Traction cover image

Traction

From Side Hustle to Decacorn with Wade Foster, Zapier

Mar 21, 2022
22:06

On this episode of the Traction podcast, I welcome Wade Foster, Co-Founder & CEO at Zapier. This episode is moderated by Arjun Chopra, Partner at Floodgate VC..

 

Before he was Zapier’s CEO, Wade played saxophone in a blues and jazz quartet. Started as a side project in 2011, today Zapier boasts more than $100 million in revenue & more than 3 million users. All this with ONLY a $1.2 million seed round in 2012.

 

In this session, Wade shares his top secrets in taking Zapier from a side project to a unicorn on a bootstrapped budget.

 

Specifically, Wade shares:

0:16 - From playing the sax to dominating a market in SaaS

3:53 - The process of validating the idea, picking the first few apps to integrate, and getting to product market fit

7:30 - Initial product pricing and how it's evolved over time

10:15 - Philosophy around fundraising and budgeting

14:05 - Growing the team with no offices

17:11 - Zapier's go-to-market approach

20:24 - What Wade wishes he did less of, in hindsight

 

Learn more at https://tractionconf.io

Connect with Wade Foster: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster/

 

Learn more about Zapier at https://zapier.com/

 

This episode is brought to you by:

Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don’t get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI.

Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca 

Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com

 

 

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