Remote vs return-to-office: the startup edition

We went fully remote in 2020, tried hybrid in 2023, and just went back to three days in office. I want to be honest about what's working and what isn't.

We're fully remote and it works for us. But we're 22 people and everyone was hired remote-first. I think the transition is harder than the destination.

The data I've seen shows that remote startups ship features at comparable rates but struggle more with strategic pivots and culture-building. The informal hallway conversations matter more than people admit.

As a board member, I can tell when a company is struggling with remote culture. The founders who make it work invest heavily in async documentation, regular offsites, and intentional social time. The ones who just 'went remote' are slowly falling apart.

The in-office days made a difference for us immediately. Cross-team problems that lingered for weeks in Slack got solved in 20-minute conversations. The bandwidth of in-person communication is just higher.

I hear that. Our solution is quarterly in-person weeks where the whole company is together. It's expensive but it's the highest-ROI spend in our budget. We do all our strategic planning and relationship-building in those weeks.