Turning Childhood Dream Into Billion-Dollar Reality With Tomer London

John Corcoran 10:26

Yeah. Now, in Israel, you do military service. And you have said that you applied to a bunch of different military units, and were rejected, and that kind of has driven some of the work that you do today. So tell us a little bit about that. 

Tomer London 10:42

Yeah, totally. This is like a story of failure or multiple failures. And I think that, you know, your failures really helped build character and really helped shape people. And I would say, this was a, this is a story of, like, I’m the first really what I would consider, like a significant failure, how I thought about myself, and it really changed how I thought about myself. So you know, I was really good in school, I got good grades, I was, you know, programming and all that stuff. And it kind of in Israel, you have this thing where, you know, when you’re 1617, you basically apply to all these different military units. And, you know, these are the special units. 

And, you know, some of them are like special combat units, and some of them are special engineering and programming and things like that Israel is famous for, for these ones. And I was going to share that, you know, I’m not sure if I would get accepted to that top programming unit, but probably someone would accept me because they do have all this experience. And, you know, it’s not, it’s not that common. So kind of, in my mind, I was like, you know, self image, this is the age of 1670. And I was like, Yeah, I’m like, I’m the smart kid, and I will get accepted. And that’s going to be kind of, we’ll see where it goes from there. And, you know, I applied to all of them, and I got rejected by all of them. That was, like, just very unsettling, surprising, and sad for me as a kid. 

And, you know, ended up going, basically, then the military decides for you, where you’re going to go, and I ended up being a combat soldier actually, in the army in the Air Force. And, you know, that was difficult. That was hard , unlike anything I’ve done before. This is physical, this is mental challenging, you’re not kind of, you know, managing yourself, if you basically have a commander who manages every single little element of your life, and is doing something really, really important and meaningful, and, you know, you’re part of a broad mission that definitely I, I connect with, but the day to day work was just really, really hard and different, right. 

So, you know, it’s like, long nights with no sleep in a tent, it’s like, you know, running around with like, you don’t want to wait on your back. It’s, you know, doing like, like, sort of work that you sometimes feel like, just like the value list, but you just need to do it because somebody wants to do it. And these sorts of things. And so a lot of waiting, it’s, it’s actually a lot of not doing anything, a lot of sitting down and kind of.

John Corcoran 13:12

Yeah, I haven’t served in a uniform, but the people say that, that it’s like long stretches of just boredom, interspersed with perhaps something that can be, you know, traumatic and very frightening.

Tomer London 13:25

Right, exactly. So that was really difficult. But like, the self image really, you know, was really impacted by this, because then I realized, I guess that you know, like, nothing is nothing is taken to be taken for granted. And they just need to really hustle and work hard, and like really put it all out there. And I think that’s what I did kind of going forward. And you know, obviously, startup life has an incredible amount of rejection and failure in life, there’s a lot of rejection. 

But if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re putting yourself in a path of rejection, for sure. Whether it’s, you know, raising your round, whether it’s trying to hire employees, whether it’s just getting hired at the market, you’re gonna get just an extreme amount of rejection. And you just need to have a good muscle, a good filter, a good way of thinking, how to handle that and know that at the end of the day, what matters is, you know, achieving your goal and doing it in the way you’re proud of. And like that rejection is literally a part of the journey.

John Corcoran 14:21

So painful as it was at the time, you probably look back on those rejections that you received and are grateful for them now.

Tomer London 14:27

I am extremely grateful for that. Like I get to meet people who are just, you know, incredibly smart and successful throughout their career. And they ended up like in their 30s and never really never got serious, serious rejection and like kind of, you know, struggle and then they get to that first struggle and gosh, that’s like, you know, a 16 year old is pretty resilient. Like you’re only 20 to 35 and have kids like that stuff.

John Corcoran 14:52

Yeah. So you study electrical engineering in college after you serve in the military. Right. And Did you always know that you’d start a tech tech company? At that point? Was that kind of the plan?

Tomer London 15:05

You know, I was, I think it was very curious about technology. That’s why I chose engineering and not computer science. For example, not the computer science is not interesting and deep, just like electro engineering also has elements in physics and things like that, that I was really interested in. So I’ve always loved technology, science and math. But then also really was curious about, you know, the software business, just from my experience. And you know, to your question, like, did I know I’m going to start, like, you know, be a founder or something like that? No, I didn’t know, I knew that I wanted to work in that world of technology and software.

And, you know, I didn’t know maybe I would be an inventor one day, maybe I would be, you know, at, you know, the get like a researcher or something like that. But, you know, I feel like I, I later had my experience in starting my first company, a real company in Israel. And I think that kind of led me to where they were like, Oh, this is pretty cool. I want to do that.

John Corcoran 16:06

And that was visma. Right, exactly. And what was dismal is you built mobile cell service technologies for enterprise to help out with customer care. 

Tomer London 16:16

Okay, you got it, you got it. Yeah. So basically, this was before the iPhone. And when Android was, you know, not even, you know, out yet. And what we did is, instead of call like, when you call customers a call center in Israel, instead of just waiting in the line and going through, like the really boring voice menu, which is going to anybody, we we created a technology that enables you to just have a visual menu on your phone, so you can kind of score for the IVR on your phone, and then get to the right person, or even do self service on your phone, which uses us like, kind of early technology around, you know, SMS pushes, and things like that. 

This is again before that, the apps, so that was really interesting for me, because, you know, this was the first time we raised a little bit of money, I raised a little bit of money, I was a CEO of a small company very small, and was trying to get to product market fit, trying to learn to work with customers pricing, you know, all that stuff ended up really failing. But, you know, just the biggest learning on a personal level was that this was just extremely challenging and fun. And I wanted to be out there, I wanted to kind of try and kind of bring a product to help customers and have it be my own thing. So that’s where, you know, I kind of knew at that point, I could Yeah, actually, I want to do this again, I want to start, I want to start a company.

John Corcoran 17:39

Yeah. Well, one common theme I see from visma, to Gusto is you found a pain point. And you said that you should, within the context of Gusto, tailor your product to a pissed off customer segment. Maybe in that case, they weren’t pissed off enough or it wasn’t a large enough challenge. But that segues me into you making your way to the States. You did a couple of years at Stanford, an amazing Ph.D. program. They’re studying electrical engineering also. And then at some point, you and your co founders got the idea for Gusto, which, of course, was a much larger pain point for the customers that were not happy with the payroll process.

Tomer London 18:18

Right. Right. Yeah, totally. Yeah, we, I think what you said is exactly right. I think as a product person, when you see when you hear a customer who is just, you know, pissed off completely, or, like, basically, you’re looking for the extreme emotion, either somebody being extremely happy with something, something or someone being extremely upset and annoyed by something that’s kind of where this probably opportunities all in, like the 90% or 95%, in the middle are just not that interesting. And probably it’s not not enough. 

So when we started the Gusto, you know, we had a real passion for small businesses. I mentioned that earlier, like, you know, our family, my family, my dad’s clothing store, Josh, Eddie have similar stories and their families and friends. And we really wanted to help the underdogs and small businesses, you know, don’t have a lot of tools to make it special, the software tools to help them, you know, run, start and run their teams, and we thought that we had some good ideas of what to do there. But, you know, we were looking for, like, where to start from what to start from, you know, and one of the things that we, that that I heard when I was speaking with with small business owners, I was basically going around town in Palo Alto, and then also on the phone, calling people off of Yelp, literally like every day calling small businesses off of the shelf and just interviewing them. 

John Corcoran 19:37

And you have the idea for tackling payroll at that point, or was it much broader than that you’re just looking for any kind of pain challenge that you can help solve with software?

Tomer London 19:46

Yeah, so we were very excited about small businesses. We knew that that’s something we’re really you know, really focused on. We had like a whiteboard with a bunch of ideas on where to start and you know, we had like a big circle around, you know, payroll and people management And because, you know, that’s one of the biggest problems that small businesses have. But we didn’t know at that moment yet where exactly we’d be the first product. 

So literally, one day would be my spa day, like, it’s not that I’m going to a spa, I’m going into a room and calling all spas in San Francisco during Yelp. The other day was my, you know, haircut day to go to the hairdressers, and do different interview questions. And when people talked about payroll, they just started cursing, just started, like being like, pissed off upset about their current situation with their current provider, like, you know.

John Corcoran 20:39

By the way, what did you say that got them to open up, you know, I am calling I’m trying to understand for graduate student thinking about is that it really

Tomer London 20:47

was exactly what I said. I said, Hey, I’m a Stanford Ph.D. student, and I’m developing software for small businesses. Can I share it? Can I ask you a couple of questions that people like about students? Yeah. So, you know, definitely not everyone, we’re open. But you know, you just sit there in a room, like we talked about rejections, right? Like, I had, sure, probably a lot to click every 10 calls, maybe like, two were actually like, really fruitful. But there’s a lot of rejections, but there’s just literally a part of the game. And he just checked the box, you know, let’s keep going. 

John Corcoran 21:16

And probably have one great conversation that just drives you to keep on going. 

Tomer London 21:20

Totally, exactly. And like literally in my head, he was like, you know, my goal is to do 50 calls, I’m not leaving this room until I did 50 calls, you know, stuff like that. So when people started cursing and getting upset to talk about the current payroll company situation and talk about like, like a notice they received talking about, like, employees not being paid on time talk about the time it takes them. And it’s like, gosh, this is, you know, there’s something there. 

And then we kind of kept going and asked more people about payroll, and went deeper and deeper. And we said, Okay, this is something really, really important here, there’s a really big pain point. It’s a huge industry. It’s all you know, incumbents are $50 billion ADP was back then a $50 billion company today, it’s even bigger. Paychecks were 30 billion. And we’re like, okay, there’s really, there’s not any modern player here, maybe there’s something we can do. So that’s kind of where it started.

John Corcoran 22:10

And you didn’t get intimidated, like, this is a $30 billion company, they could crush us like, how are we possibly going to come up with a better solution than what they can come up with?

Tomer London 22:19

Yeah, it’s a good question. I feel like I was not intimidated enough, perhaps, given the fact that there’s, you know, today, I would say, like just being a more mature person, it’s not payroll specific. Like, just, like, knowing all the struggles and all the challenges of starting a company and a startup, like, I was oblivious to most of it, I was just excited about using technology to solve a problem. And let’s see how it is, you know, let’s see what’s next. Let’s see if we can make this happen. And it was also really, really exciting about my co-founders, you know, you Josh and Eddie, like, I’ve had experiences with previous co founders in, in, in, you know, in Israel. 

And when I found Josh and Eddie, I was just, I knew that these are literally the people I want to, I want to spend years and years with building something, because it’s just, we, I can trust them to a very deep level, we have alignment on values, why we want to do what we want to do, and the sort of company we want to build. And that was just like, very special. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to miss out on that opportunity. So I took a leave of absence from Stanford, which was kind of crazy for my family to hear on the phone because like, Hey, wait, wait a minute, you just flew to the US and you, you know, left your your that all your everything in everything back home, and and and now you’re quitting or what’s going on with you? Yeah. They end up working out.

John Corcoran 23:44

Yeah. And I want to ask about your mentioned values, I want to ask about culture, we’ll get to those as well. You end up doing? Oh, first about the co-founders? Did you have a clear division of responsibility? Like you’re gonna be the one who’s building the product and their biz dev and their sales? Like, was that clear.

Tomer London 24:01

So, when we started, it was kind of funny, because the three of us had very similar backgrounds. The three of us were, you know, electrical engineers, with bachelor’s, master’s in engineering, electrical engineering, the three of us were CEOs of previous startup companies.

John Corcoran 24:16

That’s a recipe for disaster. 

Tomer London 24:19

To do, right. And the funny thing is, in the first several months of the company, we just kind of, you know, we’re just co founders, we’re just building and all of us were just coding, we’re just coding and talk with customers. And then over time, you kind of saw with people more like naturally got attracted to and like work. So my thing was very much like, again, the customer focusing on the customer talking with customers bringing that information in. And then building technology. So it’s like, the connection with technology. And, and, and people, I think, for Edie, like really was around like, how do we built this great product, and we’re building an amazing technology stack that will enable us to do much more in the future and not just solve a short term pain point. 

And he was definitely the best engineer out of the three of us. And then for Josh, like, it was a lot about like, how do we build an organization? How do we track people? How what is this about how big can this be, you know, and communicating that and kind of helping us kind of put down like a bigger vision, bigger Northstar. So it ended up being very, and I’ve said the word lucky a lot here, because I really do feel incredibly fortunate about the fact that I met them if it was not for them, there was no obviously custo I would not be doing this. If it was not for, you know, the specific kind of puzzle pieces here wouldn’t work. But it was clear when we got to Y Combinator Demo Day.

John Corcoran 25:46

We just let me just pause there. So you make the decision to apply and you get into Y Combinator Y Combinator by the way, the payments incubator here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the most famous incubator out there credibly hard to get into. What was the experience of going through the program before which culminates in demo day?

Tomer London 26:03

Yeah, yeah, well, I would first say, you know, I recommend anybody who’s starting a company to apply to Y Combinator, it’s a hard thing to get accepted to, to your point. But if you do get accepted, it’s just like, incredibly valuable. Experience. Yeah, basically the way we did it in winter 2012. So it’s been a while since the program has changed and it definitely grew from there. But when we were doing it, it was already kind of famous for, you know, Dropbox came out of there, and Airbnb came out of there, Stripe came out of there. So it was already like, Okay, this is like a real important thing that this could be interesting. And we decided to apply because Eddie, my co-founder, had a previous company in Y Combinator a few years earlier. 

So he was said, like, you know, this is really, it’s a really great way of starting with incredible intensity. And the three of us, you know, were single at the time, and no kind of families to take care of, it was really, really all focused on intensity, like, let’s, let’s go at it. And we were excited to, you know, work 24/7 nights and weekends, we were just excited about that. So you go to YC. And so I would say my kind of two sentences about the experience. The first one is the intensity. So you work with Back then it was like 50. Today, it’s like more other startups, and they’re all in different spaces. So you’re not competitive, but you are a highly competitive person. 

And I want to be, you know, I want to be one of the best startups in this batch. So everyone’s working really hard to get ready to basically buy Demo Day, which is three months in to have a really great presentation, which shows a lot of progress for you building your company. So that really was a really great motivator, and a really nice program for that. Second is demo day. So you end up on Demo Day, which back then was around 300-400 investors sitting in a room, and they’re all looking at these startups. 

John Corcoran 27:53

And your palms have gotta be sweating from this experience. 

Tomer London 27:56

Yeah, this is like, you know, this is definitely one of these experiences, once in a lifetime experiences, it’s a short pitch, it’s like back then was three minutes, they give you three minutes, shade and give you one minute. And so it’s like you really, you know, every second counts, but the people in front of you, these investors, they want to invest, they came here to see YC companies, and they want to put in 123 checks today. So you want to show up at your best and, and kind of win their hearts and minds. So it was a fantastic experience for us. 

We’re able to raise our seed round there as a part of this and have an incredible amount of relationships with like, really, really good folks in the past that I’m still in touch with today. And it’s very, very valuable. 

John Corcoran 28:44

Okay, I’m going to challenge you on this one. So I looked online and Y Combinator takes 7% equity in companies for you going through last I checked, Gusto had about a $10 billion valuation. So if my math is correct, that means that their value is $700 billion. This is 12 years later from the experience. I’m still glad you went through the experience. 

Tomer London 29:06

Absolutely glad. By the way, that calculation, I would say there’s there’s there has been a solution since the beginning of the company,

John Corcoran 29:11

Okay, how can you find a big chunk of change?

Tomer London 29:14

I would not, I will not miss it. Even if I you know, if I were to start another company, if I were to advise someone definitely go through YC and it’s, you know, in the end of the day, it’s like, do you want you know, let’s use that percentage like, do you want to have X percent of like a $10 company or slightly 2x percent or, you know, more in a in $100 million, or like, a $3 million company like, you know, not to say that you know, it’s it’s it’s always the along the way but they really a great accelerator to get started. They’re just really, really helpful. 

John Corcoran 29:51

Yeah. I want to ask you about you personally. So you had it was you and two co founders, three of you coming up with this idea. Now you have 1000s of people and you’re still Head of Product, you’re still helping oversee this. But you’re it’s such a different experience, you know, so many people reporting to you working in different elements of it. Well, how do you think you’ve managed to evolve and change as a person as a leader? And be able to still lead that organization?

Tomer London 30:17

Yeah, yeah. So my, that’s it? I think that’s a really interesting question, I think the first, I would say the definition of what the chief product officer does, has changed over time. So you know, the nice thing is, is, you know, I was able to, I would say, evolve with the role, man. So just to give you an example, the first two years as Chief Product Officer, I would just be coding 90% of the time and 10% of the time, maybe like, you know, helping put down some product specs for the other engineers. Over time, it was like, you know, leading with product management design, I was leading customer care at some point of time, then over time, that changed and changed again, and again, and again. 

So things have changed multiple times. In terms of, kind of my, my role, and I think the, the, the thing that is really important in terms of the attitude that Josh and I have about our role in the company is that we just don’t take it for granted. And we worked really hard to scale. So specifically, we know it’s, I will talk about myself, but it’s super Josh and Eddie as well, we know that, you know, we get to do this job, and it’s the biggest job of our lives. And it’s not, I don’t take for granted that I will still be able to do this job in a year or two from now, I need to work really hard to keep growing my skill set and to get experiences. And for that I bring in mentors and an executive coach and learn from my peers and learn from other people. 

And sometimes when things don’t go in, I feel like you know, this is actually not the right scope for me, or I just don’t don’t, not the right person for it, I evolved in my role. So I can be where it can be most helpful. The difference between a good founder and not a founder, perhaps or maybe this is like all the OG like early employees or like that, to where you have that history of the company from day one. And that is a really, really helpful context to us when you make decisions sometimes. So you’re in a way over time, become like a historian of sorts. And that is actually quite valuable information, because you know, why things are the way they are sometimes. So you can kind of bring that context and help make better decisions. 

You also have some sort of like, I would say, it feels like for new people coming in, like you have some sort of permission to you can you can unlock some things, because people feel like, oh, it’s the founder, and the founder said that’s possible, then it’s possible, like they kind of enable them some people perhaps to think bigger, because or think different, because, you know, you saying things can help like, like, take take off and kind of break an invisible walls or invisible. You know, the rules.

John Corcoran 33:00

Yeah, yeah. Another thing I want to ask you about is, you’ve been doing that for, like, 12 years now. And I was looking at another interview that you did, and you said that at some point, you committed you and your co founders committed that you were doing this for the long term, because a lot of you know, founders are gone by 12 years in, but for you, that helped you find your purpose and your motivation to keep going. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Tomer London 33:26

Yeah, totally, I think, you know, we that’s one of the things that I feel is unique about Gusto to the three of us as co founders that this is we’ve decided a long time ago that this is our life’s work, this is why this is our the purpose of at least our professional or professional life. And we want to, to build a great company that’s going to be great for its customers going to be widgets, small businesses really, really help small businesses thrive. We want to be grateful gusties people who work here and you know, help them build relationships, build their craft, or their career make a difference in the world. 

And, and that’s something that we just really decided that we’ve that that’s important for us, I think there’s a lot of value in longevity, there’s a lot of value in like doing things for a long time, you get this compounding effect of knowledge and, and and context, as I mentioned earlier, and then also relationships. So similarly in partnerships, you know, over time, you get to know people, whether it’s within the company or outside of the company, like partners and investors and things like that. And these sort of relationships, again, if they compound over time, they can be really, really helpful to make a better company. So I feel lucky that the three of us are all on the same page on this. 

John Corcoran 34:45

This is you know, it’s yeah, that’s rare. I wanted to ask you about culture and values and I read that you have when people come to the office. I don’t know if this is still the case because I think this is before COVID He would take their shoes off and put on these green socks. Yeah. I got a little I’ve never heard something like this before, how did that come about?

Tomer London 35:03

Well, the socks are no longer just green. It’s like, Green was actually our original color at the company. But yeah, this is Gusto offices, our shoe shoes optional. It started from this idea of like, I’ll just tell you the story, here’s how that story started, we started the company in our home, in our home, we take our shoes off. So you know, people, you know, visitors came in, our first employee came in, and we just said, Okay, please take your shoes out, because this is a shoe-less home and just kind of work with our socks and slippers. 

And then we came into our first office. And I remember actually, the moment we stepped through the door, and we looked at the office, it was like this loft in San Francisco. So it was kind of a live work loft. So you could imagine it at home, you can see there’s a house, you can also like an apartment, you can also see it as a workplace. And we decided I remember actually Josh, my co founder CEO said like, No, we’re going to still keep this place clean. Let’s leave us off. In that moment probably was the inflection Moment Like This is from now on, we are issues of culture. And then you know, there’s stories around that that’s what happened in the sort of rituals and traditions that there’s stories being built on over time. 

So for us, like the story that you know, caught up and was a really nice representation of the sort of company that we are, is that when you feel at home, to take your shoes off, it’s kind of similar to what you do at home. And if you do that, you can try to be the same person you are at home as you are at work and try to take the mask off and just be you know, show that vulnerability be open and really, you know, be open to new ideas, be open to learning, kind of have that growth mindset, and be yourself. And I think that’s the aspiration that we have for gusties, that we can be ourselves at work and when you’re yourself, you’re you’re your best. So that’s the goal.

John Corcoran 36:51

I remember reaching out to you in the fall, right after the October 7 terror attacks. Hit your homeland, Israel, you had lots of family there. It’s been a horrendous five or six months for you. How have you managed through this experience, as the war has unfolded? And as you’ve also had this company that you are, you know, co-founder of and helping to run and manage to, you know, show up each day and get out of bed each day? 

Tomer London 37:24

Yeah, Yeah, that’s a difficult question. I think it’s not the sort of thing that you wish to encounter, I would say in your in your life and your professional life, and it’s very fresh, you know, I still feel this is very difficult every day still, to balance you know, that what’s happening there, and that impact on me emotionally, and then you know, so coming to work and inspire other people and get excited and optimistic about the future. So it is there that I do have in my mind, like, like a dissonance I believe is a part of it that I need to manage. 

You know, I would say as an Israeli, you’re just you, you grew up around, inside and around the conflict, at like, in the Middle East has never been simple. I’ve had multiple wars growing up that I was, you know, as a citizen, and then in the military. I remember when I was in first grade, walking to my elementary school with a little box with a gas mask, basically like the sorts the ones you see in the movies in World War Two, which was a big thing here. And as a kid, you just kind of learned that, okay, well, you go on TV, and it’s 7pm and one watches TV to see Saddam Hussein and how he’s saying that here’s the rockets I’m going to shoot on Haifa. And by the way, Haifa was like the number one place that the Iraqis hit 91.

So you know, I have a lot of memories of these sorts of things. So I would say that there’s an Israeli. This is not as a foreign concept as perhaps in other places in the world. But still, like what happened was probably the worst thing that’s happened in Israel’s history, and I have a lot of friends who are impacted and family and you know, I would say I try to do what I can, in my personal circles, whether it’s, you know, on the Personal life Family, to help people and friends and whether it’s part of Gusto Try to give a wider context without being political in the company, so giving like a place for, you know, people who feel impacted by this and like the rise of anti semitism in the US and try to give a home conversation, create a conversation there. 

And other than that, trying to just, you know, focus on mental health and, and I think with that, it’s always like what you can control is remember what you can control what you can’t control. And, you know, for me mental health is very much connected to physical health. So I try to work out multiple times a week I try to eat well, try to sleep well and that kind of helps me a little bit, but this is really difficult. It is difficult, it’s a part of it. Maybe the last thing I’ll say is when it comes down to work, like and kind of that career and Gusto and how that feels, even with partners is, is to be honest about this to say that it’s difficult and say that, hey, you know what, maybe I’m not at my best right now. And I want you to know that this is on my mind. And you know, I think real partners and real, you know, colleagues who care about you. They listen.

John Corcoran 40:26

Yeah. Is it challenging having a company that you know, a company that is? serves everyone, right, it serves all times the company, you’ve got customers all over the globe? Is it? Is it challenging? Do you feel like you have to hold that in or keep it private? Because you don’t want to share your experience more publicly?

Tomer London 40:49

Yeah, I think I’m not the sort of person who wants to, like, naturally wants to be like an influencer, or like an athlete figure or something like that. Like, that’s not attractive to me. So I don’t feel like I need to hold back more than I would. Otherwise. I feel like it’s almost like the opposite where I feel like maybe because I’m in some influential positions, at least with Gusto. And in some places, I should be doing things to help. So I try to do it in a way that is authentic to me, I’m not the person to, you know, just go out there. And like, you know, in stages and things like that, and more like that. Try to focus on an action with smaller groups. That’s kind of my thing more. Yeah. Yeah.

John Corcoran 41:30

Well, this has been great. I really appreciate Tomer you taking the time, I’d love to wrap up with the question that I asked everyone, which is, I’m a big fan of gratitude, especially expressing gratitude to peers, contemporaries, who’ve helped you along the way, a lot of times people will acknowledge their family or their team, which is totally fine. But I also love to hear stories about, you know, co-founders, investors, mentors, peers, contemporaries, other tech founders that have helped you in some specific way in your journey through over the years here at Gusto and beyond. So, any particular one, you’d want to shut up?

Tomer London 42:07

Oh, I probably like I can go, I can go on and on or on gratitude, because it’s a beautiful kind of thing that you’re doing in this section in this podcast. Maybe, you know, definitely the personal side, like my wife, Sarah, who has just been an incredible support throughout the entire journey, with a lot of ups and downs and kind of being there. For me, throughout all these things, like maybe like a story around this is, I feel like there’s one of the cool things about her is that she actually is totally not in tune with the will in the world of tech. 

So, you know, huge things can happen in the world. And, and I can get really stressed about them or really, you know, you know, have all the emotions about them and positive and negative. And I think she grounds me around that. So you know, you know, sVv collapsed, for example, you know, Gusto Gusto, luckily, that was not, that didn’t impact our customers. But it was a really big stress on the system as a whole. 

John Corcoran 43:07

And you were proactive about it. I remember an email being sent out shortly afterwards, reassuring people.

Tomer London 43:12

Right, exactly. Yeah, we try to refer people as soon as possible for people who were impacted because they had their own SBB account. We tried to create Silicon Valley Bank.

John Corcoran 43:21

Silicon Valley Bank here. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Tomer London 43:25

So we tried to create a Trinity for them and help them. I was on the phone with customers personally, for a long time. But that weekend, for sure, but like it was, it was good to also see, kind of get the grounding from Sarab, like looking at the big picture and like, and say that, you know, kind of a year from now, how would that look? How would you want to see this? And maybe being kind of less caught in the day to day, that’s actually quite, quite helpful. And then the other thing I would say is that you mentioned, you know, investors, I would want to highlight her mind, from the general catalyst, who’s, you know, who’s our Series A investor and one of the special things about her mind is he’s on our board as well. 

One of the special things about him is that he’s a true visionary in terms of, he really pushes you as a founder to think big. And sometimes, you know, when you operate a company, there’s, you know, that you have your dreams, obviously, and kind of the big vision, the big things you want to do, but you can be bogged down by execution and the day to day. And I think a mind is always the person on the board to help kind of bring the conversation back to like, Hey, what are we really trying to do here? What impact can this have on the world? Let’s make sure that we’re always kind of accelerating towards that. And I really appreciate him for that.

John Corcoran 44:38

That’s great. Tomer, where can people go to learn more obviously Gusto.com. Anywhere else, you’d point them to learn more about Gusto and all the different offerings you guys have there?

Tomer London 44:47

Yeah, go to gusto.com. It’s the best place to learn about us. We are here to support and to help entrepreneurs, small businesses and growing businesses with a journey.

John Corcoran 44:58

Tomer, thank you so much.

Chad Franzen 45:04

thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.