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:

Referenced:

Where to find Brett Berson

Where to find Wade Foster

Where to find First Round Capital:

Timestamps

(05:46) The fascinating story of Veterans United

(06:55) Lessons from Veterans United

(08:35) The most important things Zapier got right

(10:13) How Zapier built their powerful distribution engine

(16:56) Why Zapier didn't move to focusing on enterprise

(19:06) How Wade thinks about product market fit

(24:26) The role of skill vs luck in Zapier's success

(26:23) What was hard about building Zapier

(30:03) Key lessons on people management

(32:35) Rule of thumb: "don't hire ‘til it hurts”

(36:42) Zapier's #1 hiring mistake

(42:50) How to test for scrappiness in the hiring process

(44:31) Do hiring playbooks transfer between companies?

(50:01) The 12 year evolution of Zapier's product

(53:20) How Zapier makes product decisions

(55:40) How Zapier thought about competition

(60:11) How to foster intellectual honesty in yourself and your org

(65:35) The people who most impacted Wade's worldviews