How Letterboxd doubled their workforce and hired in the US with Deel

2011年、ニュージーランドのテクノロジー起業家Matthew Buchanan氏とKarl von Randow氏は、映画ファンが映画をカタログ化できるソーシャルディスカバリープラットフォームのアイデアを思いつきました。「リスト作成ツールを使って観た映画を記録する日記帳で、レビューを書いたりコミュニティの他のユーザーと映画について議論したりすることもできます」とBuchanan氏は説明しています。

The platform, Letterboxd, began in Auckland, New Zealand as a side project. It gained in popularity as the Covid-19 pandemic began changing the way people lived and worked, compounding the organic growth of an already highly engaged community.

Now, Letterboxd has over 8 million members and is the world’s leading social media film platform. So how did it internationally scale?

同社は2020年初頭に最初の正社員を採用し、現在12人の正社員がいます。数人の従業員はオークランドを拠点としていますが、Buchanan氏は、会社の主要市場で人材を確保するためには米国で従業員を雇用する必要があることに気づきました。しかし、州によって雇用に関する法律が異なるため、Letterboxdは雇用に課題を抱えていました。

“While we were very comfortable with hiring locally, we were apprehensive about the costs and legal responsibilities for compliance in the United States. We didn’t want to hire full-time HR people to figure out things like health benefits and filing tax returns with the IRS,” said Buchanan.

Letterboxdが、Deelが最適なパートナーであることに気づいたのはその時です。それ以来、同社は米国に居住する6人の従業員を雇用し、従業員数を2倍に増やしました。

With US employees based from coast to coast, multiple time zones are covered so local employees can attend red carpet and press events in person. “We were concerned about all the compliance, but now we know we can trust Deel to manage the complexities of hiring in the US. It’s something we have to get 100% right, for our people and for our business,” said Buchanan.

In Buchanan’s view, one of Deel’s biggest advantages is how quickly it lets you onboard talent. Take Letterboxd’s head of support, Slim. A former superfan with his own podcast, he lives just outside Philadelphia. Buchanan noticed the show was actually converting listeners into paying subscribers. “He mentioned he’d love to work for us if the opportunity ever arose—and thanks to Deel, we could make that happen,” Buchanan says.