Insights
By Jason Kumpf
Your first hires in a new market shape everything that follows. Get them right and the market opens up. Here is how thoughtful companies build that first team abroad.
Before the first hire, decide whether to set up a local entity or work through a partner or an employer of record. A light footprint lets you test a market quickly, while an entity makes sense once you are committed. Let the market's rules and your level of commitment drive the choice, not habit.
In a new country, your first people are your reputation. Look for hires who carry genuine local credibility, who know the customers and the customs, and who can open doors a headquarters never could. That standing is often more valuable than a flawless background on paper.
A strong company travels with a clear set of values that hold everywhere, while letting the daily way of working flex to fit the local context. The goal is one company that feels at home in many places, not a loose collection of outposts.
Build your first team abroad on the right structure, real local trust, and one steady culture, and a new country starts to feel a lot less foreign.
The most exciting place to build a team today is where growth is fastest. India is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, expanding around 6.6 percent in 2025 and now the fourth-largest economy in the world (Government of India), with a middle class on track to exceed a billion people by 2047 (World Bank). Hiring talent in markets like this means building alongside one of the great growth stories of the decade.
Across Asia, a young, educated, digitally fluent workforce is eager to join ambitious companies. A first hire in these markets is not just a foothold; it is access to talent and energy that can power a company’s next phase of growth.
The shift to distributed work has opened the entire world as a talent pool. Companies now routinely build teams across several countries, drawing on the best people wherever they live. The employer-of-record model lets a business bring on a full-time employee in another country quickly, so a great hire is never out of reach for want of a local office (Global Growth Insights).
This is a profound opportunity. The combination of global talent, fast-growing markets, and modern hiring tools means a company can assemble a world-class international team faster than at any point in history, and place that talent exactly where the growth is.
For a long time, hiring abroad meant setting up a local entity first, a slow and expensive process involving legal registration, payroll, and tax compliance. That barrier has largely fallen. The employer-of-record model lets a company hire compliant, full-time staff in another country without establishing its own subsidiary, with the provider handling local employment law, payroll, and benefits.
The market reflects how mainstream this has become. The global employer-of-record market was worth roughly 4.7 billion dollars in 2025 and is projected to reach about 7.8 billion by 2033 (Global Growth Insights). The United States accounts for around 42 percent of that market, while Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region at about 8 percent a year. Roughly 39 percent of adoption comes from multinationals expanding into new geographies, and another 28 percent from small and medium businesses doing the same.
The practical choice is between setting up your own entity and using an employer of record, and it depends on scale and time horizon. An employer of record is ideal for testing a market, hiring a first one or few people quickly, and staying flexible while you learn. Setting up your own entity tends to make sense once headcount and revenue in a market justify the fixed cost and you want full control. Many companies use an employer of record to enter, then convert to their own entity once the market proves itself.
Distance is the quiet tax on expansion. The companies that succeed place trusted people near the market with real authority, not just a remote contractor taking instructions. A strong local leader can read the market in real time, build the relationships that open doors, and adapt the offer to what customers there actually want. Proximity turns a foreign market into a familiar one and shortens the path to traction more than any amount of head-office planning.
The shift to remote and hybrid work has made distributed teams ordinary rather than exceptional. Companies now routinely build teams across several countries, drawing on talent wherever it lives rather than only where they have an office. That widens the pool of people you can hire for a new market and makes it easier to start small, with one excellent person, before committing to a larger local presence. The tools and providers that support compliant global hiring have matured precisely because this way of working has become the norm.
Whoever you hire, a few foundations protect the relationship and the business. Use compliant local contracts and benefits, whether through an employer of record or your own entity. Set clear expectations and metrics so a distant team knows what good looks like. And invest in communication rhythms that keep a remote hire connected rather than isolated. These basics are unglamorous, and they are exactly what turns a promising first hire abroad into a durable local presence.
Consider a company entering a promising market in Asia-Pacific, the fastest-growing region for compliant global hiring at around 8 percent a year (market data). Rather than registering an entity, it hires a respected local commercial leader through an employer of record, gives them real authority and a clear target, and supports them with the home team. Within a year, with the market proven, it converts to its own entity and builds out the team. The same outcome reached the slow way would have cost more, taken longer, and risked the localization failures that sink so many expansions (localization study).
Building a team abroad is the moment an expansion becomes real, and the playbook has improved. You no longer need a subsidiary to start, you can hire compliantly in weeks, and you can stay flexible while you learn. The principles that matter are timeless: hire a capable leader close to the customer, get compliance right, and invest in the relationship. Do that, and the first hire abroad becomes the foundation of a market rather than a costly false start.
Jason Kumpf has built first teams on the ground in markets far from headquarters. He is Head of US Revenue at Razorpay, a board advisor, angel investor, and speaker. More about Jason.