Something Big, Real, and Concrete
Reeves: What we connected around was wanting to tackle something really big that's very concrete and real — ideally dedicate decades of our life to it. That's not everyone's goal, but all three of us aligned around it.
You have problems that are very real and established — the question is can you build a better solution. Then you have hypothetical problems — Twitter before it existed wasn't replacing something, it was a whole new concept. We gravitated toward the first bucket.
Payroll is not a new concept. The question is — can you build something 10 times better?
The Side Door Into Payroll
Reeves: We spent a few weeks iterating through ideas. One was related to expert networks — within a week we moved off of that.
The entry into payroll was actually looking at marketplaces and payouts — how people get paid and have to do taxes. Then we started asking — why not do payouts and payroll for every type of work, not just marketplace work? That brought us into the payroll pain point.
The entry was looking at marketplace payouts. Then we asked — why not do payroll for every type of work?
40% on Pen and Paper
Reeves: We did some research. It's a very fragmented market — large players exist but they don't have very large market share. 40% of small businesses were doing payroll on pen and paper. A third of companies in the US were getting fined every year for incorrectly doing it.
We did interviews with small businesses — friends and family — and they all wanted to pull their hair out. Real pain. Really frustrated. Big problem. Every business owner gets impacted.
40% doing it on pen and paper. A third getting fined every year. Every business owner wanted to pull their hair out.