I work at Gridium (http://www.gridium.com http://www.gridium.com). We're a 100% "virtual" company, meaning we have no central office. We work in several differe

I work at Gridium (http://www.gridium.com http://www.gridium.com). We're a 100% "virtual" company, meaning we have no central office. We work in several different timezones. Yet we've managed to build products that, by any measure, have been very successful. Good enough to see us named to this years Cleantech 100 (http://www.cleantech.com/global100/global-cleantech-100/ http://www.cleantech.com/global100/global-cleantech-100/)! The point being, we are a successful startup that has made the lack of a central office a part of our culture. This is my first foray into a virtual company like this, and it's been eye-opening. There are several efficiencies that come with remote work: 1. Our team members are thrilled. We have folks in basically every stage of their working lives. From fresh college graduates to parents of kids in college.. and everything in between. Everyone has expressed satisfaction with how our setup has given them the ability to easily balance their personal lives with work. I know that for me, simply eliminating the commute I have an extra hour or two in my day to spend time with my family. That alone makes me intensely loyal to the company. 2. It's the best hiring hack ever. Did you know that there are insanely talented engineers living in Boise Idaho? Milwaukee? Conway Arkansas? It turns out that when you are allowed to cast a very wide hiring net, the level of talent available to you simply goes through the roof. Instead of sniping talent from local companies and participating in the hiring arms-race you're seeing in the valley and in other startup hubs, we get to hire amazing people that those companies simply never consider. 3. We save real money. Since we don't have an office, we save on one of the biggest expenses a company can have. We do pay for co-working spaces, but most of our employees choose to work at home. It leaves money in the budget for us to have amazing quarterly meet-ups. Every three months we get together and work on the company, but we get to have an amazing time while doing so. 4. Management efficiencies abound as well. You learn to really trust other people when you can't look over their shoulder all of the time. Which creates a brilliant culture of self-managing teams. There are challenges. When do you have standup (DO you do standups)? How do you communicate? Thankfully tools like Google Hangouts, hipchat, and a variety of others help us cross that gap. I think the most surprising thing to me has been that our virtual company operates more like a traditional officed one than I would have thought. We still have meetings when necessary. We still collaborate. Hell we still whiteboard things out. Just the venue has changed and the manner in which we do things slightly altered. tldr; It can most definitely work.