
Gusto founder drove across America in an RV to meet customers - antigizmo
http://www.businessinsider.com/gusto-tech-exec-drove-across-america-2017-5/#he-sold-his-first-startup-and-launched-gusto-which-makes-software-that-puts-payroll-benefits-and-other-hr-needs-in-the-cloud-it-serves-more-than-40000-small-businesses-2
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trothamel
I want to know who they rented the Winnebago from, so that they paid only
$4,000 for a 10-state trip.

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creepydata
And were able to paint it.

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hugodahl
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.

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tyingq
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.

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dsfyu404ed
An RV is mostly flat. That will save a lot of time ($$).

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ac29
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).

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

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

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joshuareeves
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.

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marvindanig
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](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 :-)

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paulsingh
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! :)

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bentlegen
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...](http://www.prweek.com/article/1253860/freshbooks-hits-road-drive-
closer-its-customers)

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joshuareeves
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

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seizethecheese
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?

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prawn
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.

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seizethecheese
Thanks. That puts this into context.

