Obra's Hub Strategy

I've talked about our hub strategy before but never fully explained it. This blog post will serve as an explanation for the hub strategy of Obra.

By hub strategy I generally mean that we focus hiring in specific hubs.

My own background as the founder of Obra Studio is a career spanning fifteen years in Belgium, with the past four years in Mexico City.

When I started Obra as an agency in December 2024, I made a conscious choice to work as much as possible for Belgian clients. Over the past year, most work has shifted to a mix of US-based and European clients.

Our team consists of both members from Belgium and Mexico City.

Even though it is a country, Belgium is small enough to be considered its own location. Generally when we are hiring, we look for people who are located in any of what I consider the tech hubs of Belgium (Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels)

For Mexico City, I generally look for people that are in Mexico City - although an exception could be made for someone located in Querétaro for the right talent.

In my overall strategy, I see Spain as a connector: a long-term strategy is to use talent and a network in Spain to be a cultural and language link between Belgium and CDMX. Right now, we don't have members in Spain, but we have a freelance network there as well as future plans.

What are the advantages of this “hub strategy”?

• Team offsites can be centralized to one location. The hub strategy makes it easier to meet up in real-life.
• Having two hubs creates a 16-hour time zone for work to happen, this can be relevant for specific collabs
• On a project level, strategies around cost of execution have a concrete logic - lower cost of execution in CDMX
• As the team grows, members from the same hub can easily work together in real life
• Our hubs are where tech clients are. The Mexico City hub has almost the same timezone as San Francisco - just 1 hour difference. The Belgium hub covers Central Europe.
• To bring junior team members to seniority, real-life guidance IS required. I am convinced that remote work is the most efficient work there is, and I love not being in traffic most of my days. But when it comes to mentoring, bringing somebody to seniority simply requires real-life guidance.

If you restrict hiring to locations, don't you miss out on talent?

I am convinced that both in Belgium (~11M population) and Mexico City (~24M population) there is plenty of talent.

Would you never hire somebody in another location then?

For one-off projects or specific freelancers, we can make an exception to this hiring strategy. But by sticking to it long-term, we create a more cohesive team over time.

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I hope this post clarifies some of the reasoning I have for deciding where to hire. If you have any comments or questions, my inbox is always open. Send me a message!