The founder of Rippling had prior experience and deep product insight from his previous startup, which justified the longer development time before launch.

I faced a cease and desist on my apartment while trying to raise a Series A, which added pressure to our situation.

As Y Combinator gained recognition, it faced challenges from critics and distractions, which were difficult for sensitive individuals like me to handle personally.

We took a different approach with Rippling, focusing on building software for two years before scaling, unlike my previous experience with Zenefits.

I'm Parker Conrad, the CEO and co-founder of Rippling, and my story is intertwined with Zenefits, the company I started before that.

The key insight behind Rippling is that businesses benefit from a suite of interoperable applications rather than narrow point solutions, which allows for better product development.

After being encouraged by founders like Drew Houston and Sam Altman, I applied to Y Combinator, despite my initial hesitation about giving up equity.

After leaving Scribd, I immediately discussed new ideas with Paul Graham, and we decided to apply to Y Combinator again, even though we didn't have a product yet. I co-founded a subscription billing service called PipePay, but we didn't want to compete directly with Stripe, which was doing really well at the time.

I applied to Y Combinator on a long shot, not expecting to get in, but after interviewing in Palo Alto, I was accepted and dropped out of graduate school to pursue my startup.