Michael Houck is a cofounder of an early stage venture firm, investor in over 40 companies, and a cofounder of an a16z backed startup with millions in funding. He now writes a newsletter to help other founders build, grow, and raise capital for their startups. Founded a year ago, the company’s distributed operations made them a perfect fit for Thera’s global payroll solution.

Building a startup, the last worry you need is payroll.

From day one, Houck planned to build a global team — the new startup norm from what he had seen at his previous companies. While he was confident in the contractors he was hiring, he knew traditional payroll providers were not going to cut it with overpriced fees and slow international transfers. So, he reached out to Thera to ensure payroll operations could meet high standards of quality and function.

Difficulties that needed to be overcome: 

1. Compliance risk — Thera helped Houcks Newsletter mitigate misclassification risk by providing locally compliant contracts, created by expert in-country legal counsel.
2. Simplicity to manage — Thera created an easy to use portal that can pay the entire team in one click every month.‍
3. Contractor experience — Thera designed an intuitive onboarding experience that only took the team minutes to load personal, banking, and other information. Now, Houck explains, his team benefits from same day payments and the ease of having all HR information in one place.

Thera keeps contractor payments simple from compliance to payroll.

Global payments will always be impacted by external factors. That’s why Houcks Newsletter values the adaptability of Thera’s team and services. So far, Thera has supported the company’s expansion into 3 different countries.

Thera helps Houck’s Newsletter grow on a global scale.

Since onboarding with Thera over a year ago, Houck’s newsletter has seen impressive results, including:

• 20 hours saved per month running payroll
• 75% faster payment times
• 5x faster onboarding speed

Thera is the perfect solution for Houck’s Newsletter team to focus on building their startup, and let payroll run on autopilot.