Gusto founder drove across America in an RV to meet customers | Hacker News Reader

Gusto founder drove across America in an RV to meet customers

businessinsider.com

53 pointsantigizmo22 comments

I want to know who they rented the Winnebago from, so that they paid only $4,000 for a 10-state trip.

Wow that's a good deal!

And were able to paint it.

Article seems to state they got a vehicle wrap for it. Probably not part of the 4000$ rental, but can't imagine it being more than maybe 1000$ to "print"? Random large-ish dollar amount I came up with on the fly.

Thinking that's low. A car is $2500+ to wrap. Lots more area on that RV. And it's not a DIY job for sure.

An RV is mostly flat. That will save a lot of time ($$).

It was a wrap that a teammate designed, and we paid someone to put onto the RV. The removal process was all on us though. It took a couple hours and left quite a few blisters on our hands from pulling it off by hand. Definitely worth it though!

That's about the going rate, depending on season/days/miles. A vehicle wrap is $1-2k. (Note that you could also buy an older RV for $20k or so and resell it after the trip.)

The $4,000 was to rent the RV. We spent additional money on the wrap, plus food costs along the way. We mostly ate at Gusto customers, and I slept in the RV so that saved on lodging cost. The biggest expense for the trip was the donations we gave recipients of the Extra Mile award ($1,500 to a charity of their choice).

For anyone who wasn't sure who this is, it is the company formally known as ZenPayroll (who changed name presumably to avoid confusion with Zenefits).

I always thought it was because they branched out from just doing payroll.

You couldn't stop by San Diego? Would have loved to have met the team. I seriously love Gusto. (not a paid advertisement.)

Would love to stop by in the future! We might make the road trip an annual tradition, and change the route each year. :)

I'll be in San Diego this summer for a friends wedding. Can you send me a note at josh@gusto.com? Would be great to meet up while I'm down there.

There's also an investor (Paul Singh, ex-500Startups) driving across America in an RV to meet startups. For those who don't know about his excursions head over here:

https://www.resultsjunkies.com

Jovial mood: I wonder what's the probability of an investor on road meeting a startup on road. I mean on physical roads. And is that measure of probability meaningfully any different from the reality of fundraising? Think not :-)

We left DC last March, nearly driven 40,000 miles and visited 51 cities so far. Sadly, no big PR wins for us. We write checks though! :)

FreshBooks did this almost 10 years ago [1], and I'm sure many companies have done it both before and since. Perhaps the most impressive part is coordinating such a flattering article with Business Insider.

[1] http://www.prweek.com/article/1253860/freshbooks-hits-road-d...

Josh here from Gusto. The more tech founders/CEOs doing this type of trip, the better in my opinion. I was born and raised in Silicon Valley and I love living there, but it can often be an echo chamber. We didn't start Gusto to focus on Silicon Valley. We started it to help companies across the country (and eventually around the world), and our customers are all across the US today. The road trip was one way for me to go out and meet some of them. I slept in the RV, saw many cities that I had never been to before, and met some amazing companies.

We want spotlight these small businesses as much as possible, since they often don't get as much attention. You can read about some of them at www.gusto.com/extramile

I'll save you a click. This is an obvious advertisement for Gusto with lots of pictures and few words.

If you upvoted this, why?

I didn't upvote it, but I appreciated hearing about the article and reading it. Startup types are routinely told to speak with their customers, and here was a novel, fun and attention-getting way of doing exactly that.

Thanks. That puts this into context.

Exactly. And I'll add for me: it was cool hearing about a unique marketing angle, compared to reading the 231st copy of "Improving Your Conversions using A/B Testing". Like the marketing kid who got into a company pretending to be the donut delivery man[0].

[0] http://www.adweek.com/creativity/guy-posed-donut-delivery-ma...

Haha I upvoted because I used to work there. I like seeing stuff about Gusto on HN

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