ZenPayroll is now Gusto • Hacker News Board

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#21

Post by edawerd » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:10 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.

On the payroll side, Gusto is actually a full-service payroll provider in all 50 states, meaning we do all your tax calculations, direct deposits, tax payments, and quarterly tax form filings.

For workers' compensation insurance, we're also nationwide.

For health insurance, we're currently available in California only, but we're already expanding to get nationwide.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#22

Post by tarr11 » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

Yeah, my company has 3 overlapping products now.

Zenefits, zenpayroll, and indinero (bookkeeping / accounting). They all offer some sort of employee onboarding and have their hands in payroll to a certain degree.

We seem to spend a lot of time syncing our employee records between all 3, it is not great.

Of those, I probably need zenefits the least of all of those, and I would consider switching to gusto's service just to eliminate the complexity.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#23

Post by pbreit » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:13 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…

Wasn't payroll solved decades ago? How have companies been paying their employees? We paid our employees through BofA and it was cheap and easy.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#24

Post by localcrisis » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

JoelSutherland wrote: post #17

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.

To a small business owner, I'm not sure they know or care about the difference. Zenefits advertises themselves as payroll, benefits, and HR.

Defintely see your point though it seems like a distinction customers won't know

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#25

Post by pbreit » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:15 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

Anyone with any exposure to Spanish or Italian would think goo-sto.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#26

Post by pavornyoh » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

colinyoung wrote: post #15

jkarneges wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought the same too.. I thought they were part of Zenefits.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#27

Post by darksaints » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

edawerd wrote: post #19

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.

I see the MBAs have gotten to you.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#28

Post by jansen » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:21 PM UTC

edawerd wrote: post #19

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.

Makes a ton of sense, good work guys. Congrats!

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#29

Post by icebraining » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

talkingquickly wrote: post #4

ohitsdom wrote: post #3

Huge branding change. Gusto does seem to me like a much better name than ZenPayroll. Wonder how much they paid for gusto.com...

I was really confused initially, I thought these guys https://www.gousto.co.uk/ were already called Gusto.

Even if they were, the market is clearly different, so they could be both have the same mark.

Re: ZenPayroll is now Gusto

#30

Post by mbesto » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

edawerd wrote: post #21

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.

On the payroll side, Gusto is actually a full-service payroll provider in all 50 states, meaning we do all your tax calculations, direct deposits, tax payments, and quarterly tax form filings. For workers' compensation insurance, we're also nationwide. For health insurance, we're currently available in California only, but we're already expanding to get nationwide.

For health insurance you're just providing an exchange, not a brokerage right? Or both?

Also, any thoughts/plans to move into the PEO space?