Warp + Y Combinator

Ayush Sharma, CEO · February 27, 2023

Warp + Y Combinator article visual

I’m excited to share that Warp is now part of Y Combinator's W23 cohort. In this post, I’d like to cover

  • What problem are we solving?
  • What is our product?
  • Why are we building this?

If you're a founder looking to pay your team or onboard new hires, it's easy to assume that using one of the big name payroll providers is all you have to do. But what most founders quickly learn is that there’s a lot more to payroll compliance than you first realize.

You see, in the US, each state is its own tax jurisdiction. What this means for you is that you need to comply with sometimes 4–5 different tax agencies in every state. So if you’re a startup with your initial team in say in CA and NY, you need to register your business, create payroll tax accounts, manage and keep up with all these .gov logins across half a dozen antiquated portals.

As you dive into these, you're met with a painfully antiquated and chaotic maze of tax registrations, accounts, unemployment insurance, notifications, and endless scary deadlines. And all this just to keep your startup's payroll operations running smooth.

Attachment #1

Founders and operators will often spend 5–10 hours per month on a regular basis dealing with this unnecessary and tedious admin work themselves.

Current payroll platforms are built mainly for HR admins, not startup founders. Not only that, in 2023, prevailing platforms have become stagnant and their software increasingly bloated, laden with unnecessary add-ons. They force you into 2–3 rounds of tedious sales discussions before you can even hit the ground running.

Enter Warp

Warp is a modern payroll and compliance software stack built for founders to easily hire, onboard, and pay their teams.

Warp Dashboard

With Warp, all the tedious admin and operations work related to payroll is fully automated. From registering with state tax agencies and getting certificates of good standing, to assisting with foreign qualifications and tracking impending deadlines — Warp handles it all for you, automatically, in the background.

Warp allows you to run fully automated payroll, built to cover everything your startup needs.

  1. Warp ensures federal, state, and local tax returns are accurately filed on time
  2. Warp supports W-2 employees and 1099 contractors across the US
  3. Warp enables you to pay International contractors in over 150 countries

As a founder, I’ve personally grappled with the complex issues of managing payroll across several US states and numerous countries. It quickly became obvious that these bureaucratic mazes consume substantial amounts of founders' time, which ideally, should be invested in their startup.

At Warp, our mission is to build the most delightful, complete, and reliable software stack for founders to run their startups. And that starts with building the most founder-friendly payroll and compliance software.

If you are a founder looking to run payroll, get started with Warp now.

Start paying your team with Warp today.

Payroll, compliance, benefits & HR all in one place.