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ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

blog.zenefits.com

61–70 of 96 posts

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#61

How is what ADP doing (blocking access to their service from Zenefits so they can sell Opum), any different from what twitter does when it blocks services like meerkat from accessing their service when they want to build a business around periscope? I'm not saying that either organization (ADP or Twitter) is acting benevolently (obviously, they are both acting in a competitive manner) - I'm just trying to see if the…

In terms of Twitter blocking Meerkat - it's the same exact situation. What is different, though, is that Twitter didn't then sue Meerkat for defamation, when Meerkat complained after getting blocked.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#62

How is what ADP doing (blocking access to their service from Zenefits so they can sell Opum), any different from what twitter does when it blocks services like meerkat from accessing their service when they want to build a business around periscope? I'm not saying that either organization (ADP or Twitter) is acting benevolently (obviously, they are both acting in a competitive manner) - I'm just trying to see if the…

As far as I understand Zenefits is doing both screen scraping and manual entry into the ADP systems and they may have never even talked to ADP. So instead of hitting an API directly where ADP may expect a large amount of requests Zenefits is hitting their normal website requesting hundreds or thousands of users every hour.

I would have blocked them too. It looks far too much like malice from the ADP side of things where it could be bot nets or something else versus a legit company.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#63

Blatant FUD from Zenefits. ADP's new product is an online payroll/HR SaaS that integrates across its entire product line. Zenefit's product is a glorified remote bookkeeping service in which you enter data into the Zenefits website and they re-enter it manually, and usually incorrectly, into the ADP website and scrape the results, usually incorrectly, so they can post a response several days later to your Zenefits ac…

Yeah -- I'm having a lot of trouble having much sympathy for Zenefits here, not least because of the really moronic spam I've been getting from them recently. And the ______'s keep sending it via Google, so I can't even reasonably blackhole their mail. I wish one of the YC tests for "how smart are these founders?" was "do you think spam is a good growth hack?"

A shame you're getting downvoted, as your point is relevant. AirBnB did this in the early days- spamming craigslist users looking for hosts (from female sounding email addresses on gmail-- sounds like the "spam from gmail" tactic is a YC "best practice"????)

To be honest, the obvious first growth hack is spamming... anybody can do it. Finding a way to leverage an existing audience without cheating or engaging in slimy behavior takes real thinking....YC companies doing this at some point starts to reflect on YC (And these are not the only two instances of this, it seems like every YC company does it to some extent.)

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#64

I believe that this is called a 'free market'. Also, called 'underestimating your competition'. This common misconception that big companies are hide-bound dinosaurs is dangerous for any start up to hold. Most large companies are indeed oblivious, but some elephants - if you tweak them hard enough - turn around and stomp you. Always respect your competition. Some of them may be smarter than you think.

Yep the common idiom is "waking the sleeping giant" as often attributed to Yamamoto after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#65
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't seem to argue with Zenefits stance that they are being sued for complaining that their access was cut off in an attempt to kill them off while ADP launches a similar product... That's not their claim. Their claim is that the reason they were cut off was because of this product launch. They haven't presented any proof of this. Simple fact is, the claim is coming from a company that has already made it clear…

> the claim is coming from a company that has already made it clear they are doing things they should not be doing I'm troubled by this assertion. I know firsthand that ADP will actively fight attempts to integrate with them; their APIs are bad, poorly documented, and have reliability problems. Should somebody attempting to do well for the customer--and, yes, make some money, but it's not like Zenefits is inventing p…

Zenefits could simply implement ACH themselves, as ZenPayroll has.

ADP is not a monopoly.

Zenefits built a model that vaguely value adds onto ADP by using a more modern web stack.

I'm no huge fan of ADP, but they're being generous to even consider themselves to be competing with Zenefits.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#66
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From having been there, ADP is a tin-plated nightmare to work with for third-party API access. I'd do the exact same thing in Zenefits' shoes; ADP knows that they are eternally your competitors and will screw you at the first opportunity. Of course, ADP doing that is not doing right by their customers, but who cares, they're just cash cows.

How smart is it to build a business on unofficial, non-API access to a system maintained by someone who you know will try to screw you at the first opportunity? If I were ADP, I'd probably be intentionally breaking those types of integrations just to make it clear that they don't intend to hamstring themselves by supporting interfaces they never published. The fact that it's someone in a market they intend to enter i…

A public web app is an official API, thought primarily to be used by humans; but built using protocols such that it's possible to be used by programs on behalf of humans ..

You access HN by your browser, the same as Zenefits' customers accessed ADP services indirectly ..

The point is where to put the line between what's a good allowed access, and a bad too-much-indirection access

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#67

I admittedly don't know a lot about this situation beyond what I've read in the news the past day or so. However, isn't it the case that Zenefits is simply building an interface on top of ADP's payroll data? And, from what I've read, it seems like they did this without following the proper procedures (did they write some kind of web scraper?). So if that is the case, ADP has every right to block them. If the situatio…

ADP has for years, and still does, allow bookkeepers, accountants, and HR services firms similar to Zenefits to access client accounts via 3rd-party administrative logins that clients themselves set up in their payroll.

The way this works is that you, as an ADP client, call them up and says "hey, I've asked my HR firm, XYZ-HR, to manage my payroll. Can you create an account for them to access my payroll system?" ADP creates this account, and XYZ-HR then handles all the payroll admin work going forward -- adding employee, terming them, inputting hours worked, managing deductions, etc.

This is how this has worked for years, and it's how thousands of companies do this via ADP. Even today, as an ADP RUN client, you can call in and add any third-party person you want as an admin to your payroll system -- as long as it's not Zenefits. ADP has marketing materials that describe this feature, both for companies and HR / bookkeeping / accounting firms. This is how Zenefits was accessing client's payroll, and doing so in order to take on all the administrative work related to payroll that you don't want to handle. We weren't "hacking" anything. We were doing this at our customers' request, with their full knowledge of what we were doing, and ADP set up these accounts with @zenefits.com email addresses, knowing it was Zenefits.

There is nothing improper about how we were doing this.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#68
This strongly suggests that the shutoff AND the defamation lawsuit were part of a planned strategy - that they're deliberately goading Zenefits' notoriously outspoken CEO.

Which does not bode well for their lawsuit, but I don't think they're out to win that anyway.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#69
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From having been there, ADP is a tin-plated nightmare to work with for third-party API access. I'd do the exact same thing in Zenefits' shoes; ADP knows that they are eternally your competitors and will screw you at the first opportunity. Of course, ADP doing that is not doing right by their customers, but who cares, they're just cash cows.

How smart is it to build a business on unofficial, non-API access to a system maintained by someone who you know will try to screw you at the first opportunity? If I were ADP, I'd probably be intentionally breaking those types of integrations just to make it clear that they don't intend to hamstring themselves by supporting interfaces they never published. The fact that it's someone in a market they intend to enter i…

Asking for forgiveness rather than permission is a risky strategy, but one that pays off well when it works.

Where it seems to have worked: Uber, Paypal, et al.

Where it failed: Twitter clients, Craigslist front-ends, et al.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#70

"We call on ADP to stop making life more difficult for small business customers and live up to its corporate value: “integrity is everything.”" See: Twitter, Facebook, and even Google. All of these companies have destroyed 3rd party companies by basically using them as a test base for new ideas and features and then directly competing (and many times, cutting off the 3rd party completely). If you are going to base yo…

This isn't that situation - Zenefits didn't build their entire platform on top of ADP; they simply offered an integration for a portion of their customer base that uses ADP.
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