Why I went remote-first (and what I learned)

When I started Innatus Digital in July 2020, the idea of renting office space didn't even cross my mind. I'd just been furloughed from a software agency in the South West, the world was still figuring out what "the new normal" meant, and I had a perfectly good desk at home. Remote-first wasn't a philosophical choice, it was the obvious one.

Six months on, I can say with confidence that it was the right call, but not for the reasons you'd expect.

The productivity question

Everyone asks whether you're more or less productive working from home. the honest answer, and you might not like it, is: it depends on the day. Some mornings I'm deep in code by 7:30am, no commute, no interruptions, and I'll get more done before lunch than I used to in a full office day. Other days the washing machine finishes its cycle and suddenly I'm folding sheets at 11am. The net result, though, is positive. I track my hours fairly carefully, and I'm consistently getting more billable work done per week than I did in the office.

The bigger win is focus. Web development, proper development, not just dragging blocks around, requires sustained concentration. An open-plan office is actively hostile to that. At home, I can close the door, put headphones on, and actually think.

What I lost

I won't pretend it's all upside. The casual conversations that happen in an office, the "have you seen this new tool" or "I'm stuck on this thing" moments, those don't happen naturally when you're remote. You have to engineer them, which means they feel slightly forced. I've started scheduling informal catch-ups with other developers I work with, which helps, but it's not quite the same.

The other thing is the boundary between work and life. When your office is ten feet from your bed, switching off takes real discipline. I've had to set hard rules: laptop closed by 6pm, no Slack on my phone after hours. It works most of the time.

What clients think

Here's what surprised me, clients don't care. Not once has someone asked where my office is. They care about whether the work gets done, whether I answer emails promptly, and whether the site works properly. A Zoom call from my home office is indistinguishable from a Zoom call from a serviced office, except I'm not paying £300 a month for the privilege.

Would I go back?

No. The flexibility is too valuable, especially when you're building a business. I can take a call at 8am, do a site deployment at 9pm if a client needs it, and take two hours off in the afternoon to go for a walk when I need to clear my head. That kind of flexibility doesn't exist in a traditional setup.

That said, I do miss working alongside other people occasionally. I've been using coworking spaces once or twice a month, not because I need to, but because it's good to be around humans. If you're considering remote-first for your business, my advice is simple: try it properly for three months, set boundaries, and don't assume it'll look like your old way of working minus the commute. It's a different way of operating entirely.

If you're thinking about how remote work might affect your web projects or how to work effectively with a remote development team, drop me a line at [email protected].