San Francisco Startup ZenPayroll Raises $20M, Finds Novel Ways to Lure Workers

As some quick history, the company is a little over two years old and we were a part of the YC W12 batch. My co-founders and I started the company because we had felt the pain of using existing solutions at our previous startups. We also have family members running small businesses, and we had been exposed first-hand to the frustration of doing payroll manually (which is still how many companies in the US do payroll).

We felt that modern software could make this complex process much simpler. It's been fourteen months since our launch and we're proud to be processing hundreds of millions of dollars in payroll, and serving countless small businesses across the country. I remind the team often that building a great company is a marathon, not a sprint, and we're still at the early stage of our journey. We have much more to do!

During this interview with the WSJ, I talked at length with Debbie about some team programs we put in place. People are the foundation of any great company and the ZenPayroll team is the entire reason we've been able to do what we've done over the past two years.

I wanted to clarify some of the programs she wrote about:

(1) Housing stipend -- the main driver of this perk is actually the desire to have folks live near the office. We would offer this type of program regardless of where our office is located (even if it was in a lower cost area) because we see a big benefit to folks not having to commute. We realize that not everyone can live nearby, and several of our teammates actually live on the Peninsula, East Bay, or other parts of SF. Our inspiration for this perk was the housing stipend Facebook provided it's employees early on, when they were located in downtown Palo Alto.

(2) Flight at one-year anniversary -- it’s easy in startup life to become caught up in the day to day. We’ve always found it rewarding to travel because it gives everyone perspective, and taking a step back can help people better understand what’s important to them, which makes them a better teammate as well. We put the two-year expiration in place as a specific restriction so teammates have to do a trip during that year. They don’t have to go of course, but we do everything we can to encourage them to do it.

(3) Workation -- similar to #2 above, we’ve found that changing our environment helps us think about things differently. Many other startups do similar types of retreats, and we’ve really enjoyed going away as a team for 5-6 days and working on smaller cross-functional projects that can be completed during the workation. It’s also a team bonding event, and yes, many folks in the office like to cook breakfast. :)

(This is not meant as a criticism of ZenPayroll or their front-end lead in particular, especially since this instance is just hearsay, but I've come across the attitude described before and have found it personally baffling every time.)

Why have people started talking about responsibility to your environment as if it's something new?

Some parents with young children find it difficult to get time to be alone in private while not exhausted. This can cause awful stress on a relationship. "Lunchtime" with a partner at home can make a big difference.

This might not sound like a big deal to the pre-kid people, or those with tons of energy after the kids are in bed, but for some people this is a relationship-saver.