In this episode of The Bear Roars, Dan Caruso sits down with Mike Wussow and Alina Nisenzon — the husband-and-wife team behind Poppins Payroll, a household payroll platform born from their own parenting frustrations.
Mike and Alina share how a simple need to legally pay their nanny exposed a broken system — one that forced families into small-business-level compliance just to hire care help. What began as a side project quickly evolved into a nationwide solution, built from their living room while both maintained demanding careers. They walk through the realities of creating a tech-enabled service business from scratch, the 60-hour tax maze that inspired their mission, and how their legal backgrounds unexpectedly became their superpower.
As COVID upended work and family life, Poppins found itself at the center of a new wave of household employment — tripling its user base as families sought reliable, compliant payroll tools. Mike and Alina reflect on scaling through that surge, maintaining white-glove customer service in a high-trust category, and building a culture that prized integrity as much as innovation.
This conversation was recorded a year ago, just before that pivotal investment — and we’re thrilled to finally share the full story of how persistence, partnership, and purpose turned a household headache into a national success story.
Learn more about Poppins Payroll: poppinspayroll.com
Order Dan’s Book – Bandwidth: The Untold Story of Ambition, Deception, and Innovation that Shaped the Internet Age and Dot-Com Boom: dan-caruso.com/book
To nominate a founder or yourself as a future guest speaker, email: contact@loudbearproductions.com