In the last 12 months I've spoken to 1,500+ companies about their plans for remote work in 2021

Here are a few 'request for startup ideas' based on what I've heard

[ a thread ]

Personal Branding: The best companies in the world will empower individuals to create and grow their personal brands

Companies who elevate their people will dominate in talent attractions and retention

Personal RPA: Robotic process automation will transform work for individuals.

No-code tools that enable workers to build bots that automate menial parts of their roles will be huge

Gamify Work: Tools that help people remain more engaged and empower them with a deeper feeling of achievement as they make progress and complete tasks

Teams will be rewarded as they progress and contribute more frequently due to faster feedback loops

Health & Wellbeing: Worker burning out due to overworking is going to be a big problem of remote work

Companies are looking for products that help workers avoid this by taking care of themselves better & being more mindful

Internal Community: Companies who focus on community will dominate this decade

An engaged internal community will be the strongest moat any company can build for retention, and the most important sign of company health will be how this internal community projects outwards

Micro Co-working: A home on every street will be transformed into a hyper-local co-working space

It comes with all the amenities needed, like high-quality coffee, and has on-demand fitness equipment like @onepeloton bikes

Companies will pay for this for their teams

WFH Setup: Report of people being injured while working from home is skyrocketing. 60% of people have pain they didn't have in an office

Companies will begin to provide a setup that ensures people are as safe and comfortable at home as they were in an office

Vertical Tools: @NotionHQ, @LoomHQ, @zoom_us etc. are incredible horizontal products that do nearly anything

Vertical products that do one thing, operating around a constraint that enables greater focus, will dominate 2021

Output focus: Time will be replaced as the main KPI for judging performance by productivity and output. Great workers will be the ones who deliver what they promise consistently

Way to measure this more effectively are desperately needed

Voice Tech: You speak 7x faster than you type and you read 2x faster than you listen

Tech that lets you consume and input via these modes will arise and interface with every tool you use via an API

Contact Escalation: Tools that let people escalate problems will emerge as an important part of async work

They will allow teams to set priority to comms and batch deliver things that are less important when their teammate isn't doing deep focussed work

Asynchronous Work: Companies now know offices are instantaneous gratification distraction factories where it's very hard to deep work

Tools that enable asynchronous work are the most important thing globally remote teams need

Payment Preferences: Workers will have the power to shift the currency they receive payment in at the touch of a button

Fractional ownership of their company over salary will become an option

Democratized Coaching: Everyone who wants to will have access to a coach. This will help people perform and optimize

Companies will provide these to teams which enable individuals to develop with world-class tutoring

Remote Tools: Companies operating remotely now will have created tools every remote team on the planet needs @Zapier,  @Gitlab,  @GitHub,  @FirstbaseHQ will spawn Mafias who take these internal tools and create startups around them

Several $Billion Startups to emerge this way

Remote Infrastructure: There is a missing half of remote work that’s neglected because it’s difficult, boring, and unsexy

It will be the most critical. Until that’s solved remote teams won’t be able to scale globally easily

No Code: Will grow to dominate creation @webflow,  @figmadesign, amongst others will democratize access to creation unlike ever before

Remote workers who have an area of expertise and one of these broad skills will be the most sought after talent

Ongoing Perks: Coffee, food orders, child care; the next wave of in-home perks will give power to each worker to control exactly what they want

Services that let companies provide them while enabling workers to personalize to their preference will explode to prominence

Better Communication: Organizations are looking for tools that can improve the quality of writing individuals produce and the documentation they create

Expect a tool like Grammarly but more focussed on documentation and communication to emerge rapidly

Why did 1,500 companies talk to us?

http://FirstbaseHQ.com