Managing payroll properly is difficult, especially for small businesses with limited resources. The three founders of payroll and benefits startup Gusto each worked independently while running small businesses before joining forces to fix broken small business payroll systems in 2013. I noticed that.
Josh Reeves, Gusto's co-founder and current CEO, said on a recent episode of TechCrunch's Found podcast that the founders got interested in the field out of personal struggles, but they don't want to simply serve their interests. He said he did not want to start a company. own problems.
“We started talking to customers right away,” Reeves says. “We were based in Silicon Valley, but we were really focused on mainstream small businesses. I think there are more dental clinics in the U.S. than there are tech startups. We love to remind everyone that we went to meet them, talked to them, interviewed them, and got their feedback.”
Reeves talked about how he built his company from there, 11 years later and 300,000 customers. Gusto has since added health care benefits in direct response to customer requests, Reeves said. Gusto has also helped businesses transition to remote work during the pandemic, navigating increased competition in the space.
Throughout that time, the company has continued to focus on serving small and medium-sized businesses, a more fragmented market compared to larger enterprises, rather than moving to the top or acquiring large customers. Ta.
“Gusto is a great product for businesses with 1 to 500 employees across the United States,” says Reeves. “But the reality is that there are 6.2 million employers in America, 4 million with fewer than five employees, and more than half with fewer than five employees.”
Reeves also talks about how all three co-founders have been involved with the company for over a decade, how he plans to continue to expand and offer other tools for small businesses, and why he's just getting started. He also talked about what he thought.
“We love fixing things in people's lives,” Reeves said. “The truth is, we're still early. If you look at our market share, our wallet share, and our product mix today, we still have a lot of work to do. So we want to get that work done. .”