August 12, 2024 • 40 mins
FROME THE ARCHIVE:What does it take to build a successful remote company during uncertain times? I had a conversation with Sondre Rausch, CEO of Safety Wing back 2019 and he shared his journey from a teenage entrepreneur in Norway to a pioneer in global travel and medical insurance for remote teams and nomads.
Sondre shared how his early fascination with technology and entrepreneurship evolved, his educational background in economics, and how these elements coalesced to inspire his groundbreaking work in the global labor market infrastructure. He also discussed the benefits of remote work, emphasizing the flexibility it provides, and argued that remote work is the optimal way to build a modern company.
From a freelancer to a startup founder, Sondre takes us through the rollercoaster journey of creating Safety Wing. Learn about the crucial pre-launch phase, the necessity of rapid experimentation, and the invaluable lessons gleaned from failures. Discover key strategies for building a strong team and a desirable product, and gain insights into the stress of fundraising.
Sondre also sheds light on the explosion of remote work and nomadism post-COVID-19, with fascinating examples of how countries are vying to attract remote workers. Tune in to hear Sondra’s visionary ideas, including the concept of a global social safety net that could pave the way for the first "country on the internet".
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (00:00):
It's Alex from Remote Work Life and the
Remote Work Life podcast.
I hope you're doing well,wherever you may be in the world
.
Today I have a great guest withme.
Today I have Sondra Rausch, whois the CEO of Safety Wing, and
now Safety Wing is a reallyimportant business, especially
(00:22):
in these times of uncertaintythat we are facing in the world.
Safety Wing essentiallyprovides travel and medical
insurance for remote teams andfor nomads, and it's essentially
Safety Wing is on a mission tobuild a social safety net on a
global basis.
(00:43):
But I think, as I said before,the time that we're in now, I
thought it important for me tohave this conversation with
Sondra because of what we'regoing through at the moment.
So, sondra, I wanted to saythank you so much for your time
and for joining me today.
Sondre Rasch (00:59):
Thank you for having me, Alex.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (01:03):
Sondra, as always, I like to find out
because I mean Sandra's not onlydoes he run Safety Wing, he has
a lot of experience when itcomes to not just his individual
remote work career, but alsohis team.
He's growing his team, guidinghis team, leading his team and
(01:26):
working remotely.
So I thought there's twobenefits to having Sondra on the
call today.
But first and foremost, I wantto know, sondra, a bit more
about you.
How did you come to be CEO ofSafety Wing?
Sondre Rasch (01:42):
well, that is interesting.
So my I am from norway and veryearly on I was interested in
starting things.
So as a teenager I had thislittle web hosting company I
tried to set up in my room andoffered customer service on my
newly acquired mobile phone.
(02:02):
So I've always been attractedto entrepreneurship and
technology and lived sort of.
You know, I was like the firstgeneration that grew up on the
internet a little bit and I had,you know, I started that
together with a Dutch and aRomanian friends and we
collaborated on something calledIRC, which is like Slack, but
(02:22):
back then kind of looked thesame, and so that's the sort of
genesis for my interest.
And then I had a bit of adetour, studied economics, work
as a policy advisor, and then Ithought that I had to return to
my roots and then I startedanother company and like what's
the fastest way to become CEO isto start your own company, and
(02:43):
then that's successful.
I guess like what's the fastestway to become CEO is to start
your own company, and thenthat's successful.
That's how you do it.
So I started a previous companyand then I learned there I kind
of stumbled upon the problem ofsafe doing, which is, of course
that was a remote freelancerplatform.
We wanted to provide benefitsfor people on that platform.
(03:05):
Nobody offered it and then kindof realized that gap.
So I had already kind of knownfrom my teenage years I've
discovered this thing that thereis this internet economy
growing up and that has manyproblems and opportunities, but
essentially the infrastructure.
What I discovered there was thatthe infrastructure that
(03:25):
supports the global labor marketdoesn't exist.
Instead you have the sort ofinfrastructure that is
nationally based.
So that's why we couldn't buyhealth insurance for all the
freelancers on our platforms,because it was spread out all
over the world.
So then that was kind of theproblem discovery moment.
(03:45):
And then uh, eventually leftthe company to found safety wing
because we found it soimportant that somebody had to
do it and nobody was doing it.
We felt it was a bit overdueactually.
Uh, so, yeah so and then welaunched that and uh, and then
it's been a great journey tilltoday.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (04:04):
And for you, because I mean, did you
always think to yourself then,given that you've started
different companies, did youthink to yourself while you're
studying your economics degreethat you would one day have your
own business, or did you havedesigns on a different path?
Sondre Rasch (04:24):
Yeah, no, I thought I would start my own
tech startup, so I did have thatquite narrowly.
So I was curious about policywork and I'm interested in
economics.
I'm generally interested insystems like I.
I'm interested in that kind ofthing I still am for sure, uh,
but, but no, I do feel like I am, at heart, an entrepreneur.
(04:48):
So even when I've had jobs, Istill am like a little
entrepreneur on the job.
I guess, it's like I'm kind ofwhich you know I believe has
pros and cons.
If you're my boss, yes.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (05:08):
I know what you mean.
Sondre Rasch (05:10):
Yeah, you know, I like to do my own things.
I think I have good ideas and Ilike to, you know, and I have
many ideas and I, you know, liketo do them.
So if I were put in a situationwhere I was just being told
what to do in detail, I couldn'tbe happy, and that's definitely
(05:31):
a big.
I don't think I have any choice.
I probably have to be a founder.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (05:36):
Yeah, and there's that side of things, but
there's also the remote workaspect of things, because you've
worked remote for quite a while, haven't you?
It's something that's been partof you for quite some time.
Tell us more about that.
Sondre Rasch (05:53):
Yeah, I mean both Safety Wing and my previous
company, supersight, was and isfully remote companies.
So I have in a way, built andscaled fully remote companies.
So I have in a way, built andscale to remote companies and,
of course, myself workedremotely in that period.
So I'm fully convinced but I'vebeen fully convinced about that
(06:19):
for a long time that that makessense, that it's the best way
to build a company today, andthe only period we're in is just
that period where people aregradually discovering that.
So, yeah, I love building remotecompanies and I think the
(06:41):
benefits are huge for my ownpersonal life and the you know
people who work there.
You know the greatest benefitof having a remote job is that
you are flexible to move.
Uh, whether that is because youwant to be on, you know, live a
more nomadic lifestyle whereyou move often, or maybe it's
because you're going to move tothe mountains, the beach or to
(07:04):
move close to family, you knowthat freedom is immense and when
you couple that with very oftenthat when you live like that,
you have a lower cost of livingas certainly, as opposed to
working in London or SanFrancisco, you get a huge
economic benefit as well aspersonal preferences being met
(07:26):
to a very large degree, and forme personally that is something
that has just been a requirement.
And there are, of course,challenges to building a remote
company, but we've solved thosemostly.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (07:42):
And you're Norwegian, aren't you as well?
And you moved from norway to toamerica.
Was that in pursuit of your,your, your dreams and ambitions
to become an entrepreneur?
Or was it again just because,yeah, well, what was?
What was that reason?
Sondre Rasch (08:00):
yeah, uh, no, it was so when I was a teenager.
I discovered Silicon Valleyearly on, so I had already sort
of as a teenager, this idea thatI wanted to move to Silicon
Valley.
Actually, I also paid closeattention to Y Combinator when
(08:27):
that started out and there'ssort of social network hacker
news, but so no, I always kindof picked up on like oh there's
something going on over therethat seems to be the place to be
, and but the way practically Imoved but I was planning to get
there at some point.
That was kind of like the way Iknew growing up is.
(08:50):
I knew I was going to start atTechSite.
I knew that, you know I wantedto move here.
But the way it happened wasthat we actually applied to Y
Combinator for my previouscompany Superside and when we
got in we had to move.
That was how I moved.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (09:04):
Okay, and you obviously made a big success
of it.
And you you've not just theentrepreneur side of things, but
the business side of things aswell, you've.
You've got a great brand,you've established a great team,
you've figured out theso-called secrets on in terms of
working remotely, um, so you'vemade a you you've, you've been
(09:28):
there and done it, you've walkedthe talk, all those kinds of
things.
But along the way, I'm guessingthere must have been, there
must have been challenges thatyou've had to face and overcome.
What?
What were the main challengesfor you in that, in that period?
Sondre Rasch (09:43):
Yeah, I think my greatest challenge in working
remotely and also doing astartup remotely.
So I should say when I firststarted out, like when I first
quit my job, that was a sort ofscary moment because I had a job
then I was policy advisor atthe government of Norway and I
was trying to kind of kickmyself in the butt to start a
(10:04):
company.
But it's, of course, scary andI had like a great, such a cushy
job because I was policyadvisor.
It was a new unit, didn'treally have a boss.
I work in these extremelymeaningful, exciting projects.
It was really excellent.
(10:27):
But I knew I had to do what Ihad to do and so I made this
decision to do it and we started.
I started a company part-timeand I had already kind of worked
out the logic that if I justgot some freelancer income and I
moved to a local like I wasthinking berlin at the time,
(10:47):
which was even cheaper than itwas, than it is now um, like you
could live on like 500 euros amonth in berlin, wow at the time
.
Now, now it's a little bit more.
Yeah, but so the plan was Istarted to build like freelancer
(11:11):
income in the part-time andalso to build a company in the
part-time which became Superside, and I started saving some
money to see if I can cut mycosts and uh, and then I would
move to a low-cost locationwhich would extend my runway and
the idea was that I could worklike one day a week freelancing
uh enough, and earn enough tokind of pay my living so that I
(11:34):
could work on the company therest of the time.
And, um, I still think thatplan was like incredible.
I would advise anyone else todo the same like I.
I totally nailed that.
You know, like that plan wasdefinitely the right plan.
I think that's doable by almostanyone.
Actually, what I, what I didthere, um, as in, to do those
(11:55):
different steps like you try tostart-time building a freelancer
income, to make a plan to alocal location, to save some
money, et cetera, like it'sdoable by really anyone.
So, by the way, building afreelancer is very difficult.
It's been a lot of figuring outwhat you want to do.
I ended up doing writing foreconomics magazines.
(12:15):
I just did a little bit of it.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (12:17):
It's good, it's good.
Sondre Rasch (12:19):
Yeah, it was great .
It was great.
It was really random how youget the first customer, but the
point is, when you do a good jobwith one customer, that's kind
of all you need, which it endedup being anyway.
I didn't do that for very longbecause, just as I was, I quit
my job and in the interveningmonths, my, the company I
started supersize.
Basically, we start working andit was just like a month after
(12:40):
quitting my job that we gotaccepted to work hominator and
then at that point it's likeyou're strapped into the roller
coaster and uh, and so all thisthe roller coaster.
I like it.
Yeah, and all that sort ofromanticism of like living hand
to mouth in Berlin was a bitkind of shut away to like, you
(13:02):
know, starting a rocket ship inSan Francisco and yeah, why did
I get on this tangent again?
What was that?
I felt like I lost.
I may need to get back to yourquestion there.
No, it's fine You're going inthe right direction.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (13:19):
I suppose what I'm saying is the
challenges that you've overcome.
Essentially, it sounds to meyou're the kind of person who
plans what they're going to do.
You're very strategic in whatyou're going to do before you
actually take a jump.
You're more of a I don't knowvery pragmatic and you are very
calculated in what you're goingto do next.
(13:41):
So you've gone from being afreelancer to then going to uh,
like you said, the rollercoaster of um why?
Combinator, starting safetywing.
What was that roller coaster?
You know?
Sondre Rasch (13:53):
tell us about that roller coaster, because when I
picture a rollercoaster I thinkscary, exciting, scary exciting
yeah, no, exactly that's exactlywhat what it is, uh, uh and uh,
starting a startup, especiallyone that has speed, because
(14:14):
before you launch and before youkind of start to get speed, you
can be in this sort of beam.
There is this old sort ofaboriginal creation myth, which
is sort of like the dream, wherethere's like the gods are
dreaming up this world and youlive in this world and then you
(14:36):
enter into reality and what youenter into are constraints.
Yes, a, it's shaped a lot bythe dream world and I just found
like that's such a goodmetaphor for what it's like
pre-launch, because you're inthis, you're not in constrained
by reality.
Pre-launch, right, you're inthis very pleasant dream world
(14:56):
and it's an important time andyou know, by all means cherish
it, but you can't stay thereforever because then it becomes
a delusion.
But but so, and then you enterinto the real world with your
idea and then you're supposed tokind of like work with reality
and overcome reality to createthis, get to a place, get to a
(15:20):
vision, and on the way there,what you have is like I have no
idea what I'm doing.
I had a couple of things I didreally right in the beginning
which I'm almost lost, which isso sad, but, like I, I
essentially had very high speed,which it was very good because
I did everything wrong before Idid it right, wow, um so, but if
(15:41):
you do things fast enough, ifyou try them fast enough and I
do think that is sort of the,the kind of exercise of
entrepreneurship isn't doing itright the first time, but it is
to do it again, try new thingsso fast that it looks like you
did it on purpose.
Yeah, like yeah, because by thenormal time someone tries one
(16:03):
thing, you try 20 and one ofthem worked and um, so anyway,
that that was, that's part of it.
And then, of course, it's likeyou.
You launch your customers.
You're constantly looking doomin the eye.
Your product almost always suck.
This is not true for thebeginning of safe doing.
That's the only kind ofdifference.
I did a lot right in safe doing, because I took what worked
(16:26):
from my first company and Iapplied it and, maybe most of
all, I knew what didn't matter,so I didn't spend time on that.
That was incredibly useful thesecond time around just to not
waste my time on things thatwhat matters is the team, the
product In the beginning.
That's what matters.
(16:46):
Is it a product people want tobuy, is the team great, and then
later growth once you're liveand kind of out of the beta
phase.
But of course, what'sparticularly wrenching is when
your product is not good, whenyou're not growing.
(17:07):
What makes you happy whenyou're growing?
Fundraising.
What's not happy when you'rerejected, what makes you happy
when you're accepted?
Fundraising is particularlyharrowing, I think.
I mean I've done it many timesnow, but it definitely feels
(17:27):
like a very high.
It's like dating.
I suppose it's very high-stakessalesmanship.
So what is that rollercoasterlike coaster, like yeah, it's
like those things.
It's a.
It's a.
You're on your own, you're inthe wild, you don't know what's
going to work, you don't knowyour environment you have to
(17:48):
figure it out by trying thingsyes and and most of the time it
doesn't work, and you have tojust not be deterred by that
rejection, whether it's fromcustomers or investors or like
reality itself.
But I do think it makes youinto an interesting person over
time.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (18:06):
No, I can imagine yeah, I can imagine and
I think what it looked.
I mean, obviously now you, youstarted safety ring back in 2017
, so you're getting somestability there.
I'm guessing now and those thatroller coaster ride is a bit
smoother, and am I right insaying that, or is it still?
Sondre Rasch (18:27):
I mean, yeah, um well, you certainly have like
more of what works, but youalways have problems and the
problems in a startup areusually deadly right.
So there are periods of safedoing where things have just
(18:50):
worked remarkably well, and thatis actually true.
Not long after we launched, wehad this lovely scenario that we
launched Nomad Insurance and itjust worked out of the gate.
Uh, like we had word of mouthwhich I think is kind of like
the true market product marketfit out of the gate, like we
(19:10):
were just a couple of months inand we were observing just like
every day customers were signingup, they were coming from which
is sort of word of mouth, andso that's because we were a bit
ahead of the game there.
that allowed us to, in a way,not be as stressed out.
So that was one very fortunatething.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (19:36):
And from there then.
So you've gone out of the gateand you've done pretty well with
nomad insurance.
You've added now differentbranches to to safety wing.
You've got the nomad insurance,you've got remote health for
teams as well.
So you, you're put, you'reputting other things out there.
Tell us about.
Tell us then, I mean if, if I'ma manager, and why are these
(20:05):
things, I suppose, I guess,important to me?
Now I guess right?
Sondre Rasch (20:13):
um, well, well, you are a manager and let's say
you have a remote team and, likemany remote teams, at least
some of your team, and quiteoften a large share, is
international, because you foundthem on international job sites
(20:35):
and you hired the best and youweren't too concerned with
whether or not they were locallylocated to you.
Um, you know, that's whatalmost all companies that go
remote, they, they kind ofinevitably go down this route.
Um, you know, barring limits ontime zones, there isn't that
(20:55):
much difference from workingwith someone if they're sitting
like in I don't know for in yourcase, like newcastle or
brosfils or romania, so, uh, soyou end up becoming this
international employer and, uhand uh, you know, as an employer
(21:17):
, you, you, uh, you havesalaries but you also want to
have benefits.
That's to a varying degree, Ishould say in England that's
less, it's less important.
The NHS is like a verywell-developed thing, but even
in England I do, I have seen thestats quite a lot, especially
in sort of like knowledge work.
(21:40):
It is kind of common to alsohave benefits on top of that,
like as an extra perk.
That's getting increasinglycommon.
So that's just one of theproblems you have and once you
pass a certain number ofemployees maybe like 10, 20, you
start to feel the need thatlike oh you know, I want to be a
proper employer.
Like you don't care about thatwhen you're like three people
and like the founders and acouple of freelancers.
(22:00):
But you know, as you get moreyou kind of you, you feel like
you should, you want to be aserious, uh, employer and you're
not pleased.
You want like to be seen as agood, a serious company takes
serious company that takes careof your employees and um, and of
course it's a little bit extrato say, in the job.
(22:22):
I'd like what are the benefits?
You want the answer to be yes,yes, there are benefits in this
role and uh, and it probablyalso increases retention a
little bit.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (22:32):
There are some data, although I'm not sure
how much people kind ofemotionally care about that, but
but there is certainly somedata to support that I would
agree on that there's definitelybecause I mean, I think, even
from an anecdotal experience, mytime in in hiring, one of the
first questions I always getasked, apart from how much is
the salary, is what's the youknow, what's the remuneration
(22:53):
package, what are the benefits?
yeah, but, like I said, there isthere is data to support it as
well.
So yeah, I think sorry Iinterrupted you.
You were saying Safety Wingoffers that in there as well.
Sondre Rasch (23:07):
Yeah, and so that's your problem.
You want to have benefits.
Well, how do you do it?
And Safety Wing is the answerto that and it's, for now, the
only answer.
If you have this kind of team,um, so you can go to safe doing,
you can add your employees orcontractors, uh, and very often
(23:30):
they're contractors even thoughthey're actually employees when
you work remotely because of thelegal hurdles, uh, without you
having a local entity, and thatum and um, and you can add them
anywhere in the world and theycan also move anywhere in the
world and you can add sort ofhealth, dental, maternity
benefits to them.
When you add more people, youcan kind of like in the
(23:52):
dashboard plus and add them moreand remove when they're gone
and offer sort of like highquality but very competitively
priced Everything available inthe dashboard.
You sign up sort of in fiveminutes kind of situation.
So it's like a way to solvethat problem how to offer good
(24:12):
benefits to my team in thesimplest possible way and the
only way for now for theseremote teams what kind of
benefits are you seeing now thatare typically offered, or what
do you typically offer yourself?
uh, so the most common is healthinsurance, and then almost all
the companies we have addedactually also add the dental,
(24:35):
and then it's like 30, 40percent at 30, and, uh, what we
call outpatient, which is likephysical therapy and other such
things.
Uh, we don't yet haveretirement, that's coming next
summer.
Uh, we have to make thisproduct from scratch because
they don't exist.
So, uh, we don't haveretirement, that's coming next
summer.
That's gonna.
(24:56):
It's a similar kind of share.
34 other potential ones aredisability life.
There are also other benefits,I should add.
So now I'm talking about thekind of the heavy lifting.
Yes, yes, health insurance isby far the most.
There are also other benefits,I should add.
So now I'm talking about thekind of the heavy lifting.
Yes, yes, health insurance isby far the most.
There are also other benefitsthat people think about as
benefits, vacation being themost prominent, that people care
about the most.
Like, when you see rankings,like what do people care about
(25:18):
the most, health insurance istypically number one and
vacation is typically number two.
Uh, other benefits that aresomewhat common and very often
comes up in an onboardingprocess is laptop, yes, and then
, of course, there are thosefairly low-cost but fun benefits
(25:39):
, which is also quite common,where it's a small amount but it
can be useful.
That could be like gym trip orfor remote work.
You can have a remote workstipend for co-working space.
That's more expensive actually.
You see some of those.
(26:00):
But in terms of generally, whatdo people think about?
What do people actually careabout?
It's health insurance andvacation, and then for a lot of
people it's also the otherinsurances life, disability,
dental, dental is actually verycommon and retirement savings.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (26:18):
And talking about health insurance
and, given the situation thatwe're in, we can't really escape
it, can we talking about it?
Have you seen any changes?
I mean, what do things looklike before and after Any
changes that have happened withSafety Wing in terms of the
uptake of that?
Sondre Rasch (26:37):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I mean we saw, with remotehealth, a bit of an explosion in
interest because of COVID.
A bit of an explosion ininterest because of COVID and I
don't know the percentage, butlike a significant share of the
companies reaching out to ushave gone remote since.
March.
There are different numbers onit.
(26:59):
Between five to 10X seem to bethe expected increase in the
people who work remotely beforeCOVID and after COVID, remote
work and remote teams.
There seems to be an explosion.
In cities like San Franciscoit's even more.
(27:20):
I don't know what the numbersare, but it seems like every
company has gone remotepermanently, or remote first, or
remote for a couple of years,which very often will turn into
permanently here.
So that's, I would say, thebiggest driver.
Then, of course, we have thenomads, which was, for us, the
first product, which are, by theway, remote workers as a subset
(27:42):
of remote workers, but they buythe products individuals.
Workers is a subset of remoteworkers, it's uh, but they buy
the products individuals.
Um, there we saw actually adrop of february to march down,
like for for us, like 20 to 30percent down.
There were a lot of them.
We evacuated ourselves actuallybecause we covered that okay,
yeah, so, and then uh, but wegot through that quite well and
(28:04):
and we fared much better thanother people who are in the.
So no money insurance isn'tstrictly travel insurance, but
it's adjacent to travelinsurance.
So no minute the difference isthere are some differences, but
it's it's more of a medical planand you can have it forever.
That's the biggest difference.
So travel insurance you have tolike 45 days, but no money
insurance is like a subscription.
That's like $37 a month and youcan have it like for 10 years
(28:35):
or forever.
So a section of Nomads wenthome but starting in July, that
started ticking up and actually,like in last quarter, we had
like an 83% growth in thatproduct and that continues.
So, nomads it's this weirdthing that has happened.
(28:56):
We had many of these like weirdpredictions about remote work
and nomadism when we started out.
One of them was that one of thesecondary effects of remote work
is that countries and citieswould start competing for nomads
, remote workers and remotecompanies.
It's happening and that'shappened so exactly like we were
(29:19):
predicting.
That is almost scary.
So Sarah McClendon did a talkon Web Summit where she
explained exactly how this wouldbe, and it's completely played
out to the to the wildest extent.
Like there are now I think it'seight, nine countries where you
can't travel from the us as atourist, but you can go there as
a remote worker or nomad.
They've made these crazysituations.
(29:41):
Uh, and now your latest.
You had you had greece, whichtook it one level up, where they
said 50, if someone, a remoteworker, were to move to greece,
they would have 50 tax break forseven years, I think.
So they like adding it to thenext seven years wow yeah, so
that's really happening and um,so I do think that so we're
(30:05):
seeing a resurgence of nomadism.
Another reason we're seeing isbecause all these companies have
gone remote, and what I sawhere in San Francisco is, yeah,
they got suddenly.
Their job was remote, theydidn't do something for a few
months, but then they startedasking themselves wait, I work
remotely, I don't have to livehere, they're paying.
I'm paying an obscene amountfor rent and I don't like it
that much.
(30:25):
I, I'm paying an obscene amountfor rent and I don't like it
that much, I'm only living herebecause my job is here and you
know, some of them went on roadtrips, some of them went to
another state, but a lot of themwent kind of nomad.
They went to Tulum or they wentto Lisbon or Barbados and kind
of switched to a nomad lifestyle.
So we're seeing that resurgencestarting from August and I
(30:47):
would expect sort of as travelresumes and this sort of vaccine
becomes more widespread, thatthat's only going to accelerate.
So next year is going to be theyear of the nomad, for sure.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (30:56):
And I think, places like Barbados.
I saw that they're offering andother countries as well are
offering certain benefits andthey're trying to, I suppose,
reel nomads and remote workersin with.
I suppose, work here for a year, and we'll give you this, or
work here for six months, andwe'll do that for you.
So that's that's on the rise aswell, isn't it?
(31:17):
It's basically what you'resaying yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Sondre Rasch (31:20):
barbados was one of those that really went for it
.
Uh, they made this remote workvisa, which is super easy to get
, and they've sort of put inplace like the whole range of
public services to make it asattractive as possible.
And I know several people thereare a couple of people, even a
(31:40):
person, chris, on the Safe Doingteam which took that offer and
is currently living in Barbados,so I'm guessing they're
starting to get a little nomadcommunity going there as well
well given the weather in um inLondon.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (31:53):
Uh, I could see myself doing the same
thing myself, so yeah watch thisspace.
No, it's good.
I mean, one of the questions Iget asked quite a lot, which
you're kind of alluding to andit seems like you've got your
finger on the pulse in terms ofwhat's going to happen in the
future is that are there anyother sort of like predictions
(32:14):
that you've either kind offoreseen, or any predictions
that you kind of know about?
Sorry, let me start again.
So either predictions that youforesee that have come true or
predictions that you thathaven't yet sort of played out
yeah, absolutely.
Sondre Rasch (32:35):
Well, I mean, the primary one is the safety wing
hypothesis, because you know, wesay we're building a global
social safety net and and we arebut our secret mission, which
is not that secret but is thatwe see that as a platform for
building the first country onthe internet, and and I do think
(32:56):
that the inevitable logic ofthe thing the internet and, if
you think it through, goes inthat direction that these sort
of social structures will existin a way that's practical, and
that what will inevitably happenin the future is that there
(33:19):
will be made these essentially,countries on the internet.
And I think it's the mostimportant thing to think about
now, because, even though thetechnological driver is
inevitable, how it's made it cantake many different forms.
The future country on theinternet is coming.
(33:40):
Is it a dystopia or a utopia?
I would say, time will tell,but it certainly is coming.
And uh, of course, that raisesmany questions what, what do you
mean by country and uh, andwhat will the relationship be to
?
You know, other countries andthis sort of new type of social
entity and uh, that also remainsto be seen.
(34:00):
Although you know we have astrategy at safety wing which is
very friendly.
We try to do the good thingsabout everything and have a very
positive relationship withexisting countries.
They won't play the same role.
So I do think geographicalcountries will continue to exist
, they just will have lesssignificance.
(34:20):
It's similar to when we wentfrom city-states to
nation-states the city-statesstill exist, it's just less
important.
Went from city states to nationstates right, the city states
still exist, it's just lessimportant.
They just do the things thatare strictly relevant to the
city, right?
And I think that's a sort ofsimilar feel it will have they
will still exist, just be lesssignificant, and so that's a
(34:44):
prediction.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (34:47):
It's fascinating.
I think we could probably do awhole other podcast on on this,
um, so I might have to uh, Ihave to invite you back on
another time because itfascinates me.
I love to talk about the futureof.
I love to get differentperspectives on what's going to
happen in the future.
So a country on the internetsounds good to me.
Sondre Rasch (35:08):
Yeah, absolutely On remote work, our predictions
come true a lot of them, butthey seemed outrageous when we
made them, so I mentioned thatabout cities and countries
competing.
I certainly also think it isinevitable that every company
that can be remote will beremote.
(35:29):
There are economic drivers toit, which makes it an inevitable
outcome and similarly, everycompany that can be digital will
be digital and will be global.
That's another one that I thinka lot of people haven't picked
up on, which creates thiscompletely different market.
This is already the case.
(35:50):
I'm not sure why so many peopleis, in a way, blind to this,
but everything that's sold oninternet is global, which means
your market is global and it's adifferent market.
It's very big.
Everything has this infinitepotential, and many niches are
(36:10):
huge on a global basis that areinsignificant on a small base,
uh, on a like a local scale.
So that's another one that issort of startup related.
That uh is, in a way, hasalready come true, but but
people doesn't seem to haverealized it yet.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (36:31):
Yeah, and my suspicion is, is that people
who I suppose it's more.
It's one of those predictions,I guess that if you're working
digitally and you're you've got,you've got your finger on the
pulse of what's going on, likesomething like yourself, you're
working remotely as well you'remore likely to be able to be
(36:52):
more, I guess, more sensitive tothose changes and those um
transformations than if you'resomebody who got maybe is not
necessarily geared towards that,you know um, but yeah, like I
said, I think there's anotherpodcast in there somewhere, so
yeah, let's return to that let'sreturn to it, but no, it's so
(37:13):
before we go, uh sundry, what isthe what's on the horizon for
you?
I know you said there are somedifferent product areas that you
were thinking about adding toto safety wing, but what's the
future for for safety wing ingeneral?
Sondre Rasch (37:28):
yeah, uh, so, uh, our um, our uh, near-term future
, uh, our coming year.
You know we're very excitingyear ahead.
We have some, but the bigproduct launch is probably the,
the, the pension retirementproduct, just the first of its
kind.
It's the first global portableuh retirement product.
(37:51):
You know that allow people wholive in different countries to
keep saving for the same pensionaccount, which is actually not
possible today.
So you have a lot of people whohave like like me, who are like
I have pension savings innorway.
I can't access them here.
It's's like a separate I don'tknow.
Many people have that problemwho have moved.
They don't have to be nomads,they've just moved
(38:11):
internationally sometime intheir life.
So that's going to be the bigone.
We also have, of course, a lotof improvement for remote health
.
Remote health is a big productand we have a lot of exciting
product improvements um comingout.
So, just working on, there'salso this window of opportunity
(38:34):
with remote health.
You know, I think we made thisproduct at this incredibly
fortunate time and we have tosort of take that window of
opportunity to to to make surethat people know about it, that
people know that it's possible,because a big reason, I think a
(38:54):
lot of people don't havebenefits today when they work
internationally.
Remote is just because thecompanies don't think it's
possible.
We know that because we hear itfrom the companies who come to
us.
They're like, oh, that's so funthat it's now possible.
And then they're like, oh,that's so fun that that's it's
now possible.
And then they're, you know,implementing benefits and that's
, of course, a great help foryou know these people's lives.
(39:15):
So, so that's that.
And then we will continue on toadd the other insurances and
the income protection, and thenwe're going to make a membership
product, sort of a couple ofyears ahead, where we uh like,
where you bundle all theseproducts into like a membership,
the way you would havenationally in a social safety
(39:35):
net, so you get all of it and,uh, maybe you pay a share, like
10, of your incomes, um, so itbecomes available for even more
people to have access to a veryhigh quality social safety net
that works globally.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (39:54):
That's that's where we want to get to
well, for sure, I'll be lookingout and talking about safety
wing, because I I really believein what you do, sandra and um,
I think it's really important,not just because of the
situation that we're in now, butgenerally speaking.
It's something that isoverlooked and it's something
(40:16):
unique that you do.
So I'll be keeping close withyou and Enlin and keeping track
on what you do.
I will obviously be talkingabout uh safety wing with the
community too, but what I wantto do is just wish you all the
best and thank you so much foruh taking time today to speak to
us on the podcast and, um, yeah, wish you and the team all the
(40:38):
best thank you, alex.
Sondre Rasch (40:41):
it was uh great to chat with you and super nice to
meet you, and I think thiscommunity sounds exciting.
I look forward to checking itout and seeing how it develops
as well.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (40:54):
Excellent.
Well, I'll be speaking to yousoon.
Thanks, Sondra.
It's Alex from Remote Work Life and the
Remote Work Life podcast.
I hope you're doing well,wherever you may be in the world
.
Today I have a great guest withme.
Today I have Sondra Rausch, whois the CEO of Safety Wing, and
now Safety Wing is a reallyimportant business, especially
(00:22):
in these times of uncertaintythat we are facing in the world.
Safety Wing essentiallyprovides travel and medical
insurance for remote teams andfor nomads, and it's essentially
Safety Wing is on a mission tobuild a social safety net on a
global basis.
(00:43):
But I think, as I said before,the time that we're in now, I
thought it important for me tohave this conversation with
Sondra because of what we'regoing through at the moment.
So, sondra, I wanted to saythank you so much for your time
and for joining me today.
Sondre Rasch (00:59):
Thank you for having me, Alex.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (01:03):
Sondra, as always, I like to find out
because I mean Sandra's not onlydoes he run Safety Wing, he has
a lot of experience when itcomes to not just his individual
remote work career, but alsohis team.
He's growing his team, guidinghis team, leading his team and
(01:26):
working remotely.
So I thought there's twobenefits to having Sondra on the
call today.
But first and foremost, I wantto know, sondra, a bit more
about you.
How did you come to be CEO ofSafety Wing?
Sondre Rasch (01:42):
well, that is interesting.
So my I am from norway and veryearly on I was interested in
starting things.
So as a teenager I had thislittle web hosting company I
tried to set up in my room andoffered customer service on my
newly acquired mobile phone.
(02:02):
So I've always been attractedto entrepreneurship and
technology and lived sort of.
You know, I was like the firstgeneration that grew up on the
internet a little bit and I had,you know, I started that
together with a Dutch and aRomanian friends and we
collaborated on something calledIRC, which is like Slack, but
(02:22):
back then kind of looked thesame, and so that's the sort of
genesis for my interest.
And then I had a bit of adetour, studied economics, work
as a policy advisor, and then Ithought that I had to return to
my roots and then I startedanother company and like what's
the fastest way to become CEO isto start your own company, and
(02:43):
then that's successful.
I guess like what's the fastestway to become CEO is to start
your own company, and thenthat's successful.
That's how you do it.
So I started a previous companyand then I learned there I kind
of stumbled upon the problem ofsafe doing, which is, of course
that was a remote freelancerplatform.
We wanted to provide benefitsfor people on that platform.
(03:05):
Nobody offered it and then kindof realized that gap.
So I had already kind of knownfrom my teenage years I've
discovered this thing that thereis this internet economy
growing up and that has manyproblems and opportunities, but
essentially the infrastructure.
What I discovered there was thatthe infrastructure that
(03:25):
supports the global labor marketdoesn't exist.
Instead you have the sort ofinfrastructure that is
nationally based.
So that's why we couldn't buyhealth insurance for all the
freelancers on our platforms,because it was spread out all
over the world.
So then that was kind of theproblem discovery moment.
(03:45):
And then uh, eventually leftthe company to found safety wing
because we found it soimportant that somebody had to
do it and nobody was doing it.
We felt it was a bit overdueactually.
Uh, so, yeah so and then welaunched that and uh, and then
it's been a great journey tilltoday.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (04:04):
And for you, because I mean, did you
always think to yourself then,given that you've started
different companies, did youthink to yourself while you're
studying your economics degreethat you would one day have your
own business, or did you havedesigns on a different path?
Sondre Rasch (04:24):
Yeah, no, I thought I would start my own
tech startup, so I did have thatquite narrowly.
So I was curious about policywork and I'm interested in
economics.
I'm generally interested insystems like I.
I'm interested in that kind ofthing I still am for sure, uh,
but, but no, I do feel like I am, at heart, an entrepreneur.
(04:48):
So even when I've had jobs, Istill am like a little
entrepreneur on the job.
I guess, it's like I'm kind ofwhich you know I believe has
pros and cons.
If you're my boss, yes.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (05:08):
I know what you mean.
Sondre Rasch (05:10):
Yeah, you know, I like to do my own things.
I think I have good ideas and Ilike to, you know, and I have
many ideas and I, you know, liketo do them.
So if I were put in a situationwhere I was just being told
what to do in detail, I couldn'tbe happy, and that's definitely
(05:31):
a big.
I don't think I have any choice.
I probably have to be a founder.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (05:36):
Yeah, and there's that side of things, but
there's also the remote workaspect of things, because you've
worked remote for quite a while, haven't you?
It's something that's been partof you for quite some time.
Tell us more about that.
Sondre Rasch (05:53):
Yeah, I mean both Safety Wing and my previous
company, supersight, was and isfully remote companies.
So I have in a way, built andscaled fully remote companies.
So I have in a way, built andscale to remote companies and,
of course, myself workedremotely in that period.
So I'm fully convinced but I'vebeen fully convinced about that
(06:19):
for a long time that that makessense, that it's the best way
to build a company today, andthe only period we're in is just
that period where people aregradually discovering that.
So, yeah, I love building remotecompanies and I think the
(06:41):
benefits are huge for my ownpersonal life and the you know
people who work there.
You know the greatest benefitof having a remote job is that
you are flexible to move.
Uh, whether that is because youwant to be on, you know, live a
more nomadic lifestyle whereyou move often, or maybe it's
because you're going to move tothe mountains, the beach or to
(07:04):
move close to family, you knowthat freedom is immense and when
you couple that with very oftenthat when you live like that,
you have a lower cost of livingas certainly, as opposed to
working in London or SanFrancisco, you get a huge
economic benefit as well aspersonal preferences being met
(07:26):
to a very large degree, and forme personally that is something
that has just been a requirement.
And there are, of course,challenges to building a remote
company, but we've solved thosemostly.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (07:42):
And you're Norwegian, aren't you as well?
And you moved from norway to toamerica.
Was that in pursuit of your,your, your dreams and ambitions
to become an entrepreneur?
Or was it again just because,yeah, well, what was?
What was that reason?
Sondre Rasch (08:00):
yeah, uh, no, it was so when I was a teenager.
I discovered Silicon Valleyearly on, so I had already sort
of as a teenager, this idea thatI wanted to move to Silicon
Valley.
Actually, I also paid closeattention to Y Combinator when
(08:27):
that started out and there'ssort of social network hacker
news, but so no, I always kindof picked up on like oh there's
something going on over therethat seems to be the place to be
, and but the way practically Imoved but I was planning to get
there at some point.
That was kind of like the way Iknew growing up is.
(08:50):
I knew I was going to start atTechSite.
I knew that, you know I wantedto move here.
But the way it happened wasthat we actually applied to Y
Combinator for my previouscompany Superside and when we
got in we had to move.
That was how I moved.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (09:04):
Okay, and you obviously made a big success
of it.
And you you've not just theentrepreneur side of things, but
the business side of things aswell, you've.
You've got a great brand,you've established a great team,
you've figured out theso-called secrets on in terms of
working remotely, um, so you'vemade a you you've, you've been
(09:28):
there and done it, you've walkedthe talk, all those kinds of
things.
But along the way, I'm guessingthere must have been, there
must have been challenges thatyou've had to face and overcome.
What?
What were the main challengesfor you in that, in that period?
Sondre Rasch (09:43):
Yeah, I think my greatest challenge in working
remotely and also doing astartup remotely.
So I should say when I firststarted out, like when I first
quit my job, that was a sort ofscary moment because I had a job
then I was policy advisor atthe government of Norway and I
was trying to kind of kickmyself in the butt to start a
(10:04):
company.
But it's, of course, scary andI had like a great, such a cushy
job because I was policyadvisor.
It was a new unit, didn'treally have a boss.
I work in these extremelymeaningful, exciting projects.
It was really excellent.
(10:27):
But I knew I had to do what Ihad to do and so I made this
decision to do it and we started.
I started a company part-timeand I had already kind of worked
out the logic that if I justgot some freelancer income and I
moved to a local like I wasthinking berlin at the time,
(10:47):
which was even cheaper than itwas, than it is now um, like you
could live on like 500 euros amonth in berlin, wow at the time
.
Now, now it's a little bit more.
Yeah, but so the plan was Istarted to build like freelancer
(11:11):
income in the part-time andalso to build a company in the
part-time which became Superside, and I started saving some
money to see if I can cut mycosts and uh, and then I would
move to a low-cost locationwhich would extend my runway and
the idea was that I could worklike one day a week freelancing
uh enough, and earn enough tokind of pay my living so that I
(11:34):
could work on the company therest of the time.
And, um, I still think thatplan was like incredible.
I would advise anyone else todo the same like I.
I totally nailed that.
You know, like that plan wasdefinitely the right plan.
I think that's doable by almostanyone.
Actually, what I, what I didthere, um, as in, to do those
(11:55):
different steps like you try tostart-time building a freelancer
income, to make a plan to alocal location, to save some
money, et cetera, like it'sdoable by really anyone.
So, by the way, building afreelancer is very difficult.
It's been a lot of figuring outwhat you want to do.
I ended up doing writing foreconomics magazines.
(12:15):
I just did a little bit of it.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (12:17):
It's good, it's good.
Sondre Rasch (12:19):
Yeah, it was great .
It was great.
It was really random how youget the first customer, but the
point is, when you do a good jobwith one customer, that's kind
of all you need, which it endedup being anyway.
I didn't do that for very longbecause, just as I was, I quit
my job and in the interveningmonths, my, the company I
started supersize.
Basically, we start working andit was just like a month after
(12:40):
quitting my job that we gotaccepted to work hominator and
then at that point it's likeyou're strapped into the roller
coaster and uh, and so all thisthe roller coaster.
I like it.
Yeah, and all that sort ofromanticism of like living hand
to mouth in Berlin was a bitkind of shut away to like, you
(13:02):
know, starting a rocket ship inSan Francisco and yeah, why did
I get on this tangent again?
What was that?
I felt like I lost.
I may need to get back to yourquestion there.
No, it's fine You're going inthe right direction.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (13:19):
I suppose what I'm saying is the
challenges that you've overcome.
Essentially, it sounds to meyou're the kind of person who
plans what they're going to do.
You're very strategic in whatyou're going to do before you
actually take a jump.
You're more of a I don't knowvery pragmatic and you are very
calculated in what you're goingto do next.
(13:41):
So you've gone from being afreelancer to then going to uh,
like you said, the rollercoaster of um why?
Combinator, starting safetywing.
What was that roller coaster?
You know?
Sondre Rasch (13:53):
tell us about that roller coaster, because when I
picture a rollercoaster I thinkscary, exciting, scary exciting
yeah, no, exactly that's exactlywhat what it is, uh, uh and uh,
starting a startup, especiallyone that has speed, because
(14:14):
before you launch and before youkind of start to get speed, you
can be in this sort of beam.
There is this old sort ofaboriginal creation myth, which
is sort of like the dream, wherethere's like the gods are
dreaming up this world and youlive in this world and then you
(14:36):
enter into reality and what youenter into are constraints.
Yes, a, it's shaped a lot bythe dream world and I just found
like that's such a goodmetaphor for what it's like
pre-launch, because you're inthis, you're not in constrained
by reality.
Pre-launch, right, you're inthis very pleasant dream world
(14:56):
and it's an important time andyou know, by all means cherish
it, but you can't stay thereforever because then it becomes
a delusion.
But but so, and then you enterinto the real world with your
idea and then you're supposed tokind of like work with reality
and overcome reality to createthis, get to a place, get to a
(15:20):
vision, and on the way there,what you have is like I have no
idea what I'm doing.
I had a couple of things I didreally right in the beginning
which I'm almost lost, which isso sad, but, like I, I
essentially had very high speed,which it was very good because
I did everything wrong before Idid it right, wow, um so, but if
(15:41):
you do things fast enough, ifyou try them fast enough and I
do think that is sort of the,the kind of exercise of
entrepreneurship isn't doing itright the first time, but it is
to do it again, try new thingsso fast that it looks like you
did it on purpose.
Yeah, like yeah, because by thenormal time someone tries one
(16:03):
thing, you try 20 and one ofthem worked and um, so anyway,
that that was, that's part of it.
And then, of course, it's likeyou.
You launch your customers.
You're constantly looking doomin the eye.
Your product almost always suck.
This is not true for thebeginning of safe doing.
That's the only kind ofdifference.
I did a lot right in safe doing, because I took what worked
(16:26):
from my first company and Iapplied it and, maybe most of
all, I knew what didn't matter,so I didn't spend time on that.
That was incredibly useful thesecond time around just to not
waste my time on things thatwhat matters is the team, the
product In the beginning.
That's what matters.
(16:46):
Is it a product people want tobuy, is the team great, and then
later growth once you're liveand kind of out of the beta
phase.
But of course, what'sparticularly wrenching is when
your product is not good, whenyou're not growing.
(17:07):
What makes you happy whenyou're growing?
Fundraising.
What's not happy when you'rerejected, what makes you happy
when you're accepted?
Fundraising is particularlyharrowing, I think.
I mean I've done it many timesnow, but it definitely feels
(17:27):
like a very high.
It's like dating.
I suppose it's very high-stakessalesmanship.
So what is that rollercoasterlike coaster, like yeah, it's
like those things.
It's a.
It's a.
You're on your own, you're inthe wild, you don't know what's
going to work, you don't knowyour environment you have to
(17:48):
figure it out by trying thingsyes and and most of the time it
doesn't work, and you have tojust not be deterred by that
rejection, whether it's fromcustomers or investors or like
reality itself.
But I do think it makes youinto an interesting person over
time.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (18:06):
No, I can imagine yeah, I can imagine and
I think what it looked.
I mean, obviously now you, youstarted safety ring back in 2017
, so you're getting somestability there.
I'm guessing now and those thatroller coaster ride is a bit
smoother, and am I right insaying that, or is it still?
Sondre Rasch (18:27):
I mean, yeah, um well, you certainly have like
more of what works, but youalways have problems and the
problems in a startup areusually deadly right.
So there are periods of safedoing where things have just
(18:50):
worked remarkably well, and thatis actually true.
Not long after we launched, wehad this lovely scenario that we
launched Nomad Insurance and itjust worked out of the gate.
Uh, like we had word of mouthwhich I think is kind of like
the true market product marketfit out of the gate, like we
(19:10):
were just a couple of months inand we were observing just like
every day customers were signingup, they were coming from which
is sort of word of mouth, andso that's because we were a bit
ahead of the game there.
that allowed us to, in a way,not be as stressed out.
So that was one very fortunatething.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (19:36):
And from there then.
So you've gone out of the gateand you've done pretty well with
nomad insurance.
You've added now differentbranches to to safety wing.
You've got the nomad insurance,you've got remote health for
teams as well.
So you, you're put, you'reputting other things out there.
Tell us about.
Tell us then, I mean if, if I'ma manager, and why are these
(20:05):
things, I suppose, I guess,important to me?
Now I guess right?
Sondre Rasch (20:13):
um, well, well, you are a manager and let's say
you have a remote team and, likemany remote teams, at least
some of your team, and quiteoften a large share, is
international, because you foundthem on international job sites
(20:35):
and you hired the best and youweren't too concerned with
whether or not they were locallylocated to you.
Um, you know, that's whatalmost all companies that go
remote, they, they kind ofinevitably go down this route.
Um, you know, barring limits ontime zones, there isn't that
(20:55):
much difference from workingwith someone if they're sitting
like in I don't know for in yourcase, like newcastle or
brosfils or romania, so, uh, soyou end up becoming this
international employer and, uhand uh, you know, as an employer
(21:17):
, you, you, uh, you havesalaries but you also want to
have benefits.
That's to a varying degree, Ishould say in England that's
less, it's less important.
The NHS is like a verywell-developed thing, but even
in England I do, I have seen thestats quite a lot, especially
in sort of like knowledge work.
(21:40):
It is kind of common to alsohave benefits on top of that,
like as an extra perk.
That's getting increasinglycommon.
So that's just one of theproblems you have and once you
pass a certain number ofemployees maybe like 10, 20, you
start to feel the need thatlike oh you know, I want to be a
proper employer.
Like you don't care about thatwhen you're like three people
and like the founders and acouple of freelancers.
(22:00):
But you know, as you get moreyou kind of you, you feel like
you should, you want to be aserious, uh, employer and you're
not pleased.
You want like to be seen as agood, a serious company takes
serious company that takes careof your employees and um, and of
course it's a little bit extrato say, in the job.
(22:22):
I'd like what are the benefits?
You want the answer to be yes,yes, there are benefits in this
role and uh, and it probablyalso increases retention a
little bit.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (22:32):
There are some data, although I'm not sure
how much people kind ofemotionally care about that, but
but there is certainly somedata to support that I would
agree on that there's definitelybecause I mean, I think, even
from an anecdotal experience, mytime in in hiring, one of the
first questions I always getasked, apart from how much is
the salary, is what's the youknow, what's the remuneration
(22:53):
package, what are the benefits?
yeah, but, like I said, there isthere is data to support it as
well.
So yeah, I think sorry Iinterrupted you.
You were saying Safety Wingoffers that in there as well.
Sondre Rasch (23:07):
Yeah, and so that's your problem.
You want to have benefits.
Well, how do you do it?
And Safety Wing is the answerto that and it's, for now, the
only answer.
If you have this kind of team,um, so you can go to safe doing,
you can add your employees orcontractors, uh, and very often
(23:30):
they're contractors even thoughthey're actually employees when
you work remotely because of thelegal hurdles, uh, without you
having a local entity, and thatum and um, and you can add them
anywhere in the world and theycan also move anywhere in the
world and you can add sort ofhealth, dental, maternity
benefits to them.
When you add more people, youcan kind of like in the
(23:52):
dashboard plus and add them moreand remove when they're gone
and offer sort of like highquality but very competitively
priced Everything available inthe dashboard.
You sign up sort of in fiveminutes kind of situation.
So it's like a way to solvethat problem how to offer good
(24:12):
benefits to my team in thesimplest possible way and the
only way for now for theseremote teams what kind of
benefits are you seeing now thatare typically offered, or what
do you typically offer yourself?
uh, so the most common is healthinsurance, and then almost all
the companies we have addedactually also add the dental,
(24:35):
and then it's like 30, 40percent at 30, and, uh, what we
call outpatient, which is likephysical therapy and other such
things.
Uh, we don't yet haveretirement, that's coming next
summer.
Uh, we have to make thisproduct from scratch because
they don't exist.
So, uh, we don't haveretirement, that's coming next
summer.
That's gonna.
(24:56):
It's a similar kind of share.
34 other potential ones aredisability life.
There are also other benefits,I should add.
So now I'm talking about thekind of the heavy lifting.
Yes, yes, health insurance isby far the most.
There are also other benefits,I should add.
So now I'm talking about thekind of the heavy lifting.
Yes, yes, health insurance isby far the most.
There are also other benefitsthat people think about as
benefits, vacation being themost prominent, that people care
about the most.
Like, when you see rankings,like what do people care about
(25:18):
the most, health insurance istypically number one and
vacation is typically number two.
Uh, other benefits that aresomewhat common and very often
comes up in an onboardingprocess is laptop, yes, and then
, of course, there are thosefairly low-cost but fun benefits
(25:39):
, which is also quite common,where it's a small amount but it
can be useful.
That could be like gym trip orfor remote work.
You can have a remote workstipend for co-working space.
That's more expensive actually.
You see some of those.
(26:00):
But in terms of generally, whatdo people think about?
What do people actually careabout?
It's health insurance andvacation, and then for a lot of
people it's also the otherinsurances life, disability,
dental, dental is actually verycommon and retirement savings.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (26:18):
And talking about health insurance
and, given the situation thatwe're in, we can't really escape
it, can we talking about it?
Have you seen any changes?
I mean, what do things looklike before and after Any
changes that have happened withSafety Wing in terms of the
uptake of that?
Sondre Rasch (26:37):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I mean we saw, with remotehealth, a bit of an explosion in
interest because of COVID.
A bit of an explosion ininterest because of COVID and I
don't know the percentage, butlike a significant share of the
companies reaching out to ushave gone remote since.
March.
There are different numbers onit.
(26:59):
Between five to 10X seem to bethe expected increase in the
people who work remotely beforeCOVID and after COVID, remote
work and remote teams.
There seems to be an explosion.
In cities like San Franciscoit's even more.
(27:20):
I don't know what the numbersare, but it seems like every
company has gone remotepermanently, or remote first, or
remote for a couple of years,which very often will turn into
permanently here.
So that's, I would say, thebiggest driver.
Then, of course, we have thenomads, which was, for us, the
first product, which are, by theway, remote workers as a subset
(27:42):
of remote workers, but they buythe products individuals.
Workers is a subset of remoteworkers, it's uh, but they buy
the products individuals.
Um, there we saw actually adrop of february to march down,
like for for us, like 20 to 30percent down.
There were a lot of them.
We evacuated ourselves actuallybecause we covered that okay,
yeah, so, and then uh, but wegot through that quite well and
(28:04):
and we fared much better thanother people who are in the.
So no money insurance isn'tstrictly travel insurance, but
it's adjacent to travelinsurance.
So no minute the difference isthere are some differences, but
it's it's more of a medical planand you can have it forever.
That's the biggest difference.
So travel insurance you have tolike 45 days, but no money
insurance is like a subscription.
That's like $37 a month and youcan have it like for 10 years
(28:35):
or forever.
So a section of Nomads wenthome but starting in July, that
started ticking up and actually,like in last quarter, we had
like an 83% growth in thatproduct and that continues.
So, nomads it's this weirdthing that has happened.
(28:56):
We had many of these like weirdpredictions about remote work
and nomadism when we started out.
One of them was that one of thesecondary effects of remote work
is that countries and citieswould start competing for nomads
, remote workers and remotecompanies.
It's happening and that'shappened so exactly like we were
(29:19):
predicting.
That is almost scary.
So Sarah McClendon did a talkon Web Summit where she
explained exactly how this wouldbe, and it's completely played
out to the to the wildest extent.
Like there are now I think it'seight, nine countries where you
can't travel from the us as atourist, but you can go there as
a remote worker or nomad.
They've made these crazysituations.
(29:41):
Uh, and now your latest.
You had you had greece, whichtook it one level up, where they
said 50, if someone, a remoteworker, were to move to greece,
they would have 50 tax break forseven years, I think.
So they like adding it to thenext seven years wow yeah, so
that's really happening and um,so I do think that so we're
(30:05):
seeing a resurgence of nomadism.
Another reason we're seeing isbecause all these companies have
gone remote, and what I sawhere in San Francisco is, yeah,
they got suddenly.
Their job was remote, theydidn't do something for a few
months, but then they startedasking themselves wait, I work
remotely, I don't have to livehere, they're paying.
I'm paying an obscene amountfor rent and I don't like it
that much.
(30:25):
I, I'm paying an obscene amountfor rent and I don't like it
that much, I'm only living herebecause my job is here and you
know, some of them went on roadtrips, some of them went to
another state, but a lot of themwent kind of nomad.
They went to Tulum or they wentto Lisbon or Barbados and kind
of switched to a nomad lifestyle.
So we're seeing that resurgencestarting from August and I
(30:47):
would expect sort of as travelresumes and this sort of vaccine
becomes more widespread, thatthat's only going to accelerate.
So next year is going to be theyear of the nomad, for sure.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (30:56):
And I think, places like Barbados.
I saw that they're offering andother countries as well are
offering certain benefits andthey're trying to, I suppose,
reel nomads and remote workersin with.
I suppose, work here for a year, and we'll give you this, or
work here for six months, andwe'll do that for you.
So that's that's on the rise aswell, isn't it?
(31:17):
It's basically what you'resaying yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Sondre Rasch (31:20):
barbados was one of those that really went for it
.
Uh, they made this remote workvisa, which is super easy to get
, and they've sort of put inplace like the whole range of
public services to make it asattractive as possible.
And I know several people thereare a couple of people, even a
(31:40):
person, chris, on the Safe Doingteam which took that offer and
is currently living in Barbados,so I'm guessing they're
starting to get a little nomadcommunity going there as well
well given the weather in um inLondon.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (31:53):
Uh, I could see myself doing the same
thing myself, so yeah watch thisspace.
No, it's good.
I mean, one of the questions Iget asked quite a lot, which
you're kind of alluding to andit seems like you've got your
finger on the pulse in terms ofwhat's going to happen in the
future is that are there anyother sort of like predictions
(32:14):
that you've either kind offoreseen, or any predictions
that you kind of know about?
Sorry, let me start again.
So either predictions that youforesee that have come true or
predictions that you thathaven't yet sort of played out
yeah, absolutely.
Sondre Rasch (32:35):
Well, I mean, the primary one is the safety wing
hypothesis, because you know, wesay we're building a global
social safety net and and we arebut our secret mission, which
is not that secret but is thatwe see that as a platform for
building the first country onthe internet, and and I do think
(32:56):
that the inevitable logic ofthe thing the internet and, if
you think it through, goes inthat direction that these sort
of social structures will existin a way that's practical, and
that what will inevitably happenin the future is that there
(33:19):
will be made these essentially,countries on the internet.
And I think it's the mostimportant thing to think about
now, because, even though thetechnological driver is
inevitable, how it's made it cantake many different forms.
The future country on theinternet is coming.
(33:40):
Is it a dystopia or a utopia?
I would say, time will tell,but it certainly is coming.
And uh, of course, that raisesmany questions what, what do you
mean by country and uh, andwhat will the relationship be to
?
You know, other countries andthis sort of new type of social
entity and uh, that also remainsto be seen.
(34:00):
Although you know we have astrategy at safety wing which is
very friendly.
We try to do the good thingsabout everything and have a very
positive relationship withexisting countries.
They won't play the same role.
So I do think geographicalcountries will continue to exist
, they just will have lesssignificance.
(34:20):
It's similar to when we wentfrom city-states to
nation-states the city-statesstill exist, it's just less
important.
Went from city states to nationstates right, the city states
still exist, it's just lessimportant.
They just do the things thatare strictly relevant to the
city, right?
And I think that's a sort ofsimilar feel it will have they
will still exist, just be lesssignificant, and so that's a
(34:44):
prediction.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (34:47):
It's fascinating.
I think we could probably do awhole other podcast on on this,
um, so I might have to uh, Ihave to invite you back on
another time because itfascinates me.
I love to talk about the futureof.
I love to get differentperspectives on what's going to
happen in the future.
So a country on the internetsounds good to me.
Sondre Rasch (35:08):
Yeah, absolutely On remote work, our predictions
come true a lot of them, butthey seemed outrageous when we
made them, so I mentioned thatabout cities and countries
competing.
I certainly also think it isinevitable that every company
that can be remote will beremote.
(35:29):
There are economic drivers toit, which makes it an inevitable
outcome and similarly, everycompany that can be digital will
be digital and will be global.
That's another one that I thinka lot of people haven't picked
up on, which creates thiscompletely different market.
This is already the case.
(35:50):
I'm not sure why so many peopleis, in a way, blind to this,
but everything that's sold oninternet is global, which means
your market is global and it's adifferent market.
It's very big.
Everything has this infinitepotential, and many niches are
(36:10):
huge on a global basis that areinsignificant on a small base,
uh, on a like a local scale.
So that's another one that issort of startup related.
That uh is, in a way, hasalready come true, but but
people doesn't seem to haverealized it yet.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (36:31):
Yeah, and my suspicion is, is that people
who I suppose it's more.
It's one of those predictions,I guess that if you're working
digitally and you're you've got,you've got your finger on the
pulse of what's going on, likesomething like yourself, you're
working remotely as well you'remore likely to be able to be
(36:52):
more, I guess, more sensitive tothose changes and those um
transformations than if you'resomebody who got maybe is not
necessarily geared towards that,you know um, but yeah, like I
said, I think there's anotherpodcast in there somewhere, so
yeah, let's return to that let'sreturn to it, but no, it's so
(37:13):
before we go, uh sundry, what isthe what's on the horizon for
you?
I know you said there are somedifferent product areas that you
were thinking about adding toto safety wing, but what's the
future for for safety wing ingeneral?
Sondre Rasch (37:28):
yeah, uh, so, uh, our um, our uh, near-term future
, uh, our coming year.
You know we're very excitingyear ahead.
We have some, but the bigproduct launch is probably the,
the, the pension retirementproduct, just the first of its
kind.
It's the first global portableuh retirement product.
(37:51):
You know that allow people wholive in different countries to
keep saving for the same pensionaccount, which is actually not
possible today.
So you have a lot of people whohave like like me, who are like
I have pension savings innorway.
I can't access them here.
It's's like a separate I don'tknow.
Many people have that problemwho have moved.
They don't have to be nomads,they've just moved
(38:11):
internationally sometime intheir life.
So that's going to be the bigone.
We also have, of course, a lotof improvement for remote health
.
Remote health is a big productand we have a lot of exciting
product improvements um comingout.
So, just working on, there'salso this window of opportunity
(38:34):
with remote health.
You know, I think we made thisproduct at this incredibly
fortunate time and we have tosort of take that window of
opportunity to to to make surethat people know about it, that
people know that it's possible,because a big reason, I think a
(38:54):
lot of people don't havebenefits today when they work
internationally.
Remote is just because thecompanies don't think it's
possible.
We know that because we hear itfrom the companies who come to
us.
They're like, oh, that's so funthat it's now possible.
And then they're like, oh,that's so fun that that's it's
now possible.
And then they're, you know,implementing benefits and that's
, of course, a great help foryou know these people's lives.
(39:15):
So, so that's that.
And then we will continue on toadd the other insurances and
the income protection, and thenwe're going to make a membership
product, sort of a couple ofyears ahead, where we uh like,
where you bundle all theseproducts into like a membership,
the way you would havenationally in a social safety
(39:35):
net, so you get all of it and,uh, maybe you pay a share, like
10, of your incomes, um, so itbecomes available for even more
people to have access to a veryhigh quality social safety net
that works globally.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (39:54):
That's that's where we want to get to
well, for sure, I'll be lookingout and talking about safety
wing, because I I really believein what you do, sandra and um,
I think it's really important,not just because of the
situation that we're in now, butgenerally speaking.
It's something that isoverlooked and it's something
(40:16):
unique that you do.
So I'll be keeping close withyou and Enlin and keeping track
on what you do.
I will obviously be talkingabout uh safety wing with the
community too, but what I wantto do is just wish you all the
best and thank you so much foruh taking time today to speak to
us on the podcast and, um, yeah, wish you and the team all the
(40:38):
best thank you, alex.
Sondre Rasch (40:41):
it was uh great to chat with you and super nice to
meet you, and I think thiscommunity sounds exciting.
I look forward to checking itout and seeing how it develops
as well.
Alex WIlson-Campbell (40:54):
Excellent.
Well, I'll be speaking to yousoon.
Thanks, Sondra.
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