10 years of Ofri - how we became a remote company
Benny Hertach always dreamed of founding a company, so in 2011 he did. Alone, without investors and working a regular day job “on the side”.
Well, he’s not alone anymore, he’s got team Ofri now. And:
Today Ofri is the second biggest portal for builders and tradespeople in the German-speaking part of Switzerland.
Today we celebrate, because it’s Ofri’s tenth anniversary!
An excellent occasion for you to find out how Benny went from one-man show to team player and how Ofri became a fully remote company almost by chance.
Team Ofri celebrating the company anniversary - woot woot!
The early years
Benny did not launch Ofri out of the blue, obviously. While he was studying business, he thought he would make a career in banking. But then he got increasingly interested in the possibilities of the internet.
It was around then, when he discovered online marketplaces for all kinds of services and such wonderfully pragmatic job offers as “Who cuts my grandmother’s toenails?”. “I thought that was cool, to be able to throw anything in there”, he recalls.
When he started to build up Ofri, Benny worked before work and after work, on weekends and vacation days. “After two years I was pretty exhausted”, he says. But also, the first prototype of Ofri had achieved some traction and via the internet magic called SEO, users started to find the site.
Fruitful frugality
The 39-year-old just knew, he couldn’t keep on doing both – the day job and the platform. A decision was to be made and the decision was and is still called Ofri. Two years of slow and steady growth followed, but his budget was still tight and in 2013 he was looking for ways to save money.
Benny Hertach - Ofri founder, jack of all trades, remote pioneer and team player.
So Benny learned how to program himself. “I had to do this in order to survive”, he explains. “Paying someone else would have been too expensive.” The investment in his own skills paid off: In 2014 Ofri generated enough turnover for Benny to pay his bills. Which lead him to yet another company-changing shift of strategies.
From jack of all trades…
He actually hadn’t planned to convert Ofri into a remote company. It started with another moment of clarity: "I can't work like this anymore. I can't do everything." By the end of 2014, Benny first went about to "hire people locally like a normal company”. But the recruiting process didn’t go as smoothly as anticipated, which got him thinking.
Benny realized how much he had come to appreciate the freedom of location-independent work on his own terms and schedule during his time as jack of all trades: “I noticed how great remote work actually is and this motivated me to rethink what the people I was looking for really want.”
Finally, he freed himself from all role models: "At some point I decided, I'll do it remotely." And that’s how he found test engineer Maria Grigoroiu and our customer support fairy Silvia Piangou, who have been working for Ofri ever since.
Just check out what Silvia had to say on our anniversary party - Ofri style, of course, with digital backgrounds and real tools - and know that we are a people company:
Silvia Piangou - Lead Customer Support:
“Ofri is not at all JUST a company. It is a WONDERFUL creation, built with love, engagement and knowledge. It makes me proud and happy to see Ofri now, after so many years, with an incredible team.”
We care about our customers, we care about each other. Also, we love our freedom. As Benny once said: “A lot of us are alike, I think. And I’m like that as well - I don’t like people to tell me what to do, unless, it makes sense.”
…to involuntary pioneer for remote work
If you happen to ask yourself if such free spiritedness isn’t bad for business, well, not quite. Not only has Ofri achieved record results in 2020 yet again and users posted jobs worth CHF 54 million on the platform. But also, the team is bigger than ever with currently twelve employees and regular freelancers. "This brings new challenges and wonderful opportunities," says Benny.
Because working remotely at Ofri doesn't just mean that the managing team members in nine different countries – from Spain via Switzerland all the way to Ukraine. The team also has no fixed working hours, everyone takes care of their tasks self-responsibly and communication is a high priority: whether in Zoom meetings, via tools for "asynchronous” exchange, or in weekly one-on-one meetings with Benny himself or a senior team member.
The new blog, this here blog
This blog is about all this and more: How can a remote company successfully organize itself and tackle topics such as corporate culture, human resources, productivity and employee well-being? What do I need to consider when interviewing for a location-independent job? How do I know, if remote work is the right thing for me and what do I have to consider when setting up my workspace at home or in a co-working space?
These are questions Ofri had to find answers to long ago. "We’ve been working location-independently for almost ten years and are pleased that other companies are now realizing that it actually works," says Benny.
Today, on what actually is Benny’s 10th company anniversary, not ours, the rest of team Ofri really does thank and applaud him for everything he has achieved so far and for creating a work environment we all deeply cherish.
