I would have thought so too, but I’ve been mystified by how few of the pandemic-remote-work efforts have been aimed towards “virtual immigration” tools that make it easier for US companies to outsource software developer tasks. Maybe there are legal obstacles to hiring overseas employees (but surely there are lots of easy ways to get around this by having them be “contractors” or something)? I fear that it’s not happening simply because places like India or Latin America are poorer than the USA so it’s a less lucrative potential market than selling Zoom/Teams licenses to Fortune-500 companies.
The pieces are all there but there seems to be a dearth of explicitly “virtual immigration” oriented companies who are trying to cobble said pieces together:
Flexible options for companies to post bounties for work, hire short-term contractors or freelancers, or have an on-ramp for hiring someone as a permanent employee. (ie just replicate the basic functionality of existing freelancing sites)
Hook into an international payments system like Wave to make it easy for companies to pay overseas freelancers wherever they live.
Maybe partner with companies in the target countries; ie partner with an Indian company who can provide offices with good computers/internet and vetted coders, and you help match them to employers in the USA and smoothly integrate them into their USA developer team by making it easy for the employers to adopt remote-working best practices.
But maybe there is some logical reason why this seemingly solid plan is not happening, or maybe it is happening but I haven’t noticed yet because the startups are still scaling up.
I fear that it’s not happening simply because places like India or Latin America are poorer than the USA so it’s a less lucrative potential market than selling Zoom/Teams licenses to Fortune-500 companies.
This sounds maybe true!
I can totally imagine it being false, because it’s still a big enough market in theory so supposedly it’s worth fighting over. But I also understand why it wouldn’t be the ideal first market for a typical company.
Regarding the specific reasons that it is harder there: this would be the job of a good product person to start talking to potential customers, I think. But that seems solvable
I would have thought so too, but I’ve been mystified by how few of the pandemic-remote-work efforts have been aimed towards “virtual immigration” tools that make it easier for US companies to outsource software developer tasks. Maybe there are legal obstacles to hiring overseas employees (but surely there are lots of easy ways to get around this by having them be “contractors” or something)? I fear that it’s not happening simply because places like India or Latin America are poorer than the USA so it’s a less lucrative potential market than selling Zoom/Teams licenses to Fortune-500 companies.
The pieces are all there but there seems to be a dearth of explicitly “virtual immigration” oriented companies who are trying to cobble said pieces together:
Flexible options for companies to post bounties for work, hire short-term contractors or freelancers, or have an on-ramp for hiring someone as a permanent employee. (ie just replicate the basic functionality of existing freelancing sites)
Use tools like Google Translate and Grammarly to make it easier for people to communicate and transact fluently across cultures. (How about something as simple as a video-call service where you’re auto-translating what people are saying in near-real-time?) Here’s a startup who implemented this feature and got bought by Zoom, so I guess it’s coming, but I don’t yet see it in any of the actual products I use.
Hook into an international payments system like Wave to make it easy for companies to pay overseas freelancers wherever they live.
Maybe partner with companies in the target countries; ie partner with an Indian company who can provide offices with good computers/internet and vetted coders, and you help match them to employers in the USA and smoothly integrate them into their USA developer team by making it easy for the employers to adopt remote-working best practices.
But maybe there is some logical reason why this seemingly solid plan is not happening, or maybe it is happening but I haven’t noticed yet because the startups are still scaling up.
TL;DR: Strong upvote, thank you!
This sounds maybe true!
I can totally imagine it being false, because it’s still a big enough market in theory so supposedly it’s worth fighting over. But I also understand why it wouldn’t be the ideal first market for a typical company.
Regarding the specific reasons that it is harder there: this would be the job of a good product person to start talking to potential customers, I think. But that seems solvable