Our time in South America has been very enlightening. For instance, Chile has a pretty sizable middle class, and thus software developers and designers and other qualified people we could hire. I've heard from others that this is also the case in many of the other south american countries.
But I don't think we need to find people local. I believe in telecommuting, and I think that talented people want to live in nice places. For instance, I know one american company that has several employees in Thailand and asia, simply because that's where the employees want to live.
I think letting people telecommute will be a competitive advantage for us in hiring. The office is such a mind numbing place to work, they seem designed to kill productivity. (we don't have an office, the founders share an apartment, having a larger apartment is still cheaper than having a separate office.)
But we're also working on businesses with a great degree of leverage. I think many businesses see themselves as mostly selling the product of their employees productivity, and thus more employees=more business. We're selling the product of ingenuity... and so a lot of places where other people would hire employees, we will outsource. For instance, when we can't do support in house, we'll have an employee or two who is in charge of customer service, but the primary front line customer service people would be employees of a customer-service-as-a-service provider.
But I don't think we need to find people local. I believe in telecommuting, and I think that talented people want to live in nice places. For instance, I know one american company that has several employees in Thailand and asia, simply because that's where the employees want to live.
I think letting people telecommute will be a competitive advantage for us in hiring. The office is such a mind numbing place to work, they seem designed to kill productivity. (we don't have an office, the founders share an apartment, having a larger apartment is still cheaper than having a separate office.)
But we're also working on businesses with a great degree of leverage. I think many businesses see themselves as mostly selling the product of their employees productivity, and thus more employees=more business. We're selling the product of ingenuity... and so a lot of places where other people would hire employees, we will outsource. For instance, when we can't do support in house, we'll have an employee or two who is in charge of customer service, but the primary front line customer service people would be employees of a customer-service-as-a-service provider.