Building a Business and Navigating Challenges

10min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The chapter delves into the 12-year journey of building a business amidst societal and economic changes, tackling challenges like financial market evolution and the impact of COVID-19. It explores the growth process from a small team to a large company, emphasizing values alignment in hiring, operational execution, and continuous improvement through feedback loops and metrics.

Josh Reeves has built Gusto into a nearly $10B company with over $500M in ARR, serving small businesses. In our conversation, Josh delves into Gusto’s 13-year journey, sharing insights on how they achieved product-market fit by initially targeting a very narrow niche. He also highlights the tactics they’ve used to build an intentional culture of humility and helpfulness, along with lessons he’s learned in hiring executives. We also explore the future of Gusto and the opportunities that lie ahead for the business.

(00:00) Intro

(00:36) Early Days and Product Market Fit

(01:02) Building a Scalable Business

(01:41) Gusto's Core Offerings and Customer Focus

(02:51) Challenges and Strategies in Payroll

(05:40) Expanding Gusto's Reach

(10:11) Customer Feedback and Product Development

(23:03) Hiring and Company Culture

(29:23) Values and Leadership at Gusto

(37:14) Sustaining Passion and Long-Term Vision

(43:27) Balancing Growth and Sustainability

(46:29) Balancing Competition and Kindness in Startups

(46:38) The Importance of Team Collaboration

(47:47) Navigating Feedback: Kindness vs. Niceness

(48:25) Hiring for Ambition and Humility

(49:57) Aligning Company Values with Success

(53:11) Work-Life Integration at Gusto

(56:11) Building a Long-Term Oriented Business

(57:15) Mentorship and Learning from Other Founders

(01:00:09) Structuring and Scaling Product Teams

(01:06:16) Organizational Design and Leadership

(01:08:31) Hiring Executives and Internal Growth

(01:13:13) The Journey of Rebranding to Gusto

(01:21:05) The Role of a CEO in a Growing Company

(01:28:39) Fundraising and Investor Relations

(01:33:14) Future Goals and Impact of Gusto

(01:35:48) Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Executive Producer: Rashad Assir

Producer: Leah Clapper

Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky

Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA

🎙 Listen to the show

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-logan-bartlett-show/id1606770839

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9zb0hJZkhWbg

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1

Follow on Socials

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow

🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow

About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.