The hard part is communication. I feel I am very good at online communication. Most people are not.
Make sure you have a remote-oriented process using Slack or a chat-room with history, and people pay attention to and actually read/respond github issues etc.
Phone/Skype call often (daily) is much higher bandwidth and unless they are very pro at text chatting may be 100% necessary to do on a daily basis. And in those cases make sure everyone necessary is in the call.
Another thing you could try is a virtual reality workplace built on Second Life or something similar. Or a Teamspeak/Mumble type thing at least for a portion of the day that everyone gets on at that time.
Make sure you have a remote-oriented process using Slack or a chat-room with history, and people pay attention to and actually read/respond github issues etc.
Phone/Skype call often (daily) is much higher bandwidth and unless they are very pro at text chatting may be 100% necessary to do on a daily basis. And in those cases make sure everyone necessary is in the call.
Another thing you could try is a virtual reality workplace built on Second Life or something similar. Or a Teamspeak/Mumble type thing at least for a portion of the day that everyone gets on at that time.