ZenPayroll is now Gusto • Hacker News Board

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#11

Post by smackfu » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:57 PM UTC

sjs382 wrote: post #9

Zhenya wrote: post #5

Interesting choice for a company trying to break into the HR space. It's not clear how to pronounce it. Is it -g'oo'stow- or -guh'st'oh-?

Strange. I didn't think it was unclear at all. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gusto guss toe

It's one of those borrowed words where the English pronunciation is different than the original Italian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Tgrk6dLuw

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#12

Post by localcrisis » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 3:58 PM UTC

First off, congratulations to the team. This is a big change and I'm sure a huge amount of work went into making this happen.

I wonder what this says about the company's focus. They started out focused on payroll, with the BI press release saying they had 20k customers out of millions of small businesses. So obviously a lot more to be done and they are off to a good start. Which raises a few questions:

Do they consider payroll "solved"? Payroll seems to be a pretty massive problem with as much to be done as when they started.

What are they bringing that Zenefits doesn't? Zenefits does payroll and benefits as well, so if you are going to take them on directly I would have hoped to see a lot more about differentiators.

On the one hand, very exciting. On the other, I'd be worried that they are letting a huge competitor drive their actions. Payroll (to an outside) still seems to have massive potential.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#13

Post by adrianmacneil » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:01 PM UTC

I really like the Zenpayroll product, but I wish they would focus on expanding into more states before adding benefits etc and trying to compete with Zenefits. This would prevent companies who have employees in multiple states outgrowing them and needing to switch to ADP.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#14

Post by Zhenya » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

sjs382 wrote: post #9

Zhenya wrote: post #5

Interesting choice for a company trying to break into the HR space. It's not clear how to pronounce it. Is it -g'oo'stow- or -guh'st'oh-?

Strange. I didn't think it was unclear at all. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gusto guss toe

What's the indication that its an english word v. the spanish word. This is especially curious since their previous name was also a word borrowed from another language.

Gusto(EN) - to do with vigor Gusto(ES) - taste

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#15

Post by colinyoung » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

jkarneges wrote: post #7

robbiet480 wrote: post #2

I'm assuming they renamed because they lost the USPTO trademark case against Zendesk [1] or just decided they didn't want to fight anymore. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2014/12/20/zendesk...

They also announced benefits. Could be to avoid confusion with Zenefits. Too many "zen" companies...

I actually thought they were the same company until right now, so this certainly makes sense.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#16

Post by localcrisis » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

adrianmacneil wrote: post #13

I really like the Zenpayroll product, but I wish they would focus on expanding into more states before adding benefits etc and trying to compete with Zenefits. This would prevent companies who have employees in multiple states outgrowing them and needing to switch to ADP.

I believe ZenPayroll is in all 50 states as of a few months ago. Looks like benefits is CA only.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#17

Post by JoelSutherland » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

localcrisis wrote: post #12

First off, congratulations to the team. This is a big change and I'm sure a huge amount of work went into making this happen. I wonder what this says about the company's focus. They started out focused on payroll, with the BI press release saying they had 20k customers out of millions of small businesses. So obviously a lot more to be done and they are off to a good start. Which raises a few questions: Do they consid…

Zenefits does not do payroll, they "integrate" with other Payroll providers. Of the providers I've been most impressed with ZenPayroll so this is a very exciting announcement.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#18

Post by qq66 » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:06 PM UTC

adrianmacneil wrote: post #13

I really like the Zenpayroll product, but I wish they would focus on expanding into more states before adding benefits etc and trying to compete with Zenefits. This would prevent companies who have employees in multiple states outgrowing them and needing to switch to ADP.

Geographic expansion is expensive and many companies have died by expanding too fast. They may be trying to built out a broader offering before expanding to ensure that they have enough revenue per customer to expand profitably.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#19

Post by edawerd » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:07 PM UTC

robbiet480 wrote: post #2

I'm assuming they renamed because they lost the USPTO trademark case against Zendesk [1] or just decided they didn't want to fight anymore. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2014/12/20/zendesk...

Gusto co-founder here! We actually changed our name because ZenPayroll no longer adequately described what we bring to our customers. We're not just payroll and payments. Gusto is all about empowering companies to put people first.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#20

Post by desdiv » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:08 PM UTC

localcrisis wrote: post #16

adrianmacneil wrote: post #13

I really like the Zenpayroll product, but I wish they would focus on expanding into more states before adding benefits etc and trying to compete with Zenefits. This would prevent companies who have employees in multiple states outgrowing them and needing to switch to ADP.

I believe ZenPayroll is in all 50 states as of a few months ago. Looks like benefits is CA only.

Indeed.

>Which States Does ZenPayroll Support?

>ZenPayroll is nationwide!

https://support.zenpayroll.com/hc/en-us/articles/207605278-W...