Contrarian takes on growth, hiring, and fundraising | Wade Foster (Co-founder & CEO at Zapier)

Wade Foster is the Co-founder & CEO at Zapier, a platform for building workflow automations without a developer. Zapier was started during 2011 in Columbia, Missouri, and by 2021, it was valued at $5b, having only raised $1.3m. Prior to founding Zapier, Wade had just two professional jobs, and had never managed or hired anyone. He worked as a PM on a web app used by 20k students, and as an Email Marketing Manager at Veterans United - a role that had a significant influence on Zapier’s eventual success. In today’s episode, we discuss: • The stories and thinking behind Zapier’s most unorthodox decisions • How Wade thinks about product market fit • How Zapier built their powerful distribution engine • The fascinating story of Veterans United, and its impact on Zapier • How Wade thinks about fundraising • Why Wade lives by “don’t hire ‘til it hurts” • Key lessons on people management Referenced: • Basecamp: https://basecamp.com/ • Bingo Card Creator: https://www.bingocardcreator.com • Bryan Helmig, Co-founder of Zapier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanhelmig • John Wooden quote: https://www.thewoodeneffect.com/be-quick-but-dont-hurry/ • Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com/ • Mike Knoop, Co-founder of Zapier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeknoop • Patrick Mckenzie, creator of Bingo Card Creator: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmckenzie/ • PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/ • Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ • SMBs: https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/SMB-small-and-medium-sized-business-or-small-and-midsized-business • Stripe: https://stripe.com/ • Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke: https://www.amazon.com.au/Thinking-Bets-Annie-Duke/dp/0735216355 • Tony Xu, CEO of DoorDash: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xutony/ • Twilio: https://www.twilio.com/ • Veterans United Home Loans: https://www.veteransunited.com/ • Zapier: https://zapier.com/ Where to find Brett Berson: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Where to find Wade Foster: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/wadefoster • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster Where to find First Round Capital: • Website: https://firstround.com/ • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ • Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround • Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital • This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Timestamps: [00:05:46] The fascinating story of Veterans United [00:06:55] Lessons from Veterans United [00:08:35] The most important things Zapier got right [00:10:13] How Zapier built their powerful distribution engine [00:16:56] Why Zapier didn't move to focusing on enterprise [00:19:06] How Wade thinks about product market fit [00:24:26] The role of skill vs luck in Zapier's success [00:26:23] What was hard about building Zapier [00:30:03] Key lessons on people management [00:32:35] Rule of thumb: "don't hire ‘til it hurts” [00:36:42] Zapier's #1 hiring mistake [00:42:50] How to test for scrappiness in the hiring process [00:44:31] Do hiring playbooks transfer between companies? [00:50:01] The 12 year evolution of Zapier's product [00:53:20] How Zapier makes product decisions [00:55:40] How Zapier thought about competition [01:00:11] How to foster intellectual honesty in yourself and your org [01:05:35] The people who most impacted Wade's worldviews