The global COVID-19 pandemic has been absolutely ruthless to small businesses across the country. With today's announcement of April unemployment numbers, a staggering amount of people are going to be without jobs for the foreseeable future. Businesses are already furloughing, laying off, and freezing hiring to stay afloat, and a lot of small business owners rely on software from startups to facilitate this unprecedented shift in employment.
One of the tools to get the job done, Gusto, is ironically also at the mercy of the pandemic.
Gusto ($PRIVATE:GUSTO) is a San Francisco-based startup provides cloud-based HR management, compliance, benefits, and payroll software to over 100K businesses, most of them small. Forbes listed Gusto as the #18th company on their Cloud 100 list from last year, and it's easy to see why.
For six years, Gusto has been growing and raising a lot of money. We're able to pinpoint the funding rounds on startups, and after last summer's big get, Gusto got valued at $3.8 billion. 2020 has been a leveling off for employee growth, as Gusto is seemingly settling in at a healthy 1,300 staff count. But every startup is susceptible to the ups and downs of the economy, and there's no telling what the future will hold.
Gusto cut job postings by over 90% at the end of March. It's incredibly hard to hire new talent without having anyone in an office, so we tip our hats to any startup that can onboard recent hires with a shiny new laptop during a worldwide health crisis.
But Gusto continues its march for more notoriety online, as the startup is doing quite well on social media. The last four years has seen an 87% increase in Twitter followers and a 36% increase in Facebook likes. There's also been a 100% increase in Instagram followers in the last nine months (not shown here, try our demo to see all the data on Gusto!).
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales, and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue, and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.
Further Reading:
- Quora's biggest question could be how it can maintain viability in the pandemic
- Slowing job postings and social attention don't look good for Beyond Meat
- Lyft cuts and data signal a stall before earnings
