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

2011 年，新西兰科技创业者 Matthew Buchanan 和 Karl von Randow 萌生了一个想法：为影迷建立一个社交发现平台，用来给电影分类。“它就像是一本日记，您可以用列表制作工具记录您观看的电影，”Buchanan 解释说，“您也能在社区中撰写影评并与别人讨论电影。”

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?

从 2020 年初迎来第一位全职员工开始，该公司目前已有 12 名全职员工。有几名员工驻扎在奥克兰，但 Buchanan 意识到公司需要在美国雇用员工，以便有人守护重要市场。但美国各州劳动法之间的差异给 Letterboxd 的招聘工作制造了难题。

“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.

这时，Letterboxd 发现 Deel 是他们的理想合作伙伴。此后，该公司雇用了六名美国员工，员工人数翻了一番。

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.