San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
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Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#2I have nothing but the utmost respect for Joshua Reeves, every interaction I've had with him has been very genuine and the way he runs his company and culture reflects that. Congrats on the raise!
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#3The "Novel Ways:"
1) Housing stipend of $500/mo if employees live within a 10-minute walk of the office
2) A semi-annual retreat / hackathon where employees cook meals, hang out, bond, code, and present their projects
3) Plane ticket anywhere in the world that must be used between their 1 and 2-year anniversary at the company.
I know of many companies that already do #1 and #2, but I suppose I haven't heard of this complimentary vacation ever before. Seems like a pretty awesome perk, which shows they respect and value work/life balance.
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#4ZenPayroll is hiring: https://zenpayroll.com/careers
I'm a software engineer at ZenPayroll, and it's truly an awesome place to work. The founders and team have taken great care to build an amazing company culture, and I'm really excited to see us grow over the next few years.
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#5> Mr. Reeves said he’s been “amazed at the changes” and has watched housing prices rise. Local companies should take some responsibility, he said.
And to take "some responsibility", he made it easier to push housing prices even higher by subsidizing already well-off employees?
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#6ZenPayroll is hiring: https://zenpayroll.com/careers I'm a software engineer at ZenPayroll, and it's truly an awesome place to work. The founders and team have taken great care to build an amazing company culture, and I'm really excited to see us grow over the next few years.
The lack of remote opportunities is disappointing.
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#7> Mr. Reeves said he’s been “amazed at the changes” and has watched housing prices rise. Local companies should take some responsibility, he said. And to take "some responsibility", he made it easier to push housing prices even higher by subsidizing already well-off employees?
He is using that phrase in the sense of his (perceived) responsibility to his employees, which is undoubtedly stronger than his responsibility to the overall city.
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#8What's ZenPayroll's story? How did they get started?
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#9The "Novel Ways:" 1) Housing stipend of $500/mo if employees live within a 10-minute walk of the office 2) A semi-annual retreat / hackathon where employees cook meals, hang out, bond, code, and present their projects 3) Plane ticket anywhere in the world that must be used between their 1 and 2-year anniversary at the company. I know of many companies that already do #1 and #2, but I suppose I haven't heard of this c…
Interviewed with their lead front-end engineer for a front-end engineering position. Everything was great then he asked me for my "story". I answered as best I could but I guess it wasn't what he wanted to hear so he re-iterated that he wanted to know if he would like working with me. I think that's great thing to determine but was put-off by the question-- I got the feeling I would be working with a bit of a tool.
He also put a ton of emphasis on it being a "start-up" and essentially said something along the lines of "in this type of culture its expected that you earn less". I can only guess they passed on me because of my salary requirements which are ~20k under the average. If that is the case which I can only guess it was, not exactly filled with respect or value for work/life balance. /2 cents
EDIT: and jeez they are pushing themselves hard on ycombinator lately.
Re: San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers
#10I can't emphasize enough the severity of pain that ZenPayroll is solving. While running a startup in 2012 with multiple W-2 employees and contractors, the industry standard small business payroll solution was QuickBooks Online Payroll. Although it certainly abstracted many local and federal legal & tax complexities into something a first-timer could work with, I still spent at least 10 hours a month running payroll, a process of manual steps that software could easily automate.
The interface was confusing, web-unfriendly, and left me questioning how much money I needed to budget for quarterly taxes (both state and federal) and why we were sending so much money to the IRS for such a small startup. At the end of the day, I always felt captive to QuickBooks. Software should be empowering, not shackling.