Ep06: Zapier CEO Wade Foster Talks About Building A Company Remotely, Growth & More!

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Today’s guest is 26 year old Wade Foster, who is the Co-founder and CEO of Zapier, which is a tool that lets you easily connect web apps that you use.

Wade walks us through how the company started out as a remote team and how it has flourished by creating efficient internal processes. that We’ll also learn about how Wade eventually got into YCombinator after being rejected the first time and some user acquisition strategies that worked well for him.

Key Takeaways

• Use tools like Zapier to make your life easier by automating things. Wade uses Zapier to track mentions of Zapier and throw them into a Google Doc for outreach.
• Even if you get rejected, keep trying. They got accepted into YCombinator the second time.
• On managing a remote team
  • Be remote from the very beginning.
  • Wade shares the tools Zapier uses as a remote team. They use p2 for internal communication.
• On user acquisition:
  • They placed a bunch of links on different forums where people begged for integrations. Half the people would give their e-mail address. He dumped 5 links a day for 50 e-mail addresses a day.
  • The key is to be helpful. Don’t spam.
  • Everything eventually scales. Even customer service.
  • A lot of what they do is based on partnerships. It’s evergreen traffic.
• Recommended Book: 4 Steps To The Epiphany by Steve Blank