HRPS Founder Breaks Barriers for Himself and HR SaaS Businesses
HRPS Founder Breaks Barriers for Himself and HR SaaS Businesses
When David Rietsema accepted a job out of college with Target’s HR department, he had no intention of making HR his career, let alone starting an entire HR-related business. All he was focused on was chipping away at his thousands of dollars of student debt. But today, Rietsema is happy to see where his adaptability and resilience landed him. He is the proud founder and owner of a successful company called HR Payroll Systems. It connects HR professionals to the right human resource information system vendors, freeing up the time HR teams have to manage personnel for a healthy business.
Rietsema accidentally stumbled into the HR industry. In fact, he didn’t know exactly what HR was when he applied for a bilingual benefits representative position for Target’s HR call center in Minnesota. Once he started the job, it didn’t take long for him to realize that he enjoyed taking calls from team members around the country and breaking down language barriers to better understand and solve issues. His passion for HR grew as he rose up the ranks. He worked in a managerial position at the Target stores in Orlando, Florida while studying to receive an MBA with a focus in HR. Soon after graduation, he took a job as an HR Generalist at Remington College outside of Orlando. He became a manager and, eventually, vice president of HR.
It was while working at Remington College that Rietsema was tasked with finding a new HR software for the company. It turned out to be more challenging than expected.
“The process was overwhelming,” he said.
A heavy weight was being placed on him, but he also felt ill-equipped to find the perfect software. But Rietsema did his due diligence and sourced suitable software. Soon after he learned how to navigate the complicated HR software landscape, Rietsema started to sweat about his student loans. After getting his MBA, it seemed like his monthly payments were hardly making a dent. He needed a secondary income.
He thought back to his frustrations about choosing an HR software, knowing that other HR professionals faced similar struggles. Then, he thought, why not find a solution to both his student loan debt and the painstaking HR software selection process? In May of 2012, Rietsema and a partner created HR Payroll Systems. It began as a dedicated lead generation company.
Unfortunately, money didn’t flow in like Rietsema expected. At the end of 2012, the business was in debt and Rietsema had bought out his co-founder from the business. His friends started telling him to ditch the business and focus on his stable HR career. Looking at his bank accounts, Rietsema could see the logic behind their recommendations.
“But,” he said, “something just said keep going. I’m guessing it was the student loan debt, because that didn’t go away on its own.”
So, Rietsema forged on.
He continued to show up at his day job for a full day of work, and then went home to work on HRPS until he fell asleep. On weekends — and any other day he had off — he would be at his “office” at the local Starbucks in the Orlando area.
Eventually, he met Brett Shaffer, who had website and SEO experience and a drive to help Rietsema grow the business. Slowly, things started to turn around for the better. As HRPS’ visibility grew, it brought in $100 a month. Then $300. Then $1,000. In 2013, the business had a revenue of about $25,000. The business continued to grow steadily after that.
In 2014, Rietsema found that some partner vendors were willing to pay for phone-qualified leads, rather than web-based lead generation. He adapted the business to their needs and saw immediate success.
Rietsema said that throughout the process of starting and growing a business, he’s learned to be nimble and flexible. He had to be when he was alone, doing everything he could to get the business off the ground. Over time, he’s had to evolve to keep up with market changes. He says being nimble is one of the traits that sets their business apart from its competitors. That, and a personalized approach that makes HR Payroll Systems almost like a consultant.
“Our primary objective is to help HR professionals, so everything that we do is around that,” he said.
He said the main mission of HRPS was to elevate the HR department. He knows firsthand how time-consuming and headache-inducing software selection can be. HRPS guides HR professionals through the process so they don’t make costly mistakes. HRPS hand-selects the vendor matches for its customers, keeping the customers’ needs front of mind.
“We talk to the people, and we have the knowledge to identify which vendors would be a good fit for their companies,” he said.
Once again, Rietsema is breaking down barriers of understanding to help businesses thrive. Seeing where the business is today, Rietsema admits that it is still a little unbelievable.
“It started from nothing. It started with debt,” he said. “It was almost dead in the water, but I just pushed forward.”
Rietsema, who is happy to report that his student loans are now paid off, is also proud to see how the business has grown and changed. It might not be what he expected, but it has a healthy amount of the market share, with a lot of room to grow.
As technology changes and the upcoming generation of workers move into HR leadership positions, Rietsema has no worries that HRPS will be able to keep up. He said the business will continue to evolve, wherever that takes it.
Dave Rietsema is the founder and CEO of HR Payroll Systems, a company that helps HR professionals find the right HR and payroll software. Prior to starting the company, Dave spent several years working in HR at Target and Remington College in Orlando, Florida.
