Grit

#162 CEO & Co-Founder Rippling, Parker Conrad w/ Mamoon Hamid: Compounding

Oct 30, 2023

01:02:26

Snipd AI

Parker Conrad, CEO of Rippling and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins discuss their experiences with startups, the challenges they faced, and the importance of executives being involved in problem-solving. They also delve into the concept of compound startups, deep integrations, and the inefficiency of buying separate software components. The podcast offers insights on fundraising dynamics, starting companies for the right reasons, and the unique series A of Rippling.

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Rippling prioritizes hiring senior executives early on, defying conventional wisdom.

CEO Parker Conrad actively engages in customer support, maintaining a strong connection to challenges faced by the support team.

Anecdotes are valued by Parker Conrad when troubleshooting problems, providing more context and understanding of root causes.

Deep dives

Unique Practices and Features

Rippling stands out with various unique practices and features. For instance, they transparently display their support response times and ticket statuses on their website, showcasing their commitment to customer service. They have a high density of former founders among their team, which brings a diverse and experienced set of perspectives. Rippling also takes a compound startup approach, building multiple products simultaneously and constantly launching new SKUs at an impressive rate. They prioritize hiring senior executives early on, including their CFO, defying conventional wisdom. Additionally, Rippling focuses on serving SMBs rather than targeting large enterprise clients.

Introduction

2min

Startup Challenges and Vision

11min

Views on Failure and Starting a Company

26min

The Competitiveness of Rippling's Series A Fundraising Round

8min

The Importance of Executives Being Grounded and Involved in Problem-Solving

5min

Building Compound Startups and the Advantage of Deep Integrations

8min

Efficiency in Software-Buying and Hiring Great Entrepreneurs

3min

Guests: Parker Conrad, CEO of Rippling, and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins

How long did it take for Parker Conrad to stop wanting revenge? “I’ll let you know when it switches over,” the Rippling CEO and co-founder jokes. He resigned from his last company, the buzzy HR unicorn Zenefits, in 2016 and then quickly realized that the company’s new leaders would never return it to its former glory. He still loved the problems he had been trying to solve, and launched Rippling because “there was an opportunity there, [and] if it works ... it’s going to be fundamentally and foundationally better as a product.” It worked. As of March, Rippling has been valued at more than $11 billion, more than double Zenefits’ peak.

In this episode, Parker, Mamoon, and Joubin discuss what happened at Zenefits, avoiding press coverage, FOMO and expectations, Paul Graham, fixing corporate insurance, Ryan Peterson’s “revenge portfolio,” CEO coaches, Mike Vernal, approving expenses, anecdata, and the Costco of SaaS.

In this episode, we cover:

How Parker and Mamoon met (00:56)
The Zenefits Series B (06:29)
“Stuck in a nightmare” (09:20)
Entrepreneurship is “soul-destroying” (12:46)
Parker’s first company, SigFig (17:17)
Starting a company for the right reasons (21:02)
Starting over after Zenefits (27:06)
Avenging Zenefits (31:57)
Rippling’s unusual Series A (38:40)
What it does well (43:13)
“Go and see” (46:35)
The compound startup (51:44)
Who Rippling is hiring and what “grit” means to Parker (01:00:39)

Links:

Connect with Parker
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

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