The Ledger, every show
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks, across all 44 shows. Pick shows below, then mix any filter with any other.
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Gusto will eventually go public, says CEO Josh Reeves
“At some point, Gusto, you know, will be a public company.”
Reeves: Over 98% of Gusto free-trial users convert to paying customers
“So we give folks a one or two month free trial when they start and over 98% convert from the free trial to being a paid customer.”
Reeves: Gusto serves over 400,000 businesses, led by word of mouth
“Even today in 20, 25 with, you know, over 400,000 companies on Gusto and us adding A lot every year. Organic, word of mouth, remains the biggest driver of leads in Tupper Funnel for us”
In 2011, 40% of US companies did payroll manually, risking massive fines
“When we started Gusto, you had close to 40% of companies in the U.S. Doing payroll by hand. You had close to that same percentage, you know, 30 to 40% getting fined, penalized by the government for making mistakes. You had billions and billions of dollars of p…”
Gusto will eventually serve companies of all sizes globally, says Reeves
“That means eventually Augusta will be serving all size companies in all countries around the world with, you know, all pain points tied to running a business.”
Reeves: Gusto serves over 25,000 paid small business customers across America
“We have now over 25,000 small businesses spread across the country over half a percent of all employers in America using the product, partnering with us.”
Reeves: About 40% of US companies were penalized yearly for manual payroll
“Like, about 40% of companies were doing it manually and getting fined every year because you have local, state, federal.”
Reeves: Gusto co-founder Eddie Kim lived in a closet for five months
“Eddie, Eddie slept and lived in that closet for about five months, and it fit a air mattress you know, like I said, it had a skylight and it was also where my other roommate stored all of her clothes, though, so it was kind of both a natural closet and a quasi…”
ZenPayroll added over 100 self-serve customers in its first month
“In that first month through end of January, we added over a hundred customers, and the hundred customers, the majority of which, set up, onboarded without talking to us, you know, they could do it on their own”
Reeves: 40% of US companies faced annual penalties for payroll mistakes
“40% of companies in the U.S. Were making mistakes and getting penalized every year.”
Gusto delayed public self-serve launch until months after Demo Day
“After demo day, we actually did not launch the product. That was also kind of a non-obvious choice we made. We'll probably talk about the seed round we did, but we actually didn't launch publicly where you could like come up as a stranger who we've never met, …”
Reeves: $100B incumbents ADP and Paychex served under 30% of small businesses
“You had this amazing combination of, you know, some big incumbents like paychecks and ADP worth, you know, over a hundred billion dollars together at that point. So like clearly big, big incumbent market presence in terms of like economic value, but also an in…”
Reeves: 500,000 new US employers start yearly and only half survive five years
“There's about 500,000 new employers each year in the U.S., and only about half make it to year five.”
Gusto's initial product targeted only new California companies running their first payroll
“When Gusto went live, And I know we'll talk about this shortly, about a year after we got started. Like it was a product that was just for new companies in California with full-time employees who had never, you know, paid someone before and they could just do …”
Reeves: There are over 10,000 different tax rules across the US
“There's actually over 10,000 different tax rules across the country. These are local, state, federal.”
Reeves: Over four million US employers have fewer than five employees
“When you look at the number of employers just in America, there's about Over four million of them are less than five employees, right? Like two thirds are less than five employees.”
Reeves: Gusto raised a $6M seed round in spring 2012
“Like we had a fantastic fundraising moment in
that spring where, where we did a six million dollar seed round.”
Gusto gained 100 blind self-serve customers immediately upon its public launch
“So we've gone to around, I think like, 50, 60 companies using Gusto prior to launching.
But once we launched, we had a hundred companies sign up that we had never talked to all across California who we had never met.”
Gusto had two-thirds of its $6M seed round when raising Series A
“So when we did our Series A, which I know is fast-forwarding a bit in 2013 we still had like two-thirds of that seed round in the bank”
Founders of PayPal, Stripe, and Instagram backed Gusto's $6M seed round
“It was 20 founders, CEOs that You know, did that seed round. It was the founders of PayPal and Instagram and Mint and Eventbrite and Stripe and Nest and a whole bunch of really incredible businesses Box and Dropbox.”
Reeves: Most of Gusto's first-year acquisition came from word of mouth
“The majority of our customer acquisition in that first year was coming from customers telling, you know, their friends, telling other business owners they know in their communities, on their email lists, you know, in their, you know small business forums, like…”
Gusto grew from 100 to 1,000 customers in its first year
“So we grew from that like hundred customers in that first month to a thousand in the first year.”
Gusto's initial annual contract value was approximately $500
“Our initial ACVs were like 500 bucks-ish.”
Reeves: Gusto achieved nationwide 50-state coverage in 2015
“It wasn't until 2015 was actually getting to nationwide coverage.”
Gusto scaled from 1,000 to 9,000 customers in its second year
“So early on customer growth, I mentioned that thousand was the first year. Next year was around 9000.”
Reeves: Gusto employs 2,600 people and serves 5–10% of US companies
“Gusto today is about 2600 people. We serve in the range of, you know, five to 10% of companies in the U.S.”
Reeves: Unwrap generated thousands daily and reached 40M users
“You know, we were making a few thousand dollars a day in ad revenue. When we got started, we had over forty million users”
Reeves: One-third of US businesses get fined annually for payroll tax errors
“Of the six million companies in the U S every year, about a third of companies get fined for incorrectly doing their payroll taxes.”
Reeves: Gusto pivoted to building a payroll system before starting YC
“So by the time we started YC in January, we were already building a payroll system.”
Reeves: There are about six million US employers across industries
“There's about six million employers in the U.S., and so, you know, if you're going to get to real, real volume in the space, you have to go into many, many industries.”