Many of us are using dozens of web apps on a daily or weekly basis for everything from sending emails to saving documents to managing contacts to assigning tasks to taking notes or so on. Most of these web apps don't automatically connect with each other unless they're using Zapier. The founders of Zapier realized back in 2011 when they started the company that the explosion in web apps would create this massive opportunity to connect hundreds of the most popular web apps to make us more productive and save us time. You can see all 750+ of the web apps currently connected through Zapier by [clicking here]. Zapier has 85 employees with no office or headquarters meaning every single person works remotely. The company went through Y-Combinator in the summer of 2012 and raised $1.3 million in late 2012. They have been cash flow positive since 2014 so they have not needed to raise any additional funding.

In this interview I spoke with Wade, co-founder of Zapier about his journey as an entrepreneur over the past 6 years, why did he start the company, what is their mission, how were they able to bootstrap in the beginning, why was he working full-time at another company and only working on Zapier at night, what was their experience with Y-Combinator, what has been their strategy for acquiring customers, how did they manage to build a profitable company so quickly, are they planning to raise more capital, why does Zapier not have any main office, what are the pros and cons of having a full distributed team, what advice can he share with the rest of us about building a profitable fast-growing company and much more.

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Thanks for listening. 

All of our interviews and episodes are available StartupSense.net

You can find me at JonahLupton.com or email me at [email protected]  

Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by Jool Media, SoundGuard, 10x3 Group, Parabolic Ventures and Inspired Futures Foundation.