Wade Foster

Foster grew up in Jefferson City, Missouri, graduated from Jefferson City High School in 2005 and went on to study industrial engineering at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). He had a summer internship at Idea Works, a software company in Columbia, and later worked at Veterans United Home Loans.⁠[1]

Zapier began in 2011 as a side project of three friends from Missouri, with Foster, Bryan Helmig and Mike Knoop as co-founders.⁠[2][1]

The team built a prototype and won Startup Weekend Columbia, followed by a private beta in November; Foster quit his job in December, Helmig in April 2012 and Knoop in May 2012, and a public beta launched in May 2012. After being accepted to Y Combinator, the three moved to Mountain View, California, in May 2012, living for about two and a half months in a two-bedroom apartment; Zapier supported more than 60 apps at launch. Foster described it as an “easy way for non-developers to get integrations between all their SaaS applications.”⁠[3]

As of March 2020 Zapier had about 300 employees, all working remotely; Foster estimated they were spread across about 27 countries and roughly 35 US states, with two-thirds in the United States.⁠[2]

In January 2021 Sequoia CapitalSequoia CapitalSequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, investing from the seed stage through the growth stage. Its historical investments include Apple, Cisco, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and Stripe; in 2021 it introduced the Sequoia Capital Fund structure, which can continue to hold public securities, and in 2023 its regional businesses became independent brands and partnerships.Open the full entry and Steadfast Financial bought shares from some of Zapier’s original investors at a $5 billion valuation; the company raised no new money in the deal, and the founders did not sell. Zapier had raised only $1.3 million in venture capital, had been profitable for years, and reached $100 million in annualized recurring revenue in summer 2020, passing $140 million by March 2021.⁠[4]

“We've never felt like our balance sheet has been the thing that was holding us back from reaching our goal,” Foster said.⁠[4]

On December 10, 2024, Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry published “How Zapier Became Profitable in 3 Years and Scaled to $5B with Wade Foster,” an episode of My First Sixteen, the a16z series in which partner Seema Amble talks with B2B founders and chief executives about the first 16 big customers that helped them go to market. Foster discussed Zapier’s origin story, its initial product idea, product-market fit and Y Combinator, finding early customers and choosing which services to integrate, optimizing onboarding, scalable customer acquisition and a self-serve product, early pricing experiments and brand evolution, early hiring, and how a product-led growth strategy brought Zapier to profitability within three years.⁠[5]

The video was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on December 11, 2024.⁠[6]

Zapier states that it has been working remotely since day one and has more than 800 people across 38 countries.⁠[7]

Zapier: Official website: https://zapier.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]