Envisioning a World in which Starting, Running, and Joining a Business is Accessible for All

Founded by Isaac Oates in 2012, Justworks is a high-growth software company whose mission is to help entrepreneurs and businesses grow with confidence. At his first startup, Isaac felt that the time he spent on administrative tasks kept him from focusing on what mattered most—people. He set out to build an HR tech platform that would make it easier for other founders to start, run, and grow a business.

Justworks created a modern, easy to use solution that takes administrative pressure off entrepreneurs and helps teams live happier, healthier lives. The platform provides access to benefits, payroll, HR tools, and compliance support to over 8,000 small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and their more than 140,000 employees across the United States. SMBs often struggle to attract and retain top talent due to the relative cost of securing benefits packages in-line with what larger organizations can offer. Meanwhile, regulations can place a disproportionate burden on SMBs, particularly those with a geographically distributed workforce, forcing them to deal with complex compliance hurdles they are ill-equipped to handle.

To level the playing field, Justworks aggregates customers under a single federal EIN as a professional employer organization. This “co-employment” model creates economies of scale, enabling attractive cost savings for SMBs and access to a richer suite of health insurance plans, primary care, dental and vision, mental health support, and wellness perks for their employees. Justworks’ model also enables entrepreneurs to minimize the risks and costs of non- compliance, empowering them to focus on running their core business and creating great culture.

Justworks provides free HR consulting, online trainings on harassment prevention and fostering inclusion in the workplace, and 24/7 support that’s available to every employee on the platform. The company has committed 1% of its equity and profits to removing unfair barriers for underrepresented founders by providing high-impact grants to organizations that support early-stage minority- and women-owned businesses (MWBEs) and building its own incubator for MWBE startups. Justworks also aims to make its core products more accessible, inclusive, and valuable for MWBE businesses through Just Thrive, a program it started in 2020.