Building a remote-first team across five time zones

Our core team is small by design, based between Monaco and the UK, and it stays effective by leaning on a vetted network of specialist contractors across Europe rather than trying to hire every function in-house.

The hardest part isn't finding good contractors — it's building the same accountability into a distributed network that a full-time team gets for free through daily proximity. We solved that with clear weekly deliverables tied to real marketplace and advertising numbers, not hours logged.

We onboard slowly and deliberately: every new specialist starts on a single product line before touching the wider catalog, so mistakes stay small and contained while trust is being built.