Basecamp: 20+ years of remote work experience

Summary

Basecamp has operated as a remote-friendly company for more than two decades, long before the pandemic forced most organizations to improvise a remote work policy overnight. As part of a series examining the top global companies that have mastered remote work, the 51-person software company's culture, hiring process, and customer relationship model show what it looks like to build around distributed teams from the start.

Basecamp's talent strategy includes a hiring process built around paid trial projects rather than conventional interviews, a deliberate practice of recruiting from outside traditional talent hubs, and an onboarding approach that blends short in-person time with fully remote work. Employee autonomy is another hallmark of Basecamp's approach, covering unconventional perks like company credit cards without spending limits and unlimited but loosely structured time off.

On customer relationships, Basecamp builds trust with prospective clients without relying on face-to-face meetings, using transparent progress-sharing and fast response times to substitute for the in-person reassurance most vendor relationships depend on. Its acquisition of a rare three-letter domain name and the tools it relies on round out the picture of how the company runs a fully distributed operation.

What can companies newly forced into remote work learn from a team that has operated this way for over twenty years?