Sam Ross, the co-founder and CEO of Numeral , came up with the idea for his sales tax compliance startup while traveling the world after having worked as a product manager at Airbnb.

“This was early 2018, where you didn’t have remote work like you do today,” he told TechCrunch in an interview. Direct-to-consumer businesses were a big trend then, so he supported his travel dreams by running several self-funded e-commerce brands from the road. He operated an online jewelry store and still maintains a vitamin DTC site.

While he loved the freedom his businesses offered, Ross (pictured above, left) was perpetually annoyed by the complex and bureaucratic process of handling sales tax on the merchandise he was selling.

Until 2018, e-commerce and SaaS (Software as a Service) companies didn’t

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