Search results for

"saas"

Jul

2020

NordVPN arvustus: parim VPN 2024 või pelgalt nutikas turundustrikk?

☑︎ Seda arvustust värskendati viimati: May 2024

Alates selle asutamisest 2012. aastal on NordVPN kasvanud vaieldamatult suurimaks VPN-teenuseks kogu maailmas – see on lausa kaks korda populaarsem kui suuruselt teine bränd, nagu näitab meile Google’i globaalne otsinguhuvi mõõdik:

See muljetavaldav kasv on teinud NordVPN-ist turuliidri. Kas see kasv on tõesti tingitud kvaliteedist ja usaldusväärsusest või on selle taga lihtsalt suur turunduseelarve?

Teisisõnu: kas ka sina peaksid veebiturvalisuse ja privaatsuse suurendamiseks valima NordVPNi?

Uurime selle välja!

Selles detailses arvustuses analüüsime põhjendatud arvamuse kujundamiseks NordVPN-i iga võimaliku nurga alt. Muuhulgas käime läbi ka järgmised populaarsed küsimused:

🗻Kuidas erineb Nord teistest VPN teenustest?
🔒Kas sinu andmed on ikka NordVPN-iga turvatud?
🐌Kas see võib sinu internetiühendust aeglasemaks muuta?
💸30-päevane tagasimaksmise garantii – kuidas see töötab?
🏆Kas peaksid eelistama NordVPN-i teistele pakkujatele?

(juhul, kui otsustad, et soovid samuti NordVPN-i proovida, oleme selle artikli lõppu lisanud sooduskoodi mille abil säästad kolmeaastase tellimuse pealt lisaks 5%)

…Aga uurime kõigepealt, kas NordVPN ikka on teistest VPN teenustest nii erinev:

Mis on NordVPN?
NordVPN-i unikaalsed omadused
Kuidas NordVPN-i kasutada?
Hinnakiri, raha tagasimaksmine ja tühistamine
BOONUS: NordVPN sooduskood
Kas peaksid kasutama NordVPN-i?
Kommentaarid ja arvustused

NordVPN-i unikaalsed omadused

VPN (= Virtual Private Netwrok ehk virtuaalne privaatvõrk) on süsteem, mis suunab sissetuleva ja väljamineva internetiliikluse krüptitud ühenduse kaudu, mida kutsutakse „tunneliks”.

See muudab sinu ühenduse palju turvalisemaks ründajate vastu, kes soovivad varastada sinu delikaatset informatsiooni, ning samuti suurendab sinu privaatsust kõigi nende suhtes, kes võivad tahta sinu järel nuhkida – alates valitsusest ja sõbralikest suurkorporatsioonidest kuni sinu internetiteenuse pakkujani.

Kuna protsessis varjatakse sinu Interneti-aadress, saad „boonusena” juurdepääsu ka kogu maailmas olevale sisule, isegi kui sellele on sinu riigis autoriõiguse või riikliku tsensuuri tõttu ligipääs piiratud 🚧

Peaaegu iga turul leiduv korralik VPN pakub hetkel kõike eelnimetatut, kõigil mõeldavatel seadmetel alates sülearvutitest nutitelefonide, telerite ja ruuteriteni – kas NordVPN-is on üldse midagi erilist?

On, ja tegelikult isegi palju:

NordVPN-il on olemasolevate VPN teenusepakkujate seas vaieldamatult suurim arv servereid (üle 5000 serveri 59 riigis) – see on 1,5 korda rohkem kui suuruselt teine VPN!

See tähendab peaaegu piiramatut asukohtade valikut ja tagab, et ükski server ei ole samaaegsete ühendustega liigselt koormatud.

Siin on nimekiri kõikidest riikidest, kus asuvad NordVPN-i serverid (iga punkt tähistab piirkonda, mitte ühte serverit):

Ilmselt panid tähele, et NordVPN-i riikide valik on üsna tagasihoidklik võrreldes mõne teise VPN-iga, kus asukohti on üle 150 – see on tingitud asjaolust, et Nord kasutab ainult füüsilisi servereid, mitte virtuaalservereid, mis ainult matkivad asukohti.

Suurem kiirus NordLynxiga, mis on uus VPN-protokoll, mille on NordVPN välja töötanud Wireguard avatud lähtekoodiga tehnoloogia põhjal.

Kui enamik teisi pakkujaid kasutab ainult olemasolevaid protokolle, on NordVPN otsustanud luua endale kohandatud versiooni, mis vastab paremini nende konkreetsele võrguarhitektuurile; miks see üldse oluline on?

… kiiremad ühendused:

(ülaltoodud diagramm näitab NordLynxi ühenduskiiruste jaotust võrreldes teiste laialdaselt kasutatavate VPN-protokollidega, tuginedes Nordi poolt läbi viidud 250 000 testile)

Range logivastane poliitika, mida toetab Panama andmekaitseseadus ja mida auditeerib regulaarselt PWC Zürichi filiaal.

Tefincom S.A., NordVPN-i haldav juriidiline isik, on registreeritud Panama Vabariigis, mis tuntud anonüümsust ja andmekaitset pooldava suhtumise poolest.

Kui peaks juhtuma (väga ebatõenäoline) olukord, kus kolmandal osapoolel õnnestub sundida Tefincomi oma andmeid üle andma, pole seal väga midagi üle anda, kuna Nord ei hoia oma serverites klientide aktiivsuslogisid.

Lisaks sellele on NordVPN-il varuks veel üks väike nutikas trikk:

Lehel „Meist” avaldavad nad niinimetatud garantiiklausli – avalduse, mis kinnitab, et nad EI OLE saanud ühtegi taotlust klientide andmete avaldamiseks.

Miks see kasulik on? Paljud riigid keelavad ettevõtetel avalikkusele rääkida saadud avalikustamiste korraldustest, kuid ükski seadus ei keela avalikkusele selgesõnaliselt teada anda selliste korralduste puudumise kohta 😉

CyberSec blokeerib pahatahtlikud veebisaidid ja takistab häkkereid, et nad ei saaks sundida sinu seadmeid hajutatud rünnakutes osalema.

Nordi ainulaadne CyberSec süsteem on nagu täiendav tulemüür ja reklaamiblokeerija, mis on sisseehitatud otse VPN-i.

See aitab vältida ohtlikke saite ja nautida reklaamivaba (st ka kiiremat) veebi ilma täiendavat tarkvara paigaldamata.

NordVPN toetab mittetulundusühinguid, näiteks Amnesty International ja Internet Freedom Festival.

Jah, see ei ole küll selline funktsioon, mis sulle otseselt kasulik oleks, aga paljude inimeste jaoks on oluline teada, kas igapäevaseks kasutamiseks valitud bränd teeb lisaks raha teenimisele ka ühiskonna heaks midagi kasulikku.

Kui Nord ei toetaks aktiivselt inimõigusorganisatsioone ja küberturvalisuse projekte, kõlaks nende väited vaba ja avatud veebi väärtustamise kohta pisut pealiskaudselt, kas pole?

Kuidas NordVPN-i tõhusalt kasutada?

Lisaks sellele, et mõistad VPN-i funktsiooni ja seda, mille poolest Nord teistest pakkujatest erineb, on samuti oluline teada, kuidas seda kasutada nii, et saaksid sellest veebis tegutsedes maksimaalset kasu.

Esimesed sammud on üsna lihtsad:

Mine ametlikule veebisaidile ja loo seal endale konto. Kui soovid saada suurimat soodustust, siis vaata allolevat boonuste osa, et näha hetke parimat pakkumist.
Seejärel mine oma konto avalehele ning lae alla ja paigalda ametlik NordVPN tarkvara .
Ühenda end meelepärase asukoha VPN serveriga või kasuta automaatse ühenduse funktsiooni, mis valib sinu jaoks parima lähedalasuva serveri.

See kõik on küll ilus ja lihtne, kuid

…erinevalt paljudest teistest vähem keerukamatest alternatiividest võib NordVPN olla palju võimsam turbe ja privaatsuse suurendamise abivahend, kui osata seda õigesti kasutada 👍

Siin on mõned olulised näpunäited, kuidas alustada:

Esiteks tasub välja valitud VPN laadida alla kõikidesse seadmetesse, mida regulaarselt kasutad, näiteks on Nordil eraldi rakendused Windows, Mac, Linux, Android ja iOS süsteemidele. Olgem järjekindlad oma püüdlustes tagada suurem privaatsus ja turvalisus!
Kogu oma koduse WiFi-võrgu kaitsmiseks on võimalik paigaldada NordVPN-i oma ruuterile. Kindlate ruuterimudelite jaoks konkreetsete juhiste saamiseks uuri lähemalt nende teadmistebaasi.
Reguleeri seadeid selliselt, et seadme sisselülitamisel käivituks sinu NordVPN rakendus taustal automaatselt ja ühendab sinu VPN-i (selle seadistuse leiad vahekaartidelt nimega „General” ja „Auto-connect”).
Kas soovid kõikvõimalikud riskid viia miinimumi? Lülita NordVPN-i seadetes sisse Kill Switch – see valik blokeerib automaatselt sinu internetiühenduse, kui VPN-i ühendus peaks katkema.

Samuti on hea meeles pidada, et NordVPN-il on mitmeid spetsiaalseid serverite tüüpe neile, kes vajavad täiendavat privaatsust ja turvalisust:

näiteks sobivad P2P-serverid ideaalselt torrentide allalaadimiseks, samas kui Double VPN pakub maksimaalset anonüümsust tsensuuri ja jälgimise vältimiseks.

Juba pelgalt NordVPN-i omamine on veebiturvalisuses ja privaatsuses suur samm edasi – ülaltoodud soovitused on mõeldud selleks, et saaksid oma tellimusest maksimumi võtta!

Hinnakiri, tagasimaksed ja tühistamine

Mis puutub hinnakirja, siis NordVPN pakub nelja võimalust: ühe-, kahe- ja kolmeaastased tellimused ning samuti ka kuupõhine tellimus.

Kui võrrelda hindu ühe kuu kohta, on kolmeaastane tellimus selgelt kõige odavam, pakkudes ligikaudu 70% allahindlust võrreldes kuupõhise tellimusega (vaata allpool olevat viisi, kuidas saada sooduskood, millega saada veelgi suurem soodustus).

Nagu enamiku teiste VPN-de puhul, on ka siin kuupõhise makse hind teistest tellimustest kallim (3–4 korda kallim!), mis tähendab, et selle praktiline väärtus on üsna madal, eriti kui arvestada seda, et kõikidel tellimusvariantidel on 30-päevane raha tagasimaksmise garantii.

… räägime sellest lähemalt:

NordVPN-il on üsna standardne raha tagasimaksmise poliitika, mis tähendab, et uue tellimuse esimese kuu jooksul on sul võimalik oma konto tühistada ja saada täies mahus tagastus makstud summale 💸

NordVPN-i tagasimaksete kohta peaksid teadma kahte asja:

Pane tähele, et see sisaldab sõna „uus”! 100% raha tagasimaksmise garantii kehtib ainult viimase 30 päeva jooksul loodud kontodele.
Kuna Apple’ile meeldib asju ajada omamoodi, siis ei ole võimalik saada tagasimakset iOS-i rakenduse kaudu loodud NordVPN-i kontole. Sellisel juhul pead tagasimakse saama otse App Store’ist.

Kui sinu konto pole uus, st kui see loodi rohkem kui 30 päeva tagasi, saad selle endiselt igal ajal tühistada, kuid sellisel juhul ei tagastata ülejäänud summat.

Kokkuvõtvalt võib öelda, et kui väärtustad paindlikkust, on ilmselt uuele kontole parem aastane tellimus; kui otsid aga parimat hinda, on parim valik kolmeaastane tellimus. Mis toob meid järgmise teema juurde –

BOONUS: NordVPN-i sooduskood

Kui otsustad NordVPN-i proovida, siis miks mitte teha seda parima võimaliku hinnaga, kas pole?

Nordi kolmeaastane tellimus on juba niigi ligi 70% soodsam võrreldes kuupõhise tellimusega, kuid saame selle pakkumise veelgi paremaks teha.

Siin on viis, kuidas säästa lisaks veel 5 protsenti:

Vajuta järgneval lingil, et rakendada automaatselt sooduskood, mis annab kolmeaastase tellimuse puhul 75% soodustust:

NordVPN-is 75% soodustust
Vajuta uuel vahelehel avanevas aknas punast registreerimisnuppu; ära pane tähele, et nupul on mainitud tavalist 70-protsendilist soodustust 🤓
Nupule vajutamine viib sind maksmise lehele – vaata allolevat tellimuste hinnakirja, et üle kontrollida, kas soodukood on ikka rakendatud:

Kui see ei ole mingil põhjusel rakendunud, eemalda olemasolev sooduskood ja kopeeri sisendväljale järgnev kood:

satori

Ja ongi olemas, parem pakkumine NordVPN jaoks koos 30-päevase raha tagasimaksmise garantiiga! Nüüd saad minna maksma, sinu kontole rakendatakse uus hind.

Järeldus: kas peaksid kasutama NordVPN-i?

Nüüd, kui meil on selgem pilt sellest, mida NordVPN täpselt pakub, on aeg vastata meie viimasele küsimusele –

Kas Nord on sinu raha väärt?

Vastus on kindel ja kõlav „jah”:

Tundub, et NordVPN on leidnud soodsa koha kõrge kvaliteedi ja taskukohase hinna vahel, pakkudes kombinatsiooni mõlemast, mida on peaaegu võimatu ületada.

On teatud olukordi, kus ettevõtte suurus mängib klientide heaolus suurt rolli.

Olles maailma suurim VPN, on Nordil võimalik teha suuri investeeringuid oma infrastuktuuri ja funktsioonidesse – mis omakorda tagab selle, et antud brändi jaoks on oluline oma maine säilitamine.

Kõigist virtuaalsetest privaatvõrkudest, mida oleme aastate jooksul testinud, võib NordVPN-i kindlasti soovitada väga hea hinna ja kvaliteedi suhtega lahenduseks parema veebiturvalisuse ja privaatsuse tagamiseks:

… alates igapäevasest sirvimisest, veebis ostlemisest, P2P/torrentitest ja voogedastusest kuni valitsuse tsensuuri vältimise ja suurema anonüümsuseni – NordVPN on kindlasti valik, mida tasub kaaluda.

***

Kas sul on endiselt Nordi kohta küsimusi? Või äkki oled seda VPN-i juba kasutanud ja tahaksid oma arvamust jagada? Jaga oma arvustust allolevas kommentaaride osas, aidakem üksteisel teha teadlikke otsuseid!

Nov

2019

Outsourcing Web Development: The Who, Why, and How’s

Every business needs a website, and there are constantly not enough programmers. This has led to interesting changes and trends in the web development outsourcing market, which we’re going to analyze in this article.

If you’re not a programmer, or you don’t have programmers on your team, then you have to outsource the production of your software.

Many businesses even let go of their in-house teams in favor of outsourcing companies or freelancers. Such a transition can be hard at first, but ultimately it forces entrepreneurs to simplify and streamline their workflow and business processes.

Those that succeed at outsourcing and managing remote work have more resources to specialize on their products and run like lean, mean, entrepreneurship machines.

In this piece, we’ll analyze how outsourcing has changed over time, why it gives businesses a competitive edge, and how to make the most out of an outsourcing engagement.

The global market for software outsourcing

To put it simply, outsourcing means paying another company to do things instead of doing them by yourself or with your team, or by hiring new people to do them.

Outsourcing makes life easier for entrepreneurs and managers who have the budget to pay for it, as well as the necessary skills to oversee the service provider.

Businesses can outsource a large portion of their processes these days, from accounting, customer service, hiring, invoice management, all the way to building software.

Except for software-first companies, like game studios or software development agencies, a lot of businesses don’t need full-time programmers on their team. Even if they did want to hire, they would have to tap into an extremely tight IT services labor market and later invest significant resources into actually managing the specialists efficiently.

The best developers either work for high-profile tech companies and industry-leading enterprises, or become freelance consultants – or join the ranks of outsourcing companies.

However, although extreme growth in the IT industry continues to be… well, extreme, the outsourcing market is actually getting smaller (you’ll see why in a moment).

How much is the global software outsourcing market worth?

In 2018, the global market for outsourcing was worth $85.6 billion, which is a pretty steep drop from 2016 when it was worth $104.6 billion.

Over half of that market, around $62 billion, was IT outsourcing.

All the while, global spending on IT services reached $993 billion in 2018, and is forecast to grow to $1147 billion by 2021.

So why is the outsourcing market getting smaller? It could be explained by the fact that traditional outsourcing has changed. Businesses far and wide have been adopting cloud solutions to host their data and provide the tech infrastructure they need. It plays a huge part in the modern outsourcing market.

The same goes for Robotic Process Automation. Essentially, it’s the same as outsourcing, but not to a person, but an artificial agent, sometimes quite intelligent.

Cloud and RPA are not ‘traditional’ types of outsourcing, so they might not be included in the outsourcing market statistics. However, they solve almost the same problems for companies as outsourcing does. They free up your time, and provide a reliable solution for a reasonable price.

Who does the outsourcing and to what ends?

In short – the North and South Americas are the largest buyers of remote services. In 2017, according to KPMG, they were responsible for 41.5% of outsourcing deals globally. Europe, Middle East and Africa accounted for 35%, and Asia and Oceania – 23%.

According to a Clutch survey of 529 small business owners, 37% of small businesses are already outsourcing at least one business process. 52% were planning to outsource in 2019. They outsource mainly to be more efficient (24%), and get access to expert knowledge and skills (18%).

When it comes to bigger companies, in Deloitte’s survey of 521 market-leading companies, 93% are already using, or plan to use cloud computing, and 72% are using, or plan to use Robotic Process Automation.

Small companies outsource in order to do things that they don’t have the knowledge or resources to accomplish – like building websites or performing accounting tasks. Large businesses, on the other hand, seem to mostly outsource commoditized processes, like hosting and server management, or repeatable manual processes that robots can do faster.

In other words, small businesses outsource to gain competences and results they can’t generate themselves. The big players outsource to become more flexible and leaner than their competitors.

As you might have noticed, we didn’t mention lower costs – and that’s because…

Outsourcing is no longer about cost reduction

One of the major changes in the outsourcing market is that managers don’t outsource only to cut costs anymore. They see outsourcing as a way to become more flexible, agile, and competitive.

In approaching outsourcing options, low price is no longer the key consideration, so managers are looking at different criteria to find the best providers. A recent Deloitte survey clearly shows this trend:

42% of surveyed managers admit that they should’ve spent more time choosing an outsourcing partner. A lot of them admit that they need to take a more strategic approach to outsourcing in order to transform business processes, rather than just passing them over to someone else.

Companies are clearly becoming aware that outsourcing is a complex way to streamline business, and not a simple tactic to quickly cut costs. Outsourcing has turned into a collaboration that enables businesses to evolve capabilities – speed, flexibility, bleeding-edge technology – that they wouldn’t be able to reach without external support.

Because of that, we can expect the outsourcing market to continue growing, but not in the traditional sense. Instead of expanding outwards and competing on prices, it is more likely to deepen, differentiate, and focus more and more on providing high-quality, innovative, and even disruptive solutions.

In order words, we are likely to see intensifying speciation and increasing divides between –

Different types of outsourcing companies

If you want to outsource, say, the production of your website, there are a lot of options you can take.

The first thing you might consider is hiring a freelancer. With sites like Upwork or Freelancer.com, finding the right person can feel easy. However, the hiring manager needs to carefully manage the freelancer, and take care of the administrative procedures.

Then there is virtual employment or outstaffing. What’s the difference compared to outsourcing? As Talmatic explain in their blog, outstaffing companies essentially take on the hiring process, which means there is virtually no bureaucracy. You pay the outstaffing agency to find the right person, and then you manage that person like they’re a part of your team. It’s one of the most affordable and convenient ways to outsource web development or software development these days.

You can also pay for a software-as-a-service suite (SaaS) that will enable you to easily build your own website without any programming. This option would be the least costly, but it still requires you – or someone on your team – to do some (actually, most) of the work.

Finally, there’s also traditional outsourcing, also called the Managed Services Model. Here you hire an external company to set up a team, make all the technological decisions, and build a website that you have envisioned.

The biggest challenge here is communicating your requirements clearly, in a way that the outsourcing partner knows exactly what to do and how much resources (and hence your money) they can spend on the project.

In the MSM model, a big part of any successful partnership is a solid contract. The most common types of contracts are:

Fixed-price – both the price and the requirements for the project are agreed upon from the beginning
Time and Materials approach – the requirements are clear but open to changes, and the price is flexible and depends on how much the outsourcing partner spends on building your site
Agile – a mix of the above, usually with a stated budget limit, and an open approach to the requirements of the project so that they can be changed during production

In addition to the mode of cooperation, we can also classify outsourcing partners by their location relative to the buyer: onshore – in the same country, nearshore – on the same continent, and offshore – on a different continent.

Finally, we can define traditional and disruptive outsourcing:

Traditional outsourcing is a typical engagement where one company pays another to do something, like building a website. The work is done by human workers and the service doesn’t rely on technology. It enables managers to do things for which they don’t have in-house competences.

Disruptive outsourcing relies on modern technology to provide novel services that aren’t possible with just human workers. This includes SaaS solutions, cloud computing service providers, and robotic process automation. The work isn’t the only thing that is outsourced here, but also things such as the tech infrastructure that the business is built upon.

As you can imagine, when combined with traditional kind disruptive outsourcing enables companies to be even more agile, flexible and efficient.

What about the prices?

As you might have guessed, the cheapest option is SaaS. E.g. in the context of building a website, services like Wix and Squarespace enable you to set up and publish a decently-looking site for a small monthly fee (typically around $10-$30/mo). Not surprisingly, it’s also the most labour-intensive and limited option, which only works if you need a very simple site that will essentially be an online business card.

You can also hire a freelancer, or a virtual employee, to build a bespoke website for your business. Rates for freelance web developers start at around $10/hour, but that’s for the least experienced programmers – seasoned professionals can ask for multiples of that.

Indeed, according to CodeMentor the average market rate is between $60/hour and $80/hour. In addition to that, you will also need to pay for web hosting and manage the entire development process to make sure the finished website meets your requirements.

The time for traditional outsourcing, i.e. the managed services model, comes when your business is more digital-centric – think e-commerce, social media, high-profile blogs, or digital services.

In these cases, you usually don’t just need a website, you need a web application that has much broader capabilities. These are demanding projects, so if you don’t have an experienced in-house team, the second-best option is to work with an outsourcing partner that has significant experience doing similar projects.

All of the above options can be mixed-in with disruptive outsourcing. For example, your website can be built by an external partner, and then hosted on the Amazon cloud.

Things to keep in mind when outsourcing web development

In order to get the most from outsourcing, buyers need to take extra caution to protect their interests and ensure maximum results:

The first thing to do is properly vetting possible outsourcing partners. Ask for references, look at the portfolio, ask an expert if the company looks solid.

Second, don’t forget about clear, precise communication. It’s important that both sides of the engagement are on the same page about all conditions of the agreement in order to avoid problems that come from simple misunderstandings. It’s crucial to set your expectations straight from the start, and clearly communicate them to your business partner. Waiting for them to do the right thing is not a good way to go.

Another point that looks obvious but gets overlooked a lot: when you’re paying someone to build your software, or website, you should have the rights to the finished product. Make sure that it’s in the contract.

***

The software outsourcing market is constantly evolving, and though some statistics might suggest that it’s stalling, the fact is that a big part of outsourcing budgets has moved over to innovative technology services. Companies outsource more than ever, but do it in different ways and for different reasons.

In the future, we might be able to build websites by telling an AI a vague story – but that’s still a long way off; until that time comes, there will be need for professional skills and human judgement.

Jul

2019

Managing a Remote Team for Online Projects: The Essential Webmaster Guide

In today’s technologically advanced environment, webmasters and online business owners are tackling complex issues which are well outside the scope of traditional tasks of a single person: they brainstorm new marketing strategies, convince influencers, earn the trust of advanced global AIs (aka Google), try to make sense of machine learning, and more.

One of the most interesting challenges of the XXIst century projects is managing a remote team. But why is it necessarily a challenge? Well, remote work is much more than a “work from home mentality” — it’s an entire new work paradigm which is vastly different from the standard office environments: it requires the team to rethink their approach to work and personal life.

Nowadays, remote work is finally transcending its “just another buzzword” status: companies are starting to realize the potential of allowing their employees more freedom; this is echoed by a Global Workplace Analytics study which suggests that up to 50% of all employees are utilizing telecommute (in one form or the other) and up to 90% of the workforce would prefer at least some parts of the work week to work remotely.

While most professionals want it, much fewer employers are too eager to join the party.

Why? Managing a remote team involves a number of hurdles, including finding the right professionals, ensuring engagement, building effective communication, evaluating the output, and handing out compensation.

In this article, we’ll focus on some of the most prominent problems of managing a remote team — and discuss which tools can be used to address them.

Challenge #1: Finding the Right Remote Talent

Let’s start with a self-evident advantage that remote work offers: the ability to hire globally. Switching to remote work presents a huge benefit for the company’s recruitment strategy — all of a sudden, you gain access to any talent there is — and the pool of available candidates is just overwhelming.

It’s always great to have a wide choice of options, but for small and large companies alike, the recruiting process gets increasingly harder with every dozen of new applicants. Accepting a new team member is often up to the team to decide — so every remote team struggles with these questions:

Are the candidate’s hard skills sufficient? By this people tens to mean the learned skills that enable an individual to perform a certain task efficiently.
What about their soft skills? Do they possess the level of emotional intelligence you find satisfactory?
Will they be the right fit in terms of work ethic and other parameters that are hard to quantify or even put into words?
Can they communicate well in the team’s language of choice? Even the simple matter of understanding each other can make or break entire teams.

In essence, all of these questions boil down to this one: “How can you ensure that this particular hire is the right fit for the team?”

Although you will learn the answer to this question eventually, it’s preferable to learn it before the new team member storms in and, say, commits their changes to your repository’s master branch. Ouch…

A popular solution to this challenge is something called online hiring platforms — companies that create their own pools of pre-selected remote professionals (web developers or content creators, for example) and offer their services to you.

An alternative to hiring platforms are freelance marketplaces like Upwork and Freelancer. Their model is more loyal towards freelancers: on these platforms, — so every job project can gather dozens and even hundreds of candidates. Indeed, this wide range of choice allows the employer to fine-tune the hiring process, but there’s another catch: checking the candidate’s skills.

On freelance marketplace platforms, the worker’s profile is pretty much the only proof of their credibility: although ratings and reviews from their previous employers help to assess their skills, it’s ultimately up to the freelancer to present themselves.

This means that the company must repeat the painstaking process of technical interview for every candidate — this is why services offered at Upwork and Freelancer are lower in price.

Hiring platforms like Toptal, Soshace, WriterAccess, and Dribbble Talent do the hard work for you: they pre-vet the candidates using various professional tools such as live programming, technical assessment tests, or AI-based screening – and ultimately provide you with a shortlist of the best talent they’ve found. In essence, they address the questions we’ve listed above and ensure that the candidate matches all of them.

In the end, it all comes down to the team manager to make the right call.

Hiring platforms tend to be more expensive than the marketplaces, but for the more impactful tasks where quality is more important than quantity, experience shows that pre-vetted talent tends to perform much better.

Challenge #2: Staying Connected as a Team

Stock images of a “freelancer on a beach with a laptop” which you can easily find all over the Web fail to convey the feeling of disconnectedness from the rest of the team. Working from home, cafe, or a local library is a great experience — until the remote professional realizes that their colleagues are so far away.

Lacking face-to-face communication with their colleagues, remote workers often feel excluded, undervalued, and underappreciated — so how can we help team members feel more connected?

The goal is to show our remote colleagues that they’re an equal part of the team. This can be achieved via audio- and video-conferencing, team building activities, and improving the work environment (i.e. making it more friendly and equal).

Every worker wants to feel valued and appreciated — this feeling drives and engages us. To keep remote team members engaged, you need to prove that they’re an equal part of the team:

Organize fun remote activities: for many types of offline get-togethers, there is an equivalent which can be held online, from photo contests to book clubs.
Show your appreciation with little gifts: these gifts don’t have to be costly; instead, they can be useful and thoughtful.
Ensure equality with physically present peers: for example, avoid joining the meeting from the same room and using the same device.

So do keep your remote team members engaged! Although salary is an important factor, it doesn’t govern the actual interest in the job. Think about the professionals you personally know: does money keep them engaged, helping overcome the struggles and challenges — or is there something more to it?

Challenge #3: Building and Maintaining Effective Communication

Each remote team has a potential to be highly performant — after all, their team members have been carefully selected and connected. To manage a remote team effectively for longer periods of time, we need to harness the remote professionals’ power of focus. This has a lot to do with the process of building effective communication.

In-team communication is especially important for remote teams as they lack casual chit-chat that happens every now and then in an office or co-working space, helping to keep the atmosphere friendly and relaxed. So, how can a remote team achieve effective communication under these constraints?

Enter modern workplace communication apps.

Software like Slack and Twist provides the so-needed workflow environment for remote teams — and also offers features you didn’t know you needed. Its true power lies in its versatility: everyone understands “communication” differently and they covers every definition imaginable. Brainstorming ideas together? Easy. Collaborating on work docs and discussing the latest changes? Check. Chit-chat and fun? Got you covered!

Such SaaS software excels at dividing in-team communication into distinct topics; for example, in Slack it does so via the feature called “channels”.

Channels, as the name suggests, are designed to house separate topics, streamlining the discussion: e.g. a channel for project discussion, a channel for company updates, and so on.

Teams can also set up their own private channels to talk and collaborate on specific tasks, projects, and files.

The channel system, therefore, has shown to be an effective way of organizing communication within the company: that way, remote professionals stay in the loop, while simultaneously avoiding information overflow and self-govern their workflow instead.

Challenge #4: Collaborating Efficiently

Effective communication is good and all, but what we really need to achieve results is efficient collaboration, right?

The everyday workflow of any team (especially remote ones) involves constant back-and-forth of documents and files, frequent version changes, tweaks, comments, revisions, etc etc

The good news is: much of the headache caused by these routine tasks can be avoided thanks to smart and efficient collaboration — so which tools can help us do that?

Solution? Project management tools!

For example, Slack and Google’s G Suite can form a powerful duo: thanks to their deep mutual integration, it often feels like they’re the same software.

In Slack, team members can create, import, edit, and search through G Suite files (i.e. spreadsheets, docs, calendars, folder, and so on), all the while keeping their colleagues informed about every change.

Additionally, Slack can also integrate with other services like GitHub (for coding), Zoom (for conferencing), and Trello (for Kanban-ing).

Other popular software that plays well with communication tools we’ve mentioned in the previous section include:

Asana, famous for its focus on clutter-free project management boards and workload management toolkit.
Monday, with its cheerful and minimalist interface, dozens of integrations, as well as task automation routines that allow you to perform repeating actions based on specific inputs.
Wrike, renown for superior visualization tools, planning charts, and flexible customization options.
Milanote for those who are working on creative projects (or simply prefer a more visual communication style).

The number of choices and potential features to evaluate seems overwhelming – luckily, these companies realize it, too, and provide free trials for potential users to get acquainted with their toolkits.

It’s worth keeping in mind that once you clear the initial hurdles and stick to a single solution that works for your team, you will continue to reap the productivity benefits for years to come!

Who Said Remote Means Distant?

Faced with the multiple challenges of managing remote talent, it’s tempting to just give in to the temptation of restricting your search to your own city… After reading this line, can you feel how slightly silly this idea sounds when spelled out in words?

After all, it’s 2024, and you’ve got the access to (almost) the entire population of the planet at your fingertips. Why not use it to your advantage?

***

What’s your experience with remote professionals? Have you hired any, or maybe you’re on the other side of the game? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, let’s discuss!

Jul

2017

Advertising Your Business on Facebook: a Beginner’s Guide

Facebook has evolved way past a platform to post selfies and stalk old classmates. In fact, it’s now become an incredibly powerful advertising tool for businesses of all sizes and types. From ecommerce to SaaS, companies of all kinds are finding huge success in Facebook ads.

As a newbie, it can be a bit difficult to wrap your head around what it takes to create a killer Facebook campaign. But instead of just whipping out your credit card and hoping for the best, read through this Facebook advertising guide for beginners to learn how it’s done.

Setting Up Your Ad Account

Even if you’ve already set up an ad account, you should pay attention to this section. Many businesses new to Facebook make the mistake of using a fake profile’s personal ad account as their business ad account. The notion is that this way anyone can log in to the generic Facebook account and manage the business page and ads. The problem here is that creating a fake account is against Facebook’s terms, which puts you in jeopardy of being shut down without notice.

Instead, you’ll need to use your personal Facebook page to create a Business Manager account. Once you’re set up on the Business Manager, you’ll be able to assign other people to the ad account and business page. Not only is this the right way to set up a business ad account, but it’s actually much easier to manage.

Installing the Facebook Pixel

In order to know that your ads are making a positive impact on sales, you’ll need to be able to track conversions and leads. Facebook makes this relatively easy to do, but you’ll need to install the Facebook Pixel first.

To install your Pixel, click on the Assets menu and select “Pixels.” Copy the base code given to you in the step-by-step instructions and add it to your website. After that, you’ll need to insert the appropriate event codes. For example, if you want to track how many people add products to their carts, you’d have to install the “add to cart” event code. You can learn more about installing Pixels and Pixel codes here.

If you’re using an ecommerce platform like Shopify, installing the Pixel code is as easy as going into your settings and pasting the Pixel code in the “Facebook Pixel” box, and clicking save.

Once you’ve added the Pixel code, you can check the status by going back to the Pixels section in the Business Manager. If it’s been installed correctly, it should be green and marked as “active.” Note that it can take 30 or so minutes to get up and running.

Creating Your Audiences

Once your account is set up and your Pixel is active, it’s time to start creating audiences. Facebook has three types you can choose from: saved audiences, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences. The type you choose will depend on the type of campaigns you’re going to run and which people you want to reach.

Saved Audiences – if you’re trying to reach new customers and you don’t have any customer files to work from, you’ll want to create a saved audience. Saved audiences are created by selecting various interests, behaviors, and demographics. It may help you first to create a buyer persona of your ideal customer. For example, how old are they? What’s their income level? Do they live in a specific region? Are they married?

You can layer numerous targeting features to narrow down your audience to a hyper-specific group of individuals who will be the most likely users of your product or service. It’s important to note that you’ll need to click “Narrow further” in order to layer targeting features. Otherwise, users will only have to meet one of the conditions to be added to your audience.

Custom Audiences – if you want to target people who have already visited your site and interacted with it (this is known as a retargeting campaign), you’ll need to create a custom audience. You can do this by uploading a list of existing customers or specific URLs that prospects have visited. In addition to that, you can build custom audiences based on interactions with a mobile app (if you have an app) or based on their engagement with your Facebook posts.

For example, if you sell motorcycle gear and you want to target people who are interested in helmets, you could target users who visited URLs on your site that contain the word helmet.

You can further refine the audience by adding or excluding other URLs. For example, if we only want to target people who visited helmet product pages, we could add the blog as an exclusion. This way, people who only read blog posts about helmets would not be in the audience.

Lookalike audiences are a unique Facebook advertising feature that uses an algorithm to automatically create an audience of other people who are likely to be interested in your products and services. E.g. you can create a valuable lookalike group by importing a list of your current customers. This type of audience can be handy if you’re not sure which interests, behaviors, or demographics to target on your own.

Designing Your Ads

Before you start designing your Facebook ads, you have to consider which audiences they’re for. For example, you shouldn’t use the same ads for your custom (retargeting) audience and your saved audiences. This is because these two types of audiences are at different stages in a buyer’s journey. People in your retargeting audience already have an interest in your brand and are relatively far along in your conversion funnel. But saved audiences are generally new leads, and they need to be warmed up before you try to sell to them. For retargeting audiences, you can design ads that show specific products along with a coupon code for added incentive. For saved audiences, on the other hand, try promoting value-driven, free content that educates prospects about your products and why they’re useful (i.e. a video, an educational blog post, or a free e-book).

Once you’ve decided which audience your ad will be served to, you can start working on a design. Facebook offers a variety of different ad formats that you can experiment with. The two most popular that you’re probably familiar with are the single image ad format and the carousel format. The latter allows you to include multiple images that users can scroll through like a gallery, which can be useful for showing different variations of the same product (i.e. color, use, edition).

When creating the design, keep in mind that it’s best to use compelling images and bright colors. This is because the Facebook newsfeed background is white, and bland ad images will most likely blend in. You want to create an image that pops so that you can capture the attention of consumers. Let’s go back to our example about motorcycle helmets and take a look at an ad from Motorcycler.com:

Based on the copy and the image, this is clearly a retargeting ad – they’re highlighting the benefits of buying from them over competitors, and they offer a discount as added incentive.

Let’s take a look at an example of an ad for new audiences:

This ad from Landpoint.net is aimed at people who are in the early stages of the buyer’s journey. It promotes a piece of free, educational content. When advertising to cool or cold leads, this is a much better approach than trying to sell them something right off the bat.

Monitoring Performance

Once your ads are up and running, you’ll have to monitor them to make sure they’re performing to the best of their ability. You may have to make some adjustments to your bids, copy, or ad images if ads are doing poorly. Just be sure you give them enough time to run before you make any changes—jumping the gun will lead to decisions based on inaccurate data.

Once common mistake that new Facebook advertisers make is to base all their judgments off of impressions and click-through rates. While CTR is important, what you really need to look at is how many leads or conversions those clicks are leading to. Pay extra close attention to your cost per conversion or cost per lead.