Rippling
HR & PayrollRippling is a workforce management platform that unifies HR, IT, and finance into a single system built around an employee graph. What makes Rippling unique is that it treats employee data as the central node connecting payroll, benefits, device management, app provisioning, and expense management. When you hire someone in Rippling, you can simultaneously set up their payroll, ship them a laptop, provision their software accounts, and enroll them in benefits from one workflow. For custom web application development, Rippling's API enables developers to build deep integrations with workforce data, automate onboarding and offboarding workflows, and sync employee information across custom internal tools.
The Backstory
Rippling was founded in 2016 by Parker Conrad and Prasanna Sankar. Conrad's backstory is one of Silicon Valley's most dramatic comeback stories. He had previously co-founded Zenefits, an HR software company that grew at breakneck speed before Conrad was forced out as CEO in 2016 amid regulatory compliance issues. Rather than retreating, Conrad channeled his experience and frustrations into building Rippling, a platform that would do what Zenefits attempted but with a fundamentally different architecture. Conrad has been open about the fact that getting fired from Zenefits was the most painful experience of his career, but also the catalyst for building a better product.
Under the Hood
Parker Conrad has described Rippling as a "compound startup," a term he coined to describe a company that launches multiple products simultaneously rather than perfecting one product before expanding. This approach goes against conventional startup wisdom, which says to focus on one thing and do it exceptionally well. Conrad argues that HR, IT, and finance are so interconnected at the employee level that building them as separate products creates more problems than it solves. The compound approach has been controversial in Silicon Valley, but Rippling's rapid growth to a $13.5 billion valuation by 2024 has made other founders take the model seriously.
Visit: rippling.com