Episode 167 · 30 January 2025 · 48:24
167: Why Your Next Hire Should Be 5,000 Miles Away, with Tony Jamous, OysterHR
Featuring Tony Jamous
167: Why Your Next Hire Should Be 5,000 Miles Away, with Tony Jamous, OysterHR
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The future of work is distributed
Why distributed teams solve the global talent shortage
What organizations get wrong about remote work
The office-return pushback and the economics of flexibility
interview#office return#flexibility#economics
Building psychological safety in virtual teams
Leadership in a distributed world: trust by default
interview#leadership#distributed work#trust
Building relationships in a 100% virtual environment
interview#virtual environment#relationship building#remote collaboration
Becoming a healthy leader
interview#healthy leadership#wellness#leadership development
Mission-driven business and democratizing opportunity
interview#mission-driven#democratizing opportunity#business mission
Selling Nexmo to Ericsson and personal mission
Growth in emerging markets and Oyster vs Upwork
interview#emerging markets#global employment#platform comparison
Challenges navigating the economic shift and looking ahead
Show notes
Why Your Next Hire Should Be 5,000 Miles Away — with Tony Jamous
Guest: Tony Jamous — founder and CEO of Oyster, a software platform helping companies hire, pay, and manage employees in 180+ countries. Previously built and sold Nexmo to Ericsson.
What if the best person for your next role isn't in your city — or your country — but 5,000 miles away?
Tony joins Al and Leanne from a rustic farmhouse in Northern Italy to share his vision for the future of work. From his childhood in Lebanon to founding a unicorn company, Tony explains why distributed teams aren't just a pandemic-era trend — they're the answer to a looming global talent crisis that could cost the West $8.5 trillion.
They dig into how to build genuine psychological safety when you've never met your team face-to-face, why defaulting to trust is the only sane operating system for remote work, and what it really means to be a "healthy leader" — physically and mentally.
Top 3 Takeaways
The future of work is distributed — and it's an economic necessity. With a global talent shortage in the West projected to cost $8.5 trillion, companies that tap into emerging markets aren't just being progressive — they're being prudent.
Default to trust. In distributed teams, psychological safety isn't a nice-to-have — it's the operating system. Trust people by default, and build a culture where clear communication and best-intent assumptions are the foundation.
Become a "healthy leader" first. Leadership in a distributed world is less about managerial technique and more about managing your own physical and mental health. The more senior you get, the more your own engagement and non-reactivity become the culture.
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Nice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning psychology podcast Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of work and create amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWelcome, welcome to our Thursday episode. It's interview episode today. Tuesdays are a bit different. We'll tell you about that in a second. Um, don't worry, January's almost over. I think when this comes out, you'll have about 27 hours left of January. Has been the longest month possible, but yes, so it's almost finished. If you've listened to Tuesday's episode, which you should have done because I'll be checking, then you'll know that we are slowly working our way back home across Europe from the UK. Set off about the 2nd of January, we aim to arrive on the 1st of February just to basically ignore January, kick it in the face. So we're currently filming from a farmhouse in northeast Italy. Some people have commented saying that the background is fake. It's not, it really is this good, but you'll probably see our dogs moving around around in a second. But anyway, Lee, what else do we need to know?
Leanne ElliottWell, let's take it back to the podcast. I think this week we are bringing you an incredible guest, and regular listeners will know that on Tuesdays we bring you our This Week in Work, where we bring you the latest news stories from the world of work. There's not that much going on right now, is there? I don't know, somebody cancelled DEI, did I hear? Um, we might talk about that next week. We also bring a hot take from an industry expert, an unpopular opinion, something that is broken in the world of work, and finally, our world-famous weekly workplace surgery that neither Al and I can say properly first time, but nevertheless we will continue. Um, so that's on Tuesdays, but today we are joined by a very special expert.
Al ElliottYes, today's guest is Tony Jamous. Um, he is the founder and CEO of OysterHR. Now, if you ever tried to hire someone from another country, you can know the paperwork can be a nightmare. You know that everything could be a nightmare trying to work out local employment laws, benefits, make it all or fair for everyone? Well, that's what Tony is here for. That's what OysterHR fixes. Oyster helps companies hire talent from anywhere in the world without having to set up local entities or having to understand even what the local HR laws are.
Leanne ElliottAnd this isn't just for big corporations. Oyster works with any company that employs knowledge workers, developers, marketers, salespeople, basically anyone who can do their job with a laptop and an internet connection. In this episode, you're going to learn 3 crucial things about employing workers across multiple countries. First, how to build trust in remote teams without ever meeting face to face. Tony's got some really interesting insights about assuming best intent and why that mindset shift is so important.
Al ElliottSecondly, how do you handle compensation fairly across countries? There's this ongoing debate about whether you should potentially be paying people the same whether they live in the Philippines or the US. Tony's take on this might surprise you.
Leanne ElliottAnd finally, what I found particularly interesting, how to create genuine psychological safety in distributed teams. Tony shares some really practical strategies that they use at Oyster, where they have over 550 employees across 70 countries.
Al ElliottAnd just a quick note, Tony's not talking theory here. He's previously built and sold a company to Ericsson, and Oyster is now valued at over a billion dollars. No, that's not million, that's billion with So he knows exactly what he's talking about. So let's go and meet Tony Jamous and hear his story. I don't want to introduce you because you're such a fascinating guy. I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself. So can you tell me, Tony, who are you, what do you do, and what might you be famous for?
Tony JamousUh, well, I am, um, currently working as a CEO of Oyster. I'm the founder of Oyster. Oyster is a software company on a mission to reverse brain drain. Reduce wealth inequality. I was born in Lebanon. I moved to France when I was in my teen years to study computer science. And then I became an entrepreneur the first time 14 years ago now when I started this software company in the API space enabling developers to build communication software. I started that business when I was in the Bay Area in San Francisco. And then that business grew rapidly, went public, was acquired by Ericsson. And then that enabled me to leave that and take some time off and focus on my health, my wellbeing, but also what I'm going to do next. And for me, it was important that I align what I do with what I believe in. I wanted to work on something meaningful, impactful.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tony Jamousaligned why I'm here in this world. And that led me to Oyster to create software to reduce the barriers for companies to employ people anywhere on the planet without the need of setting up entities, hiring lawyers, accountants. Essentially, if a business found, let's say, Mary in Africa, developer, they want to hire her and they are based in the UK or in the US or wherever. Then, and they can do that with a few clicks on our platform and give her a great salary, good experience, great benefits. So by making global hiring as easy as local hiring, I realized that we can drop inequality, let people stay in their home communities. I mean, the number one reason why emerging economies remain emerging is the fact that their best people have to leave to work in other countries.
Al ElliottI think I've heard you say the future of work is distributed, and I don't think I understand what that means.
Tony JamousIt means that the organizations of tomorrow are going to be hyper-diverse and distributed organizations because now great talent can be found anywhere in the world. We have communication technologies And ways of collaboration around knowledge work that is very suited for remote work. There are over a billion knowledge workers coming into the workforce in the next 10 years, mostly from emerging economies. At the same time, we have a talent shortage in the West. We have a million knowledge worker jobs going unfulfilled in the West, leading to 8.5 trillion economical loss according to Korn Ferry, which is like 3 times, like around 10% of the world economy to give you an idea, or 3 times the economy of France is missing. There's not enough knowledge workers in the West while there is 1 billion coming into the workforce in emerging economies. So there's an imbalance.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousBetween supply and demand. And what's gonna fill that gap of imbalance is companies get out of their countries to hire people in other countries. So that's why the future is distributed. And there are some benefits to that. Like, it's not like just to fill an economical gap in the economy. It's also better for humans, better for employees, because these people can stay in their communities.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousAnd bring into their communities hard currency that are very needed in emerging economies. And, and they're gonna work from some of the best companies in the world because the best companies in the world today are increasingly diverse and increasingly distributed around the planet. So we give job opportunities and employment opportunities, growth opportunities in their career.
Al ElliottLet's talk about remote work. What do org— what do you see organizations getting wrong? about remote work?
Tony JamousSo it's a question of adoption and implementation. So there are ways that you can develop an operating system for your company that enables people to be engaged and productive no matter where they live. It's a different way of operating. So at Oyster, we call it the Oyster operating model that is based on asynchronous way of communication and collaboration. That's why we default a lot to documentation. It's also about being clear on a team level and individual level as well. So when they wake up in Manila in the morning, not only they have access to what they need to do, but they know what is expected from them. And you build a culture based on trust because when you were working in the office, managers thought or confused presence with productivity. And that's not the case anymore. They cannot see the person in seat while there's alarm bells coming into their brain saying, hey, I cannot trust these people.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousSo it's about being intentional in building trust. So when you have this foundation, clear ways of collaboration and communication, clear goals and objectives, trust, then you get it right. So these are the ingredients of that. So many companies didn't apply rigorously in these 3 areas, right? So, and no company is perfect. Obviously, it's a continuous improvement. It's the path that companies need to go through. And the result of that, number one, you have access to the world's amazing talent pool. You're not restricted anymore in hiring in 20-mile radius from your office, which is like less than 1% of talent that you need, you can access. Secondly, it improves your bottom line because salaries in these tier 1 expensive cities are more affordable for companies. So it's much more economical. And thirdly, it makes you a talent magnet. You can attract the best people in the world. For every job offer we announce, we get 750 applicants. So because the best people from all around the world want to come work with us because we can employ them anywhere on the planet. So it makes you a talent magnet and As a result of all of that, a trust-based culture where people are enabled to grow no matter where they are, uh, and freedom and flexibility to live the life they want to live. If they want to live on the island of Cyprus, they can. And, um, and this is how it's done.
Al ElliottI see a little bit of pushback on X, um, for— there's people like, I don't know if you come across Nick Huber, the Sweaty Startup. I think he's a majority shareholder Think, which is a talent offshore talent agency. And a lot of the complaints seem to be that it seems unfair to pay someone less because they live in a different country. So what's your thoughts on that?
Tony JamousMy thoughts on this is that companies operate within an economical framework. They have to— now, some companies don't have to align with it. Like, for instance, some companies are They only hire engineers. That's it. And they are 95% engineers in the company and they are, you know, a 50-people company. Maybe they can afford putting that into an economical equation that makes sense. But when you're around the world and you're driven by capitalistic forces that requires you to continue to become more and more efficient, it becomes a question of survival.
Leanne ElliottRight?
Tony JamousSo you have to make sure that you're taking these prudent financial decisions in the business to make sure you can still, and you can still bring opportunity to these people. It doesn't mean that you cannot pay people better than local salaries, right? And change their lives in that way. So what we, because we have all the data around the world now, we We know that you can 2 to 3 times more, so 200 to 300% more than the local salary and still make like 50 to 70% cost improvement versus the same role, the same experience, but in tier 1 city like New York or London or San Francisco. I don't sound like I'm a fan of moving towards a more equal world.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousSo, which means that as influx of capital is going to move into emerging economies, the hope is that these emerging are going to stop being emerging and their quality of living improves. Their cost of living will also increase. Where there's more equilibrium between supply and demand around the planet. That's the point you want to get to. And to get there, there are some intermediary steps. It requires first to create this platform that through software makes global hiring as easy as local hiring. So companies use anymore or legal or tax or financial or payroll or HR excuse not to hire. So you remove these massive blockers to the system and you let this imbalance between talent shortage in the West and talent, great talent abundance in emerging economies, you let that drive the change towards more equality over time.
Al ElliottYou have already batted out the park the, the, the, the objection that if you're not sitting in front of me, I can't manage you properly. So you've already batted that out of the park. You've already explained that actually you massively— I think the, the final part that people worry about when they're having remote, fully remote teams Is how do they keep everyone engaged and happy if they're not in the office? If they don't meet up, you may never meet them. What's your thoughts on that?
Tony JamousFirst, you create a, we create a culture centered on, on the core human needs, which is you have to have psychological safety at work where people are not afraid of being who they are. And you do that by You as a leader start having non-reactions to what's happening in the work, right? So you want to develop ability to be non-reactive to bad news, to manage yourself as a leader so people are not afraid of you as you work with them. So you create this, you focus on human needs starting with psychological safety and You create an environment where people feel trusted. You know what needs to happen for these people to feel trusted? So you don't micromanage them, you don't track their hours, you give them, you tell them, you get them to realize that you trust results, not the inputs.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Yeah.
Tony JamousAnd you have to really grow as a leader to be able to let go. That actually, it pushes you to be a better leader because you have to be, you have to create a structure of management for them to be successful in it. What are their goals? Expectation from them. You need to facilitate their collaboration across the company. So this is how you do it. This is some of the things we've done at Oyster.
Al ElliottLet's get on to the leadership thing because I think this is a big— I mean, I've heard you talk and I've read some of the stuff you've written on leadership quite a lot. Is there a particular type of leader who is better at managing remote employees? Are there certain skills they might have?
Tony JamousIt is less about the managerial skills because How you supervise somebody, how you manage somebody, support somebody can be transferable between office and remote. What is really critical is to change the chip of the leader and default to assuming best intent as a strategy to build trust. So you don't want the person to feel your employees trust them because— and then what happens when they feel that you don't trust them if they don't show up? You're gonna have a culture full of real-time meetings that is unproductive and lead people to burnout. And you're going to have a culture where people are anxious when they are like, they wanna show up sometimes unnecessarily to be able to feed you with data that they can be trusted. So you have, you wanna remove that problem by defaulting to assuming best intent.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousAnd trust people absolutely by default. That should be your energy system. Secondly, at least for me, what I had to do is I had to kind of manage my energy system as we talked earlier so that when I show up at work, I'm clean. Like I don't have reactivity. And when I don't have, when I manage my reactivity, I become more thoughtful. I become more present to my team.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousThis is how you become non-reactive. And as a result, you create a culture based on trust. And actually it makes you more successful because if you're less reactive, then you're conserving your energy levels, right? So you can, you can really be much more effective by burning out less.
Al ElliottSo if we default to assuming best intent, not everyone will have the best intentions. So how do you reconcile assuming best intent with also ensuring that someone's not gonna screw up a project or say they've done work and not done it?
Tony JamousWell, let me tell you the truth. Thought that you get that somebody might screw up on a project will be most probably responsible for that person not to succeed in that project because you're having this thought and you're gonna start seeing that person making mistakes instead of seeing that person making wins and successes, right? So you have to pro— you have to delete from your mind the intention category. It's not something you ask yourself about anymore. You manage yourself, you manage how you show up, you manage how you interact. But these thoughts that you're getting about maybe these people the best intention are in the way for that relationship to be based on trust. And they are in the way of your mental health because you're going to be caught into it. You're going to be caught in, and you know, you can have millions of these thoughts a day. Like there's no limit to how much negative thoughts your brain is able to generate about people around. So these thoughts are like bringing your energy down. So you have to delete them and start operating without them.
Al ElliottSo let's talk about building relationships. So we've got— you trust your people implicitly, you use Oyster, or one uses Oyster to manage the outcomes. Everything's ticking.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Do you—
Al ElliottI think a lot of people who are used to working face to face with someone or in an office, they're going to go, well, I can't build the same kind of relationships that I have with someone who is on the other side of the world. What would you say to that?
Tony JamousIt is true. It is harder to build a relationship in a 100% virtual environment. That's why I do recommend we meet in person maybe once or twice a year. This is what I do with my team at Oyster. And we use these opportunities to not only get stuff done, but also to build closer relationships. However, because In-person meetings are— need preparation, they're expensive, sometimes they might not happen, there are other priorities. You cannot count them as the only source of connection. So you have to be intentional. It's part of your job to think how you want a relationship, positive relationship with your colleagues. So example, when I have my one-to-ones with my direct reports, I always check in on them in the beginning of the call. That's part of my job to build that relationship. There are some thematic channels in Slack that enable people to connect around some maybe hobbies or family or children or pets or whatever. And we also have one for mental health. People come and share their challenges and you have a community that comes and helps them. So you can connect in various ways and And you can connect through work as well. You know, working together is for me connection, the way you show up every day to your colleagues with the intention to build. If you have that intention as part of your approach, then you can— good relationship will happen if you have that, if you bring that intention to work. And finally, because now you're not able to You don't have to because now you don't have to commute to the office and waste 2 hours a day. And now you can actually socialize outside of work. That's another source of socialization that you can use to feed your socialization needs. I don't work in the morning. I work— so in the morning, I have the opportunity to connect with my local community.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Yeah.
Tony JamousWhen my kids are with me, I don't work in the afternoon. So I shifted my schedule to allow me to have the better connection with my children while running a unicorn company. So work comes and supports your life actually. So flexible remote work enables you to design your life to maximize your Whatever you want to maximize.
Leanne ElliottAfter this short break, we'll be back with Tony and Al as he asks the tough question: is it fair to pay employees in emerging countries less than, say, the US? See you after the break. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at And we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking.
Al ElliottAnd you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Tony JamousSeamless, seamless.
Al ElliottTell us about your latest episode, Fel.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Uh, we've just done an episode on Fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioral science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)It can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Tony JamousI am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottWelcome back. Let's rejoin the interview and learn more about how you can still create amazing and equitable workplaces regardless of where your employees live.
Al ElliottI'm sure I've read that you've, you've used a phrase, healthy leader. You've got to become a healthy leader. Can you tell me what a healthy leader looks like and then what perhaps an unhealthy leader looks like?
Tony JamousIt's a combination of physical and mental health. So I always tell my team and leaders, to take care of themselves first so they can show up healthy at work. And so the physical aspect is also important because you don't wanna stay on a Zoom call every day. Actually, if you can go do, like sometimes I do calls walking. So it's walking calls are also very useful, helps you to think, increases your blood flow, you're more creative, you're less reactive. And so you have to take care of physically, like for instance, I have, because I'm a remote worker, I can exercise every day, 5 days a week. So it's part of my routine. Like I don't have to, if I need to go at 2 PM in the afternoon to my gym where nobody is there, I can do that, right? So that remote work enabled me also to eat healthy because now I don't have to eat in restaurants anymore. So I can control my food supply. So, but there's also the mental health. Mental health is about, as we discussed earlier, the key is to be non-reactive. So to be non-reactive, you have to work on yourself. You have to work on your reactivity, on your wounds, on your purpose, why you're doing what you're doing. You have to clear about why you're here.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tony Jamousis part of that mental health so that you are, you need to manage your own engagement. The more you go up to the top, the more you're the person recognizing yourself, you're the person seeing yourself, you're the person, so you don't depend anymore. So you have to develop this inner ability to manage your engagement level.
Al ElliottSo Tony, we're gonna segue a little bit more into mission because I think already in the last, like, half an hour, you've used the word mission so many times. I know that Oyster has a very clear mission. So let's start with what is the mission of Oyster?
Tony JamousThe mission of Oyster is to democratize global access to job opportunities by reducing the barriers that prevent companies from employing somebody in another country. And by doing so, we want to reduce brain drain so amazing talent can stay back home and add value to their communities, to their countries. And as a result of that, have a shot in reducing inequality. That's the mission of Oyster. But a mission for me, what a mission is, is about The why you're here and the why should be something bigger than yourself, should be something bigger than just making profits, should be about a broader impact than just producing widgets to maximize profits for shareholders. You need to make, you need to actually align your financial success with your mission impact.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousThat's a trick because the capitalistic system is here to support you as well. I believe if you bring positive intention to the capitalistic system, the system will support you. So you need to prove that being mission-driven is actually better or higher return of investment than if you're not. And you do so by aligning your your business model with your mission. At Oyster, 40% of employees under management are employed in emerging economy. That was 30% 2 years ago. So that's, we call that our impact yield. So the more we grow our business and generate profit and return for investors, the more we deliver social and economical impact. And the In the finance impact world, this is called collinearity between business and impact, right? And when, when these stars are aligned, this is where you start resonating at a higher frequency as a business. And then you attract the best talent, you attract more customers, you attract more funding, and it becomes this virtual circle of success. This is what we wanna prove with Oyster.
Al ElliottSo let's go back to the days when you were selling to Ericsson. Again, I'm gonna ask you the— I'm gonna ask you for the story. In fact, let's tell the story now because the context of my question is I want to hear how it happened. I wanna hear what it's like to sell to a big, big PLC. And I also want to ask you at the end whether you felt that the sale was still within your mission at that time. So let's start with How did it happen and when did it happen and what happened?
Tony JamousYeah. So this was my first company. That company was essentially making one API or internet connection to the whole world networks, mobile networks for messaging and voice and creating a simple interface for software developers to build applications on top of their networks. Essentially what used to take 2 years project to do for, let's say, bank to connect to a local network would take now 5 minutes by any software developer. So boom, a new market was created and that company went from $0 to $100 million in the first 5 years. And then I took it public by doing a reverse merger with a company that was already public on the New York Stock Exchange, a company called Vonage, also in the telecommunication industry. They, this company was a consumer company that wanted to pivot into becoming a B2B company and they had these declining revenues from the consumer business, but they had a lot of cash. So we did that merger and we took some of that cash and invested in the growth of that business and it went from $100 million to a billion like a few years later in top line. And that was a great bet. That, but that was also the future of telecommunication, right? So we're making this telecom network programmable. We're connecting that network to the innovation of 50 million software developers on the planet that was blocked for them before. So that's the future of building networks. So Ericsson saw that and Took the company private a few years ago.
Al ElliottThat's incredible. I was a customer of Vonage. I had a softphone on my— yeah, I remember looking into it. And so just so I understand, this is without getting too technical, but I'm a huge nerd. Then the API you were building was essentially an early version of Twilio, is it? Where you could programmatically send SMS and that kind of thing. Is that how it worked?
Tony JamousActually, so Twilio was our primary rival. So we started, the company was called Nexmo. Nexmo was a text messaging API. We were solving that global fragmentation problem and access to developers, but for SMS text messages. Twilio started with voice. They were a voice API. And then one day we realized that we exist, you know, each player realized the other player exists.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousI said, what a great idea. Let's, you know, they added SMS, we added voice, and then we added video eventually later. And so, and together, like, we created this category that was called communication platform as a service, CPaaS. And analysts started looking at this industry or this category and it became a thing like we birthed a category.
Al ElliottLet's talk about your personal mission then. So you built this company, you sold this company. I'm not gonna ask you about numbers or how much you sold and how much you made, but I'm imagining that you did personally quite well out of it. Was that— has your mission changed at all from when you were building that to now when you're building Oyster?
Tony JamousI think deep down, uh, the mission and the purpose is always clear and it gets— but it gets clearer over time. The more I mature in that domain of purpose clarification, the more it becomes clearer. It's like a painting in the beginning and at the end it's like 12 gigabyte pixel detailed view, right? So, but it takes work to get there and time to get there. So my first company was linked to that mission, to the Oyster mission because we employed That company Nexmo, we employed in 45 countries because we had to go on the ground and work with all these telecom carriers and customers. And so this is where I realized the power of global employment. We had a diverse organization, we could access amazing talent and they would stay with us for a very long time. And so when I wanted to, when I took some time off, I left that business. I was looking at starting a new business, but for me, I wasn't worried about what that business would do, but I was more looking at how I'm going to do it. I wanted a business that creates opportunity for people, fully distributed, no offices, fully flexible, because I also wanted to— I don't wanna go to the office anymore, right? I don't wanna live in central cities where it's polluted and Expensive. And so I wanted to live where I wanted to live somewhere else. So I created a business to address these needs. And I realized that actually there was no solution to that problem when I wanted to build a business that is fully distributed. I wasn't finding solutions. And I realized that, hey, we can take this framework of decentralization that we had at Nexmo where we Or aggregation. We connected one infrastructure and behind the scene there is this fragmented world of 1,000 network operators and we use software to create one interface. So we can, let's do that for employment. Let's take that high-level concept and apply it on the employment market. And actually, so the value I created in these 2 companies is nothing more than using software to deal with man-made unnecessary complexities called divide in countries, have different regulation, different tax laws, different employment laws. In the case of Nexmo, different telecommunication protocols, different telecommunication regulations. So using software to deal with man-made complexity on big markets such as telecommunication and employment is This is a formula.
Al ElliottI heard a lot of people who've sold or read a lot of people who've sold companies, and then they felt like a profound sense of loss in the, like, the weeks or months afterwards because their baby's gone. Is that something you felt?
Tony JamousWhat I felt when I left my first business was I felt that my identity was being shaken. I felt like now part of me was the company. How I identify myself, part of that was I'm the founder and CEO of this company. And dealing with that was the growth area for me, was to kind of detach myself from my work identity and see it as a job, as something I do, not something I am, has been very liberating and powerful. healing path for me.
Al ElliottWhere are you seeing the most amount of growth in terms of emerging— what was the— what do you call it? Emerging countries, territories? What was your term?
Tony JamousEmerging markets.
Al ElliottEmerging markets. Where do you see the most amount of growth?
Tony JamousWe see a lot of growth in South America because of the actually time zone proximity to North America, where you have the biggest talent shortage today. In terms of economical gap. And also these economies react quickly. They want to react quickly to fill that economical gap. And we see another corridor of employment between the rest of the world and Africa. So countries like South Africa and Nigeria are growing fast. And we see pockets in Asia. Philippines is on fire. Of course, there's amazing talent in the Philippines that has been used to work with all these outsourcing companies and contact centers and that now with remote work, they are being liberated from these unnecessary toxic intermediaries.
Al ElliottI love that. I've heard lots of people who've worked with the Philippines and they say that often the people in the Philippines have got better English than people who are native British or native American. So let's just talk about Oyster, the challenges you had when you grew it. But before we do that, it would be great to understand who Oyster is for and who Oyster is not for.
Tony JamousYeah. So Oyster is for any company in the world that employs knowledge workers, software developers, engineers, sales, marketers, accountants, and so on and so forth. Any job that can be done with an internet connection and a laptop and companies that are facing talent shortage. So they cannot find this talent easily or fast enough in their local market and companies who are looking as well to optimize their headcount cost structure as well. I mean, in the last 2 or 3 years as inflation went up, interest rates went up, The economical equation for business has changed. Now businesses are expected to become more profitable and more efficient and to raise their profitability levels. So they cannot continue to afford hiring people only in tier 1 expensive cities. So they are diversifying their employee cost base by tapping into equally Talented talent and valuable talents, but at a more cost-effective way.
Al ElliottI'd imagine someone listening to this going, well, why can't I just use Upwork? That's like, I get access to everyone I need on there. I sense that Oyster goes that step further than Upwork, but talk me through what have I misunderstood about that?
Tony JamousYeah, so you cannot find talent yet on Oyster. You come to us when you already found your talent and you want to extend to them a full-time employment or contractor. They can also be employed as a contractor on the platform, and you want to make sure that it is compliant employment, and you wanna make sure that your employee is taken care of well in terms of benefits, salary, and so on and so forth, experience. So this is where you come to us. I just wanna say, Like you don't build your organization on Upwork, you build your organization on Oyster, right? So Oyster, for instance, we are the biggest customer of Oyster. We have 550 people employed through the Oyster platform distributed in 70 countries from over 100 nationalities. So this is, this is how you build the future organization. This is a model and the future organization will incorporate in the most relevant jurisdiction, and they would employ people anywhere in the world.
Al ElliottSo does that mean then that if there are different employment rules in, let's say, Nigeria than there are in America, that Oyster's gonna be able to help you with that? You're like a merchant of service, but for employees.
Tony JamousExactly. We make the planet look like one country of employment for you as a company, so you don't have to worry about the different fragmentation of employment laws, benefits. Like, how much do you wanna— you wanna know how much to pay people fairly in these countries as well? Like, you don't have that. Our platform gives you that insight.
Al ElliottThere must have been some challenges in getting this set up. Talk me through what was the most difficult part of getting Oyster into the world.
Tony JamousLook, the most difficult part happened in the last 2 and a half years as the economy shifted because we were a rocket ship in the first 2 and a half years. We started this business in January 2020 and we achieved product market fit in no time.
Leanne ElliottBoom.
Tony JamousOkay. Which means that we thought we were going to be a much bigger company very quickly. So we, at that time, interest rate was 0% and we had access to a lot of cash. So we took that cash and we built it in building A business is going to be much bigger than what we are today. And many technology companies did the same, by the way, like, you know, they, there was this access to more money and the growth was much higher. The economy was growing much faster. And But that has changed pretty much overnight, 2 and a half years ago with inflation going up, the war in Ukraine, and as a result, interest rates going up, which means that we had to become much more efficient very, very quickly. So we had to do, we had to do 2 layoffs last year. We had to transform how we run the business. We have to build these financial controls. We have to look at the cost structures. We have to look at how we scale our customer acquisition. And that led us actually to be able to secure our Series D round in August. We raised nearly $60 million from Silver Lake and ServiceNow. And that gave us enough. Now we have enough money to reach profitability. So that, but that phase to go through to get the company that's going super fast, burning a lot of money to push on the brakes while staying in the race and still growing, still moving at a decent speed.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tony JamousHas been a challenge because every quarter we had to kind of test, you know, where we are and replan again. Every quarter we had to test and plan again because we were dependent on the external market too much. So that was a challenging experience. I had to pitch to 100 investors in the last 2 and a half years because I wanted to build a relationship with them very early on. We were focused on getting the business more efficient. And at the same time, I wanted the investor community to know about the story of Oyster and know where we started and see where we landed in these 2 and a half years. I want them to see how well we're going to execute and therefore We are worthy. It's a great investment opportunity to invest in this business and in this team.
Al ElliottDo you think that you'd be building this company if you hadn't had such a sort of nomadic childhood and upbringing?
Tony JamousLook, I think everything I've done in my life led me to that point. Everything. I believe in this. This is this thesis and I live it every day. And now I look, I observe now, okay, what I'm doing now and what's going to take me. It's just to stay open and listening to how my life is changing.
Al ElliottSo if everything's brought you to where you are right now, then let's look forward 10 years. What are the plans for Oyster? Are you looking to sell again? Are you gonna start a new thing? What's the plans?
Tony JamousThe question is what needs to happen for this business to continue to be a high-growth business as we become a more mature organization while getting and exceeding profitability in the next few years? Okay, this is kind of our focus. And to do so, we have to launch new products. We have to become more efficient in the way we acquire customers. We have to Continue to be a leader in this category and continue to improve our ability to win market share, how we are positioned with our unique differentiators. And lastly, it's about making sure that that culture continues to thrive. This is, again, this is an experiment we're doing here. We want to prove that mission-driven companies are better companies from any direction possible, specifically around delivering better return for investors.
Al ElliottWhat a brilliant way to, to end it. Uh, Tony, if people wanna find out more about, about you or about Oyster, where's the best place for them to go?
Tony JamousSo our website is oysterhr.com, and you can find me on LinkedIn.
Leanne ElliottWhat an interesting guy, Al. Is that the first billionaire we've had on the show?
Al ElliottI think so. Although technically he might not be quite a billionaire, although I didn't, I didn't ask to see his bank statement. So, uh, perhaps he is. Talking of helping, if you really want to help the pod, then would you consider posting on LinkedIn about us? Maybe something like, I just listened to Tony Jamous and the host couldn't get his name right. Something like that. Because that really does help us because you help get our stuff out to your network and people trust you. People like you. You are well liked, I promise.
Leanne ElliottBefore we go, I just want to say here in the Northern Hemisphere, January can be a little bit blue. And let's be honest, February might be shorter, but it's not always that much better. So if you are genuinely struggling at the moment, know you are not alone. We leave links to lots of resources that you can access for free in the show notes.
Al ElliottDefinitely check out those show notes. There's also ways to get in touch with Leanne as well if you are having issues with your workplace culture or just want some advice. And if you are interested in employing people across multiple countries, multiple continents, you 100% have to go and check out OysterHR. We don't even get paid to say that, even though Tony is almost a billionaire. We should have got paid for this, I think.
Tony JamousLeanne.
Al ElliottAnyway, anything else to add before we say goodbye?
Leanne ElliottNothing else to add before I say goodbye.
Al ElliottThank you, Tony. Thank you, Leanne. Thank you to our dogs, because on Tuesday, if you listen to the pod on Tuesday, they were a pain in the backside. Today they've been good as gold. So we will see you very soon.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Bye-bye.