The Start:

Parker Conrad, before founding Rippling, had an impressive yet turbulent career in the tech industry. A Harvard graduate with a degree in Chemistry, Parker initially ventured into the world of biomedical startups.

He co-founded and served as the CEO of Zenefits, a human resources software company, which grew rapidly under his leadership.

However, his tenure at Zenefits ended abruptly due to regulatory compliance issues and management challenges. This experience, while difficult, gave Parker invaluable insights into the complexities of HR and employee management.

Determined to apply these lessons and address the pain points he encountered, Parker embarked on a new journey to revolutionize the HR and IT software landscape.

The Problem:

The conception of Rippling stemmed from Parker's firsthand experiences with the fragmented and inefficient processes in managing employee data and IT resources.

At Zenefits, he observed that companies struggled with integrating HR functions with IT management, leading to inefficiencies and administrative burdens.

Traditional systems were often siloed, making it difficult to manage employee lifecycles seamlessly from hiring to offboarding.

Recognizing this critical gap, Parker envisioned Rippling as an all-in-one platform that could unify HR, payroll, and IT management, simplifying and automating these processes.

This vision aimed to save companies time and resources, allowing them to focus more on their core business activities.

Getting their first customers:

The founders Parker & Prasanna hired engineers and built the product for about 2 years in Parker's basement. They made a basic one-page marketing website mentioning Rippling.

They started cold emailing & reaching out to people & giving demos to them. They were targeting founders, CEOs, CTOs at the start. Their CMO Matt Epstein was entrusted to fix the website and crystallize the messaging so users would "get" Rippling instantly.

They got their first 100 customers just from sales-led outbound.

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