Isaac Oates: Building Skyscrapers In 2016

With 2016 around the corner, we’ve been taking a look at what Justworks has accomplished this year and will accomplish in the next.

And as we’ve constructed our 2016 plan, we’ve circulated our discussions more and more around building skyscrapers.

Where We're Investing Our Time

We've started to think of Justworks as Manhattan. The bedrock that Manhattan is built on is what makes this city so special.

Manhattan’s bedrock supports a crazy transportation system dug out from underneath, and some of the tallest buildings in the world above.

New York can be New York because it’s made of rock.

We’ve spent three years building our rock at Justworks. We’ve invested time building the things we expect to last:

• Team leadership

• Company culture

• The systems we use to manage the company

• Robust functions for our customers

This year, we set out to build a larger, more stable bedrock.

A Solid Bedrock

We began 2015 with about 20 people. The team included just one person in customer service, operations, marketing, office management, and finance (respectively). We had just five engineers. Product was three people.

The team was small and incredibly focused on growing the business. Our days revolved around dedicating ourselves and our resources towards growing from an early-stage business to a contender.

By the end of this year, Justworks will be about 80 people. We'll have increased our revenue sevenfold and grown our customer base by close to that number. 

Now that we’ve completed a solid bedrock, we’re in a place to scale even further and start building skyscrapers. Doing so will be in large part thanks to the Justworks team. I expect us to more than double in size next year to 150-200 employees.

At the end of the day, everything we do comes back to our customers. Justworks is a platform that helps you accomplish more. We work as hard as we do to create value for you, as you build your own company's skyscrapers. 

Onwards,

Isaac