Why we built TWF Labs
Every founder who has ever tried to hire their first engineer in India has had the same week. You find someone you really want to work with. Then you start asking questions you didn't plan for: do you need an entity, is a contractor agreement actually legal, what's PF, what's gratuity, what's “permanent establishment risk,” and why is your lawyer suddenly worried.
You spend two weeks learning Indian employment law you'll only ever need to use once, at the wrong level of depth to be useful, and at the cost of not actually getting on with hiring the engineer.
This pattern repeats. It is, in fact, the entire reason EORs exist.
What we didn't like about the existing EORs
The global EORs (Deel, Remote, Multiplier) are excellent at scale. They are not, by structural choice, specialists in India. When you ask them whether the 2025 Labour Codes changed your CTC math, you get a generic answer. When you ask about the difference between Karnataka Professional Tax and Telangana, the platform shows the right number but not the reason. When the law moves, you find out in their newsletter alongside news from 30 other countries.
The India specialists (Wisemonk, Gloroots, Remunance) are deeper on India but tend to operate the way Indian compliance firms have always operated: by email thread, no published methodology, prices behind a sales call.
We thought there was a third option. The EOR that runs like an engineering team: documented system, public methodology, a changelog when the law changes, transparent pricing, an instrumented operation rather than a flock of email chains.
That's TWF Labs.
What “Labs” means here
Not experimental. Systematic. Measured. Instrumented. We treat hiring and compliance the way good engineers treat code: documented, tested, observable, improved every cycle. You can see how the machine works because we built it like engineers would.
The differentiation is operational, not branding. It is:
- A documented intake-to-onboarding process you can read end to end.
- A published cost calculator with the math exposed.
- A public methodology page citing gov.in, EPFO, and the MCA.
- A live changelog when Indian law changes.
- One person who replies to your first email, within a published response SLA (usually within 24 hours).
What we're not
We're not a global platform. We're one country, one specialism, deep. If you're hiring in five countries, we're not the right answer — Deel and Remote are.
We're not the cheapest option. India specialists like Wisemonk and PamGro price below us. We think the depth, transparency, and founder-led service are worth the difference. You can read the comparisons and decide.
What we're building toward
A small India-specialist firm that runs better than the global platforms on India, and better than the local specialists on operating discipline. That's the bet. We'll be honest in public about what's working and what isn't.
If you're hiring in India and any of this resonates, book a call. Worst case, we tell you that you're not the right fit for us and recommend who is.