Hoe Retreat vertrouwen opbouwde bij teams op afstand met Deel

Retreat, founded by Shun Yamada in 2020, helps remote-first companies plan and execute global team offsites—from venue sourcing to team-building activities. With clients across 1160 companies and a fully distributed team across seven countries, Retreat faced a critical challenge early on: managing legal, payment, and compliance complexities of international hiring.

“We started working with engineers in Ukraine and elsewhere, but we didn’t have any tools to handle the legal, tax, and payment side. We needed something like Deel.” — Shun Yamada, CEO, Retreat

To tame the complexity, Retreat chose Deel. The platform provides an all-in-one way to:

• Generate compliant contracts

• Pay contractors in local currency

• Stay on top of regional tax and labor laws

Because Deel handles the heavy legal and compliance work, Retreat can hire anywhere without retaining local lawyers or HR specialists. In practice, the company now operates “like a mature global business” from day one.

With contractor onboarding, contract generation, and cross-border payments all in one place, CEO Shun Yamada confidently brings on top talent worldwide—without the usual delays or risks. As a result, the team scales quickly while staying lean and focused on its mission: delivering seamless off-site experiences for remote teams.

“As a first-time CEO, I didn’t have the legal knowledge or budget to hire experts in every country. Deel handled everything—so we could focus on growing the business.” — Shun Yamada, CEO, Retreat

Future-ready hiring with EOR

Today Retreat runs on Contractor, but post-fundraising the team plans to upgrade key contributors to Deel’s Employer of Record (EOR) solution. Full-time employment via EOR will:

• Provide smoother visa transitions

• Offer stable, locally compliant contracts and benefits

“After our fundraising, we want to use Deel’s EOR to support employee mobility—letting them live and work anywhere with confidence.” — Shun Yamada, CEO, Retreat

Shun sees Deel evolving into an even more powerful back-office solution. Beyond payroll and compliance, he expressed interest in using Deel for managing licenses, company liability insurance, and more comprehensive HR policies—turning Deel into an essential infrastructure provider for his remote-first businesses.

With Deel, Retreat unlocked:

• $100,000-$140,000 annually on back-office staffing

• Contractor onboarding time reduced from 1-2 weeks to just 1-2 days

• Confidence to scale globally without legal overhead

“We’d love Deel to handle licenses, SHIB bonds, and insurance. Deel is becoming the full back-office partner for remote companies like ours.” — Shun Yamada, CEO, Retreat