TLDR;
In the post-AI era, founders don't just need better payroll tools — they may not need to ever log into their payroll tools at all. Imagine never seeing scary payroll jargon splashed across your screen, never worrying about compliance, and never hiring a payroll specialist. Central isn't just another software; it marks a shift from post-cloud payroll into a post-AI world where you can go from doing to simply being done.
Evolution of Payroll
Payroll automation is as old as computers – this was one of the main use cases when IBM was selling computing machines to businesses. Then came the age of delegating more payroll tasks to software. This was the desktop software era. In the last 10-15 years, we shifted to cloud-based payroll solutions that help payroll specialists run payroll for companies easily. This shift helped payroll specialists save time and increased accuracy.
But today, we are in a different era — a post-AI era. Expectations for what software can do, and how users interact with it, are changing fundamentally.
We have designed a built a product from scratch for Post-AI Founders.
Who Are Post-AI Founders?
Post-AI Founders don’t want to do any payroll related work. They want to focus on their business, not on mastering business administration.
Post-AI Founders don’t want to become experts on payroll compliance – they just want to delegate the whole thing.
Post-AI Founders have a ultra high bar on how easy their software needs to be. They hate clunky, complex interfaces that makes the users feel dumb. They expect their software to intelligent in the back-end and super simple in the front-end.
Post-AI Founders want to achieve significant revenue growth but want to keep their team small.
Post-AI Founders just want to tell their software to do stuff, and they want it to be done. This isn’t too different from telling a trusted and competent colleague to do stuff - and being at ease that those things will be done.
Just like Deiter Rams has principles of what good design should be, we thought hard about the main principles of what being a founder in the Post-AI world should be.
We designed our entire system around these ideas.
The premise of Central is for a founder to never see anything from the government and yet never get in trouble or fined.
If you think you are a Post-AI Founder, we would love to talk to you about how you think about payroll, HR and compliance automation.
Breaking the Old Assumptions
We think that Post-Cloud Payroll products such as ADP, Paycom, Gusto, Rippling, Sure Payroll, Deel operate on outdated and rigid assumptions. They assume that:
Users are deep payroll specialists
We are seeing a cambrian explosion in business formation and startups. Soon people will be able to create apps just by telling an AI to do so in plain english. We have found that the Post-AI founders aren’t like the Post-Cloud founders – they just care about serving their users and growing their business. They don’t want to become “payroll experts” or even hire "payroll specialists".
Users want to log into software
This assumption is due for disruption. Why should you log into a payroll system? What people essentially want is their task to be completed correctly. In a post-AI world, we think there’s a better way — one that doesn't involve clicking through countless screens.
Users want to learn how their system works
All these systems offer “expert certifications” for their users. Do you really want to get a certificate from Gusto for mastering 'where to click' without getting confused?
Because these platforms cater to "professional specialists" and not Founders, they are stuck with outdated UIs and endless documentation that depends on that UI. Any effort to simplify their UI would require rewriting thousands of pages of documentation — a nightmare scenario for them.
The last decade saw post-cloud products serve users well. But we’ve learned that Post-AI Founders don’t fit those molds anymore. We’re entering a new era where user expectations are fundamentally changing. Central is built for this future.
If you're not ready for the Post-AI paradigm and still want to use legacy Post-Cloud products, we recommend trying ADP, Gusto, Quickbooks, or Rippling. But if you're ready to move forward, please talk to us.
The future is here now — with Central.
Modern Payroll Automation
Central has developed a payroll product specifically for Post-AI founders. The product allows them to focus on their core business without the burden of payroll management. Our system ensures that founders never have to deal with government compliance issues as Central takes care of all payroll compliance and state registrations.
Central's payroll system comes out-of-the-box with integrated HR functionality. There is no need for separate HR software. This integrated approach allows for more accuracy (less errors), more time savings (no need to move data from one system to another), more compliance automation (we just do things for you), and efficient scalability (as your business grows in revenue and complexity, you don’t need to grow headcount).
Central’s payroll system automates employee requests as well. For example, if an employee needs some information for their auto-loan, instead of pinging the founder – they can just ask Central and get all the information they need to do so.
Here is an example:
Conclusion
We think we have built something special for founders. Hundreds of Post-AI Founders are running their entire back-office on our software. If you want to go from doing thing to simply being done, then you might "get us" and we would love to talk to you!
Payroll
