fresh air,
make enough money to support myself, my colleagues are my friends, and my boss
has never once slighted me. A shit job is a shit job, but you don't have to
leave software to find a job that isn't shit.

~~~
commandlinefan
> you don't have to leave software to find a job that isn't shit.

What you say sounds plausible, but it runs counter to my anecdotal experience.

~~~
fsloth
I've been doing software for over a decade and none of my jobs have been shit.
Perhaps I've just vetted potential employers prudently enough (For example
I've said in interviews I consider crunches to be a management failure - you
need to say it with true compassion though and not sound like arrogant
asshole)

------
strittmatter
I am all for the remote trend. I think InVision is doing a really good thing
here and it looks like a lot of other companies are following suit.

I hope it influences people to migrate from major tech hubs and help boost the
economy in rural areas. I am from the rust belt area and it's been pretty
unaffected by all of the tech growth. Most of the locals are still hoping for
natural gas or coal to start booming again. I hope somehow remote work could
help revitalize the area, although I'm not sure it's enough.

~~~
hnaccy
The rust belt would just get undercut by programmers living in vastly cheaper
locations around globe.

~~~
retor
Maybe. But time zones are difficult for remote teamwork, and crossing borders
also have legal, language, culture and tax issues. Many remote positions on
job boards are “US only”. Perhaps for these reasons.

