Deel

How to unify payments to international contractors? Is local law legislation too complicated to be dealt with? Who can we find to solve this problem?

The answer can be found in the interview by Brianne Kimmel with the Deel co-founder Shuo Wang.

Deel is a San Francisco based company which developed a payroll platform that companies can use for payouts to their contractors around the world. The legislation for payouts vary from country to country, and this platform takes care that everything falls into place regarding tax forms, invoices, receipts, localized contracts and automated payments that remote teams use. In short, its mission is to have one place for the onboarding process, compliance, and payments.

The first product they released was very interesting but at the same time very complicated to use. They didn’t acquire any clients in the first three weeks. Because of that reason the co-founders talked to every single founder in their batch, explained the problem, listened and based on their feedback built a completely new product.

Shuo Wang explained that she and her co-founder Alex Buoaziz have a very transparent communication with their team regarding client needs and they tend to immediately contact the product team regarding those issues.

Wang also said that the key to their business success and their philosophy is patience. Clients can come from Facebook messenger, Twitter, Instagram and direct emails. They listen to them, try to understand the problem and to solve it. Building trust in the business relationship is also of great importance in their everyday activities.

The co-founders maintain an investor relationship where they build strategic partnerships. They are very independent, they tend to make decisions on their own and move fast. Wang explains that that’s why Deel has been growing so quickly.


Image credits: https://unsplash.com/s/photos/business - Microsoft Edge

Regarding the pandemic, it definitely accelerated the growth of Deel and helped them adjust to the market faster. Before the pandemic in 2020 they were a 10 person team, in 2020 they became a 20 person team and today they have about 1200 employees.

Regarding changes on the market Deel is very aware that things change quickly and because of that is fast in re-forecasting.

The company also experimented with different currencies. The payment systems for the international talent are evolving and they include local banks, PayPal, TransferWise as well as crypto payouts.

Deel is also into acquisitions. They have two criterias that have to be met before starting the acquisition. The first one is that the product has to be in line with the vision of Deel. The second is that the two cultures align and the teams can have smooth integration together.

Wang also explained that at Deel, they have been very efficient at marketing spending and user acquisition.

Regarding Wang’s relationship with the marketing team she stated that they work as one together with the sales team and the product.

So, there is no excuse for not fixing real world issues, all it takes is courage, imagination and persistence. Have a nice business journey!


Written by: Mislav Zlomislić

References:

https://www.worklife.vc/blog/shuo-wang-deel

https://www.worklife.vc/companies/deel

https://www.deel.com/


Mislav Zlomislić is a digital marketing intern of PS Media Enterprise. He is a former student of Zagreb school of economics and management, Zagreb, Croatia