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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

#51

Post by joshuareeves »

qdpb wrote: post #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?

I'm the CEO of ZenPayroll and I added a comment to the main thread but wanted to clarify here as well. I chatted with the WSJ reporter about several topics, and she merged some concepts in her write up.

I was born in San Francisco, but grew up in the suburbs. When I was in college, I used to travel through San Francisco to visit my family and I told the reporter it's been amazing to see all of the neighborhood changes over the years. SoMa used to be much emptier, and was not a very residential area. After they built the Giants baseball stadium, there was a big building boom, and Mission Bay is now rapidly developing as well.

Separately, we discussed our housing stipend program. This perk was actually inspired by Facebook, which used to give a housing stipend for employees that lived within one mile of their office in downtown Palo Alto. We would do this program regardless of where our office is located (in SoMa or elsewhere) because we see a big benefit to folks not having to commute.

The reporter at the WSJ merged these two concepts, hence the quote you listed above.

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

#52

Post by xauronx »

tyre wrote: post #36
xauronx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How elitist is the hiring process? I'm always really hesitant to apply to places like that. I'm consistently one of the best developers at my job, I'm really good at getting shit done, and have a ton of faith in my ability. However, as soon as I think about applying at a "trendy" start up, I envision someone grilling me for hours to hand write sorting algorithms on a white board. I have no interest in that, and I fee…

My name is Chris, also an engineer at ZenPayroll. We're not interested in a candidate's ability to write sorting algorithms, because those aren't the kind of problems we're solving. Our technical interviews are working on a problem with an engineer. We care a hell of a lot more about how you think than regurgitating Big O notation. We work in Ruby and CoffeeScript, but we've hired engineers without direct experience…

Thank you for the thorough reply. I appreciate that you guys recognize sorting algorithms are not the daily work of an engineer. Working on a problem with another engineer is actually what I consider to be the "perfect" interview. Aside from getting a developer in for an entire week as a trial run, I feel like that's probably the best way to see if they're fit for the team and capable of the work.

The question is whether or not I'm a "hacker" :)

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

#53

Post by walshemj »

pkfrank wrote: post #3

The "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…

At some stage Government a both federal and local are going to wake up to all those benefits in kind that sv seems to hand out - as a way of raising additional tax with very little pain the hard working familiy's (tm tony blair)

After all what voter is going to argue with clamping down on tax avoidance if it means that the increase in property tax isn't as big this year or that the federal government can use this additional tax to reduce the deficit (or more likely for pork in some agricultural state)

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

#54

Post by walshemj »

slg wrote: post #17
pkfrank wrote: post #3

The "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…

The $500 per month housing stipend seems a little disingenuous. If the concern was truly about employees and rising real estate prices, why not raise wages by $6000 across the board? It isn't like real estate magically drops in value half a mile away or commuting longer distances is free. Is the policy an attempt to remove an excuse why an employee can't be in the office? Do they want the ability to call an employee…

Its more tax efficient that way.

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

#55

Post by gamblor956 »

binxbolling wrote: post #21
asucks wrote: post #13

Hopefully they use some of this funding to start expanding to new states quicker. I was told last year they'd be available in my state by Q3 2103. That deadline came and went and now I'm being told "by the end of 2014." The current major companies offering payroll (SurePayroll and ADP) are both expensive difficult to use. I'm currently with SurePayroll and it sucks major balls. It's expensive, (I have 1 full time emp…

Definitely agree regarding their coverage -- only being in 7 out of 50 states is no minor drawback. The death of ADP and its ilk can't come soon enough. Payroll might not be as 'sexy' as some other markets, but you're right that whichever start-up can battle the big guys here will absolutely make a lot of money.

ADP will never be simple because it's not supposed to be. It also won't die for the same reason. It handles payroll processing worldwide. Payroll is complicated enough when you're just dealing with city, state, and federal payroll taxes. Can you imagine how complicated a system must be to account for all of the international rules and variations of payroll and make it accessible via a unitary interface?

ADP is targeted at corporations with payroll across multiple jurisdictions. The Apples, Googles, and Microsofts. It's not targeted at, nor intended for small businesses, even though they offer a SMB product. If you're not at least dealing with payroll across multiple states, you should be using a your bank's payroll service offerings, or (if you trust them) a local payroll service provider or a payroll SaaS.

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

#56

Post by joncooper »

xauronx wrote: post #24
paulbaumgart wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in this type of culture its expected that you earn less" Serious question: is there any other for-profit industry where candidates wouldn't laugh in your face for saying something like this?

Personally, I am totally ok with this. If "start-up culture" means 20 days of PTO, free meals, free gym, a ton of other perks, I would care less about the year end dollar amount. Perhaps that's just me though.

That's not what "start-up culture" means.

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

#57

Post by creeves »

paulbaumgart wrote: post #18
admiraltbags wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. H…

"in this type of culture its expected that you earn less" Serious question: is there any other for-profit industry where candidates wouldn't laugh in your face for saying something like this?

Well when you consider the second half of that type of statement is that you are expected to earn less because you are being given a large equity opportunity in the company you will help build...the statement makes a lot more sense.

To flip your question around: Is there any other for-profit industry where employers wouldn't laugh in your face for saying you would like 0.8% of the company worth in stock options in addition to your salary...

It all boils down to whether you believe in the company you are building. If it is positioned to do great, then of course you would want the equity for that IPO. If you don't have that faith, then what are you doing interviewing at that company anyways...Use your skills to get a higher paying job without the options.

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

#58

Post by asdfologist »

Jormundir wrote: post #41
nerfhammer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming there's more than one landlord they will capture some of the value but not all of it. E.g., they would be incentivized to raise rents $500, but then one of then could get more business by only raising it to $450 letting the employee capture $50 a month, and so on and so forth.

This reasoning is based on false circumstances. SF has a landlord's market, so they have no reason to shave the price for more business, but they have ample reason to raise the price to extract as much value out of the property.

By your reasoning, every landlord can raise their rent by an infinite amount and maintain at least the same revenue.

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

#59

Post by joshuareeves »

codingfounder wrote: post #8

What's ZenPayroll's story? How did they get started?

I'm the CEO of ZenPayroll and I made a comment to the main thread with more background on the company, and our mission.

Here's a link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7265814

There are also two recent blog posts we've made which might be helpful. The first is about the funding, and second is our 2013 Year-In-Review, which highlights what we've been working on.

https://zenpayroll.com/blog/series-a-funding https://zenpayroll.com/blog/zenpayroll-2013-year-in-review

Hope this helps!

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

#60

Post by vonmoltke »

grinich wrote: post #40
xauronx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How elitist is the hiring process? I'm always really hesitant to apply to places like that. I'm consistently one of the best developers at my job, I'm really good at getting shit done, and have a ton of faith in my ability. However, as soon as I think about applying at a "trendy" start up, I envision someone grilling me for hours to hand write sorting algorithms on a white board. I have no interest in that, and I fee…

This is like complaining that you need to write an application essay to get into college. "But I'm not going to be a writer..." If the company is awesome, just suck it up for a day. Once you join you can try to change the interviewing process. I think the thing most people don't realize is that these traditional "interviewing" techniques (like whiteboard coding) are just what gets you in the door. Your real interview…

> This is like complaining that you need to write an application essay to get into college. "But I'm not going to be a writer..."

If my application essay was graded for spelling, grammar, sentence construction, complexity, and other features like I were writing for the AP English exam, I would agree completely with that statement. However, the purpose of such an essay is to communicate why you will succeed in your studies and why the university should admit you. Yes, it takes a minimum level of writing proficiency to do this, but that should be secondary to the message. If you are a university admissions officer who is grading essays on proficiency you should be fired for not doing your job properly.

> If the company is awesome, just suck it up for a day. Once you join you can try to change the interviewing process.

Which just perpetuates the system.

> I think the thing most people don't realize is that these traditional "interviewing" techniques (like whiteboard coding) are just what gets you in the door. Your real interview starts on day 1, and if you don't perform at the real task, you'll be asked to leave.

Then why the hell are you doing them? Just randomly choose a resume that has enough buzzwords and make that person an offer.

> Writing sorting algorithms is like tuning a guitar. It's true there exist people who are good at tuning but actually terrible at playing (ie: good at puzzles, but lousy programmers).

> But there are few, if any, amazing guitarists who can't quickly tune an instrument. It's a signal.

Writing sorting algorithms for a software developer is like tuning a guitar for a musician. Both are broad terms that cover a number of specialties. Most specialties of software developer can write efficient sorting algorithms, but some can't because they have no need to. If you want to hire a guitarist, advertise that you are looking for a guitarist; don't advertise that you are looking for a musician and reject everyone who isn't a guitarist at the interview stage.

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