Wade Foster tells us how Zapier solves real cloud-to-cloud software integration problems
Today we get to chat with a startup founder who started in Missouri with just an idea. Wade Foster of Zapier, shares his startup story with us.
Before deciding exactly what to build, they setup landing pages for combinations of services they could support. This not only started ranking them for their keywords, but also helped find their audience and the most desired solutions for the to-be customers.
Zapier's real success is the incredible demand for solutions to existing problems. Common business data processes can be manual and expensive. Meanwhile an automation should exist but needs to be built. There are forum threads filled with conversations and potential customers needing an import / export function built for common services. Now you can explore all of the popular solutions.
Wade tells us some of the advantages of being a part of YCombinator include being close to the partnerships they needed with companies like Dropbox and Wufoo. He tells us how they applied to YC once and failed, plus what it takes to succeed as an applicant. After six months and nearly 1,000 paying customers later, including other YC companies, Zapier showed traction solving a real problem.
We chat about the space of web services and how by connecting and automating them, we can make work easier and more fun. Web services like Gmail, Dropbox, Mailchimp, Trello, Basecamp and others are simplifying digital collaboration. Entrepreneurs and startups should be wise of the best tools and workflows available.
Wade met his co founders through a prior shared interest in music. Passion and hard work seem to have driven their success.
Amul asks about customer growth and the companies strategy going forward. Zapier now has a developer platform to assist getting new services on board. They continue to iterate on their funnel to capture more user and convert them into paying customers. Wade tells us how they continue to make it easier to setup Zap's and measure the time it takes so they can shorten. They also segment and email tips and tricks to their users depending on their site usage, which they've open sourced as django-drip.
Thanks to Wade for showing us how we can all use Zapier to make our lives and startups better.
Zapier https://zapier.com/
Before deciding exactly what to build, they setup landing pages for combinations of services they could support. This not only started ranking them for their keywords, but also helped find their audience and the most desired solutions for the to-be customers.
Zapier's real success is the incredible demand for solutions to existing problems. Common business data processes can be manual and expensive. Meanwhile an automation should exist but needs to be built. There are forum threads filled with conversations and potential customers needing an import / export function built for common services. Now you can explore all of the popular solutions.
Wade tells us some of the advantages of being a part of YCombinator include being close to the partnerships they needed with companies like Dropbox and Wufoo. He tells us how they applied to YC once and failed, plus what it takes to succeed as an applicant. After six months and nearly 1,000 paying customers later, including other YC companies, Zapier showed traction solving a real problem.
We chat about the space of web services and how by connecting and automating them, we can make work easier and more fun. Web services like Gmail, Dropbox, Mailchimp, Trello, Basecamp and others are simplifying digital collaboration. Entrepreneurs and startups should be wise of the best tools and workflows available.
Wade met his co founders through a prior shared interest in music. Passion and hard work seem to have driven their success.
Amul asks about customer growth and the companies strategy going forward. Zapier now has a developer platform to assist getting new services on board. They continue to iterate on their funnel to capture more user and convert them into paying customers. Wade tells us how they continue to make it easier to setup Zap's and measure the time it takes so they can shorten. They also segment and email tips and tricks to their users depending on their site usage, which they've open sourced as django-drip.
Thanks to Wade for showing us how we can all use Zapier to make our lives and startups better.
Zapier https://zapier.com/