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Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

forbes.com

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Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#101

Post by pmart123 »

hooande wrote: post #95
djrogers wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not surprised that people on a developer focused forum would find little to no value in something that enables automation without programming. Y’all can probably automate interactions with hundreds of web based services in your sleep, using multiple languages, with unit tests, and a Turing complete ML-based proxy server for high availability. For the rest of us, Zapier is a little like magic. Granted there are ot…

why wouldn't someone just hire a developer to do this? My understanding is that the market for contractors is oversaturated right now. You could probably pay someone hundreds of dollars to write software that interacts with web services etc if you look hard enough Like the grandparent comment, it's hard for me to imagine that there are enough people in need of this service to justify a $5B valuation

BC you have to maintain the code then. Also, a non-engineering team member can quickly get an integration they need done without waiting for a developer.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#103

Post by narrator »

superbcarrot wrote: post #29

Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. Like if you showed me the wikipedia page for Zapier and asked me give it some value, I would be way off. Or if you pitched the business idea to me, I would tell you do something better with your time.

>Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business.

This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy. Zapier lets non-programmers, the vast majority of the planet, do things that programmers do. Many programmers have poor empathy and thus make bad salespeople and investors. If you can understand how most of the planet thinks and feels though, you can figure out what is going to work and what isn't.

Twitch.tv is something that amazed me that it became so big. I don't really play video games. Who would spend hours watching people play video games? I couldn't understand this phenomenon because I was limiting my exposure to people only inside my own little bubble of reality. I think one can't be a good investor without constantly developing ones empathy because the appeal of various things is difficult to grasp intuitively without a person who would be the customer in mind.

Personally, I think it's important to spend time with people one has nothing in common with to develop this broader empathy and thus be able to pick up on these trends.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#104

Post by Silhouette »

hooande wrote: post #95
djrogers wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not surprised that people on a developer focused forum would find little to no value in something that enables automation without programming. Y’all can probably automate interactions with hundreds of web based services in your sleep, using multiple languages, with unit tests, and a Turing complete ML-based proxy server for high availability. For the rest of us, Zapier is a little like magic. Granted there are ot…

why wouldn't someone just hire a developer to do this? My understanding is that the market for contractors is oversaturated right now. You could probably pay someone hundreds of dollars to write software that interacts with web services etc if you look hard enough Like the grandparent comment, it's hard for me to imagine that there are enough people in need of this service to justify a $5B valuation

why wouldn't someone just hire a developer to do this?

Because developers are relatively expensive.

Because hiring anyone requires identifying someone who can do the job and trusting them to do it well. And even before that, you have to figure out what the job actually is.

Because hiring anyone requires some sort of contract, and that has legal implications that might require approvals etc.

As a developer with the required knowledge and skills, these services offer little value to me, but I'm not their target customer. That knowledge and those skills are the result of decades of study and practice, which is experience that most people don't have, and for all of those people the cost/benefit comparisons are going to look completely different.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#105

Post by matthewheath »

sjg007 wrote: post #64
_jxdz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe only a few of the original Zapier folks have options (I don't hold any myself, for example but I joined when they were around 70 people).

So without options, why did you join?

I'm in the UK where options as part of job compensation are relatively rare. I joined as a contractor originally so wouldn't have been entitled to them regardless, but also they're a US company and only recently (1 year ago) set up a UK entity (I don't have options in that either) so I wasn't surprised to not get any.

I don't fully understand options, admittedly. I joined because I love their product, and I needed a better paying job than the one I had originally. Plus, the culture was pretty amazing at the time I joined! I left because they didn't pay me enough in the end plus cultural issues :P so I've got a new job paying more with a culture I prefer.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#106

Post by tin7in »

hooande wrote: post #95
djrogers wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not surprised that people on a developer focused forum would find little to no value in something that enables automation without programming. Y’all can probably automate interactions with hundreds of web based services in your sleep, using multiple languages, with unit tests, and a Turing complete ML-based proxy server for high availability. For the rest of us, Zapier is a little like magic. Granted there are ot…

why wouldn't someone just hire a developer to do this? My understanding is that the market for contractors is oversaturated right now. You could probably pay someone hundreds of dollars to write software that interacts with web services etc if you look hard enough Like the grandparent comment, it's hard for me to imagine that there are enough people in need of this service to justify a $5B valuation

Because people want to click and get it done without dealing with hiring someone else. Tasks that need to be automated could be also very small and not worth the effort of hiring contractors.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#107

Post by _jxdz »

ralph84 wrote: post #98
_jxdz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe only a few of the original Zapier folks have options (I don't hold any myself, for example but I joined when they were around 70 people).

Wow, this should be the headline. Bootstrapped unicorns are somewhat rare. But bootstrapped unicorns with no employee equity is a whole other level.

To be fair to them, they do a pretty decent profit share every year. It is compensation based, so it's nothing life-changing (only say, 5-10% of your total compensation) but it was nice!

First and only place I've ever participated in profit sharing.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#109

Post by chii »

valzam wrote: post #74
throwawayyipyip wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to some extent it is. You can argue both ways, and in Zapier's case, I'd say it's overvalued as the 10-15 range assumes obtaining a monopoly. I don't see how Zapier will do that since there's also IFTTT and other services I've tried. With that said, consider huge successes like Amazon. Huge successes like Amazon have been generating much more profit compared to what they were projected to earn in 2010 [1]. I pi…

However, Amazon never pays dividends. And you probably cannot really vote on anything with your stock either. So what's the point? There is an interesting article about Facebook with a similar opinion. Zuck owns the majority vote and they never pay dividends. What's the point of owning the stock?

> What's the point of owning the stock?

to sell for capital gains when it is higher in the future. Dividends aren't the only way to generate a profit. And for a lot of high income earners, dividends are very tax inefficient as well.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#110

Post by namuol »

hooande wrote: post #95
djrogers wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not surprised that people on a developer focused forum would find little to no value in something that enables automation without programming. Y’all can probably automate interactions with hundreds of web based services in your sleep, using multiple languages, with unit tests, and a Turing complete ML-based proxy server for high availability. For the rest of us, Zapier is a little like magic. Granted there are ot…

why wouldn't someone just hire a developer to do this? My understanding is that the market for contractors is oversaturated right now. You could probably pay someone hundreds of dollars to write software that interacts with web services etc if you look hard enough Like the grandparent comment, it's hard for me to imagine that there are enough people in need of this service to justify a $5B valuation

Developers are ridiculously expensive and comparatively slow for many tasks.
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