Hello {remote} world, say hi to Pangea

Our path

Many of you know the story of Digital Knights. Keilian and I started our company in 2015 after (miserably) failing to work with a remote software development vendor. We were clueless, lost money, and had no product to launch in the end for our startup idea.

Seeing that our failure was not unique but rather common, we set sail to make sense of the industry for remote software development vendors. We wanted to ensure that others did not fail in their quest to hire remote tech talent through vendors.

We discovered an industry that is complex, intransparent, and noisy in its nature. Perfect for asymmetric information and quality uncertainty to be a constant, and prevail. This is a potent combo that enforces a poor buyer journey and contributes to spectacular failures in the client/vendor relationship, or the project itself. Giving the industry a negative connotation.

To make sense of the market, we developed a due diligence framework with some of the leading experts in the DACH region for tech due diligence. Although skeptical, software development vendors were intrigued by two 25-year-olds with a mission to vet and select elite vendors and match them with the right client. They gave us a chance and the initial cohort proved to be world-class talent clusters that set the standard for others to follow.

However, every CEO, CTO, development manager, product owner, and VC would tell us the importance of hiring a team in-house that worked in the same office and in the same location. They loathed our pitch about a vetted vendor community where you could hire world-class, but remote tech talent whilst having the flexibility to scale up and down on-demand.

But they all had a secret.

The irony of it all

They were all procuring talent from the very community we represented and pitched, but due to the negative connotation of the industry, they refused to let us in on their secret. We met companies that rejected the notion of remote work and vendors, only for us to meet vendors who worked with the exact same companies.

With every major tech hub suffering from a growing tech talent shortage, hiring locally is neither easy, cost-effective, or scalable. Even if companies and VCs preach in-house teams publicly, the only option for many companies to stay competitive is to take advantage of the global, but remote vendor and freelance talent pools.

Fast forward a couple of years, we are a testament to that very sentiment.

Digital Knights is a vetted community with over 4500+ software developers and designers. Throughout the years we have helped over 165+ businesses - pre-seed to Fortune 500 companies - find the perfect-fit software development vendor and have facilitated over €25 million in commerce as a niche consultancy.

The beauty of a perfect match

Our time building Digital Knights equipped us with a strong core team and having crunched over 5 million data points, we gained an industry insight or two. But, we have often reflected, during our more challenging moments, if we were ahead of our time. Does a vetted and remote vendor community for top design and development talent really make sense? Can we change the negative connotation that haunts the industry?

Our doubts would instantly fade when we - time after time - witnessed the perfect match between a business and a vendor result in fierce product and business growth. Cultivating strong and beautiful human bonds across borders, nationalities, and cultures.

We have been tinkering with the idea of productizing the company to reach and serve more businesses to enable the aforementioned experience. With the future of work, undoubtedly, being remote for talent and distributed for the organization, one can argue that the climate is ripe for just that.

In saying that, we know that the current climate is not enough for businesses to consider a remote software development vendor community as their first option pool to hire top-tier talent.

For that, as a first viable step, we must introduce and enforce unparalleled transparency at scale.

Introducing Pangea

Therefore we have worked in silence for the last few months to launch a platform committed to unparalleled transparency. It is our north star, cornerstone pillar, and vision.

A platform where businesses can discover, compare and engage the world's leading software development vendors with the utmost confidence. Hence, we are immensely grateful for the opportunity to welcome you to Pangea.ai. You can view the platform in a nutshell in our product launch video below:

What is next?

To achieve our vision, we will initially build frameworks and products that enable software development vendors around the world to provide a holistic and transparent window into their universe. Vendors can unleash and maximize their potential to be discovered and engaged as the perfect-fit vendor by businesses. Accelerating the pace at which they do business with, and independently of Pangea.

Pangea will act as the quality assurance regulator, facilitating commerce between businesses and vendors. But our core focus will be on supporting healthy vendors to have the right tool kit to showcase their organisation with unparalleled transparency.

This will allow businesses to combat asymmetric information and reduce the quality uncertainty that plagues the software development industry today. Ultimately, make possible a simplified and informed buyer journey for businesses to unlock a hidden, but world-class talent pool through a community of vetted and healthy vendors.

We are excited about the next chapter in our story, and we invite you to take part in building the future of work with us. In the months to come, we will work tirelessly to allow for more businesses to procure top talent through the Pangea community. You will see us improving the product, publish more content on the topic and roll out publicly. And yes, we would be grateful for any social shares or recommendations to spread the word!

Feel free to get in touch with me directly to discuss anything related to the future of work, or to just grab a remote beer. You can also write to us at [email protected] with anything that you would like to share with us that occupies your heart and mind.