No Figma. No Jira. No docs. How Gusto built a new product line with Claude Code | Eddie Kim (CTO)

Gusto CTO Eddie Kim and a team of four built a new AI product, Gusto Cofounder, from scratch in 10 weeks using Claude Code and a radical process that eliminated Figma, Jira, and documentation. The team relied on a two-tool agent stack, a "trash-can method" for product decisions, and a perma-Zoom setup to replace standups and retros, enabling a designer without engineering background to reach the 94th percentile in shipping code.

Eddie Kim is the co-founder and CTO of the payroll and HR platform Gusto, which just crossed $1 billion in revenue and serves more than 500,000 small businesses. Recently he did something most CTOs don’t: he went back to writing code. With three other engineers and one designer, Eddie built Gusto Cofounder, a net-new AI product, from zero code to a tier-one launch in 10 weeks. He walks through how that team actually worked, why they threw out nearly every process, and how anyone can copy the approach. Listen or watch on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts What you’ll learn: The trash-can method: how to write, review, and delete a full PR as a product decision instead of a planning doc The two-tool agent stack behind Gusto Cofounder The exact “perma-Zoom” setup that replaced standups, retros, and Slack threads for 10 weeks How a designer with no engineering background hit the 94th percentile for shipping code The eval-first workflow Eddie uses to fix real customer bugs with Claude Code How a non-technical leader can prototype an idea to win buy-in, then carry it all the way to production-quality code Brought to you by: Magic Patterns —Prototypes that look like your product Jira Product Discovery —Prioritize with insights, build with confidence In this episode, we cover: 00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8 Intro: five people, 10 weeks 02:38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=158s The origins of Cofounder 08:32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=512s Inside the 10-week build process 12:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=770s Building with no PMs 14:38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=878s The “trash can” method 17:15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=1035s The stack architecture 19:10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=1150s Shipping to production from day one 22:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=1323s How a designer became a top engineer 29:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=1745s Demo: Cofounder over text and Slack 31:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=1905s Demo: running a real payroll 36:26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=2186s Live coding with evals in Claude Code 39:39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=2379s Recap: prototype, small team, permission 43:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=2597s Lightning round 48:44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKBkUCaLa8&t=2924s Where to find Eddie and Cofounder Tools referenced: • Gusto Cofounder early access/waitlist : https://gusto.com/cofounder https://gusto.com/cofounder • Claude Code Anthropic : https://claude.ai/code https://claude.ai/code • Cloudflare Workers: https://workers.cloudflare.com/ https://workers.cloudflare.com/ • Vercel AI SDK: https://sdk.vercel.ai/ https://sdk.vercel.ai/ • DX engineering analytics : https://getdx.com/ https://getdx.com/ • Wispr Flow voice-to-text : https://wisprflow.ai https://wisprflow.ai • OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai/ https://openclaw.ai/ Other references: • Gusto the main product, “Gusto Classic” : https://gusto.com https://gusto.com • Mindbody referenced as customer data source : https://www.mindbodyonline.com/ https://www.mindbodyonline.com/ Where to find Eddie Kim: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edawerd/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/edawerd/ Where to find Claire Vo: ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email email protected /cdn-cgi/l/email-protection .