Paycom Software better known as Paycom, is an American heavyweight that deals in HR technology, focusing on completely automatic, online payroll systems. Based in Oklahoma, Paycom was the first major company to introduce a fully online payroll system and is credited as having established all the norms companies follow regarding payroll maintenance and updating. Here’s a look at how a small idea from a young entrepreneur grew to become one of the fastest-growing companies in the world.
About the Founder
Paycom was founded by Oklahoma native Chad Richison, who did his schooling from Tuttle High School, and then went on to do his degree from the University of Oklahoma in Mass between 1989 and 1993. Richison began his career in the payroll processing industry, and left it in 1998, at the age of 27 to found Paycom. Since then, he has retained his position as the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer.
A native Oklahoman, Chad started out as a salesman for a payroll agency before moving into human resources management. He then shifted to Colorado to work for another payroll service provider, and finally in 1998, quit his job and moved back home to found Paycom. Working at these companies gave Richison in-depth knowledge regarding the workings of the payroll industry, and that is when he came to the realization that it was the technology that was holding the sector back.
As soon as Paycom started making money, Richison turned his attention towards charity and is a notable contributor to several Oklahoma based NGOs. In 2015, Richison gave $10 million to his alma mater’s athletics program to help them build a complex, and a year later contributed $4 million more to help with the completion of the project. He is also the founder of the Green Shoe Foundation, which helps adults face and gets over traumas they experienced as kids.
Founding Paycom
Richison’s discovery that the biggest issue that plagued the payroll industry was the lack of competent storage and sorting database, which led him to found Paycom which offered those services at a minimal cost. During the company’s early days, Richison used to go from door-to-door asking people if they wanted such a service and even made thousands of phone calls trying to acquire. Hence, initially, Richison was just as much a salesman as he was the company’s CEO. Convincing naïve clients about the potential of the internet was one of the biggest challenges he faced early on, and it was a big hurdle for a twenty-seven-year-old, as per Richison.
Paycom started out as an internet-based payroll service provider catering to businesses of all kinds and has since then expanded to several domains such as HR management and employee relations management. The company went public on April 15, 2014, under the symbol PAYC on the New York Stock Exchange. The public offering was a resounding success with the company selling 6,645,000 shares and bringing in over $64.3 million. As soon as the IPO was done, Richison invested some of his own money in the company and bought himself another 52,600 shares.
As the company grew, it started hiring a lot more employees, and by 2011 had to shift to a much larger office building in Oklahoma. The same year, they launched new services such as electronic verification systems, budget tracking, and document analysis and storage systems. By 2016, the company ran out of space again and added a whopping 90,000-square-foot extension to its headquarters. Paycom also completed the construction of a third extension in the same year, expanding the office to a mammoth size of 250,000 sq. ft.
Paving the Way
By 2018, the company had run out of office space again, and hence built a fourth extension that brought its corporate space to an enormous total of 500,000 square feet. Due to the exemplary service it provides, the company has won several awards and laurels including the Service Bureau of the Year Award and has been a constant feature in the list of Oklahoma’s best workplaces, and even came first in 2016. Deloitte too listed Paycom as one of the fastest-growing companies in the world, for the last two years.
The company’s share has also grown at the same rate and now stands at $230/share, roughly 1400 times what it started out as. Such a high share value placed Paycom at number seven on IBD’s list of fifty most important stocks on the exchange.
Today, thanks to Richinson’s initiative, the economic landscape of Oklahoma has changed to include more tech-based industries, whereas it was littered with only oil and gas industries in the past. Recently, Forbes’ magazine mentioned Paycom in its list of fastest-growing American public limited companies, and it also earned a spot for itself in the Fast Tech rankings, which looks at international companies, and grades them based on their growth.
Almost twenty years after being found, the company now makes over $500 million a year, raking in $433 million in 2017, and bringing in another $566.3 million in 2018. company is now growing at over 31% and boasts of over 23,500 clients from all over the US. With an estimated net worth at the U.S. $2.1 billion, Richison is one of Oklahoma’s seven billionaire’s and is the youngest person on that list.
Being a cinephile with a love for all things outdoorsy, Athulya never misses a chance to chase inspiring stories or poke fun at things, even when the subject is herself. Currently pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering, she is someone innately interested in technical and scientific research. Music reviews and op-eds define her as they allow her to explore different perspectives. Though sometimes she thinks she makes more sense playing the guitar than she does while writing.