Everyone told us running a venture-backed business with a fully remote team was impossible. We're now a multimillion-dollar company with 50 employees - here are 4 hard truths today's leaders must accept about remote work.

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"We built the best of remote work into everything we do," said Motherly Cofounders Jill Koziol and Liz Tenety (not pictured).

• Jill Koziol and Liz Tenety are the cofounders of Motherly, a modern lifestyle brand redefining motherhood that has a monthly audience of over 30 million people.
• Since Motherly was founded five years ago, it has operated with an entirely remotely team and has grown to a team of over 50 people.
• Koziol and Tenety were consistently told by investors and advisors that running a venture-backed company completely remotely would never be successful - instead of believing them, the pair proved them wrong.
• They share how remote working doesn't make their business more difficult to manage - it actually makes it more successful and promotes a better work-life balance for their employees.
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Many employees are facing a prolonged term working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In many cases, both employers and employees are freaking out about what this means for the health and future of their company. We are living in a moment of collective hysteria about whether we can actually do this while working remotely.

Courtesy of Jill Koziol

Jill Koziol.

We are the cofounders of Motherly, a venture-backed, multimillion-dollar company with over 50 employees, and we've operated as a fully remote organization since conception five years ago.

We are successful because of being remote, not in spite of it. If we allow it, this moment has an enormous amount to teach us about the future of work.

From the beginning at Motherly, which we cofounded as mothers of now six children between us, we wanted to create a workplace that allowed our employees to fully integrate their professional and personal lives.

We heard consistent feedback from investors, advisors, and partners that our ambition to run a venture-backed company with a fully remote team was not possible. Undeterred, we built the best of remote work into everything we do - hiring incredible talent wherever they happen to live, cutting down on overhead by not paying for office space, making KPIs the core of what we do, cultivating a culture based on a strong sense of mission, and empowering our employees to simply get the job done.

As a result, we've been able to do both preschool drop-off and lead board meetings on the same day because of the flexibility a fully remote company allows.

Liz Tenety.

The trade-offs people worry about are minor in comparison to the gains companies reap by empowering their employees to get the job done in a remote environment.

Admittedly, there are ways in which this coronavirus-induced work-from-home environment is different, namely that people are trying to get the job done while also looking after small children without childcare. This is a very challenging situation, and to be clear, under normal circumstances our employees are expected to have childcare coverage during the hours they're working.

On our own team, we are recommending shift work, ruthlessly prioritizing KPIs, and opening communication with managers. And we are finding it is still possible to apply the broader lessons about remote and flexible work to this acute situation.

Let's address some of the biggest concerns about remote work, what they can uncover about your business, and how you can turn them into advantages.