The idea for Guideline came to Founder and CEO, Kevin Busque, out of necessity. Kevin previously co-founded another startup in the Bay Area, TaskRabbit, where he ran technology, and in the earliest days, HR.

To remain competitive in recruitment, Kevin set out to offer the team at TaskRabbit a 401(k), ultimately selecting a legacy provider. A few years later, after seeing that team members were not participating, he set out to find out why.. Kevin soon learned that the majority of younger team members didn’t understand the benefit - what it was, how it worked, how they should think about using it.

This led to a moment of clarity where Kevin realized that the confusion on the part of participants seemed intentional. Traditional 401(k) providers lack transparency and are structured with countless complicated fees that prohibit participants from understanding where their money is going, and who’s benefiting from their investment.

Kevin set out to find a new provider that had the structure and features he wanted for his team, but it didn’t exist, so he decided to build it from scratch. Thus, Guideline was born.