The idea for Matt Redler's startup came from an unlikely source: the failure of his first startup, which folded in March at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
His first startup, Chefit, was launched in 2019 and Redler dropped out of the University of Florida shortly after to pursue the business full-time. The idea was to bring in chefs at a rate similar to what food delivery would cost, with the use of fixed price menus.
The company was approaching its one-year anniversary in March just as the novel coronavirus hit the nation.
"I realized I would no longer be using the service myself, I didn’t want my family to be doing it either — I didn’t feel comfortable contributing to the spread [of the virus]," Redler said. "So, I decided to wind down that business."
Despite being headquartered in Tampa, Redler was the sole U.S.-based employee on the Chefit team. But after the closure, he wanted to help his now-ex-employees find new landing spots. However, the barriers to placing international talent within the U.S. are high. In order for a company to hire non-U.S. talent, the country requires that company to set up a foreign entity in order to be held accountable for taxes and compliance.
"We had other companies who wanted to hire ex-teammates but when I explained to the companies the legal and operative responsibility, they actually backed off," he said. "No one wants to do this process; it's anything but fun and there's no clear guidebook on what to actually do. You need a lot of mental willpower to drive through the mud."
Redler took his willpower and launched Panther (a mashup of the words "Pangea" and "together") in June, which works as a middleman to help U.S. companies find and hire talent across the world without the hassle of setting up foreign entities.
"I feel like an entrepreneur at heart: Chefit didn't work out but it was part of my learning journey and I believe Panther is a winner," he said. "We discovered something fantastic and if we succeed, and global teams become the norm, the amount of human potential we can unlock and the diversity we can bring to teams would be unbelievable. We landed by luck on a 10 times larger opportunity — not just a business opportunity for us, but an opportunity to change the world."
The company is in 100 countries with a team of three full-time employees. Redler remains the sole U.S. employee, with his co-founder Vasil Popovski in Macedonia and another team member located in Australia. Panther has closed an undisclosed institutional round, and while the company is live, Redler hopes to launch the first version of its platform by the end of the year.
With Covid-19 forcing many companies to not only pivot to remote work but stay remote, Redler believes this is just the beginning for more companies seeking global talent.
"What we're doing now is not normal remote work — being remote doesn't mean working from home constantly, it means the flexibility of working from anywhere in the world," he said. "Covid has accelerated this inevitable path 10 years' worth in the last six months. And I think over the next year ... I will take a bold bet and say at least half of tech companies will be remote-first indefinitely."
