Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by devoutsalsa » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

freeqaz wrote: post #214

TheSmiddy wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're clearly saying that Zapier is a positive for them.

Re-reading, you're definitely right. Where I got confused was the "Terraform/Heroku is bad because it adds another layer" but then not understanding why Zapier is better?

Creating a Zap that is hosted by Zapier isn’t just easier than hiring a programmer, it’s also operationally easier. Zapier’s team handled all the devops headaches. Yes, it could be more expensive than a budget developer, but I’d have to maintain an ongoing relationship to handle problems in a way I would not with Zapier. The headache isn’t worth it until you really need something so custom that Zapier couldn’t easily do it anyway. Hire a developer when you need one, and not before.

Regarding Terraform, installing it, learning HCL, understanding the state management, maintaining a place to run it, and learning how not to screw it up were all headaches I did not want.

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

#242

Post by slightwinder » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 9:50 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #103

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…

> This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy.

Everyone is lacking empathy, that is not limited to the profession. Empathy on most parts comes from your own experience and understanding, and everyones horizon of experience is limited.

> 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?

Which is strange, considering how many people watch sports. And most videogames are nothing else, just more focussed on mental skills than physical skills. But the main selling point of twitch is IMHO not people playing games, but the interaction twitch offers alongside this. Twitch in that regard is more like a sportsbar or a local sportsfield, where everyone meets, talks, interacts while some do stuff on the side.

The more buzzling part for me are youtube-videos of people playing stuff, because those are missing the interacting and it's just like watching a very poor movie with low production-value.

> 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.

Yes, it's a given that you need to understand the thinking and problems of customers if you wanna sell them something well. Just throwing stuff at them might work, but more efficient is to understand what they want and what they need, and then build and sell it specifically to the targeted customers.

Similar like in a game you need to understand the abilities and weaknesses of your enemy to slay them. That's why marketing and reasearch exist.

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

#243

Post by disiplus » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 9:52 AM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #162

cosmodisk wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly a US only thing, outside of it there are very few places where this would even be an option.

Sure but this company is headquartered and (mostly) founded in San Francisco. So... stock options from such a company would be standard as far as location go.

afaik zappier is mostly remote

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

#244

Post by rimiform » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 9:52 AM UTC

matthewheath wrote: post #218

ng12 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they're paying massive base salaries that sounds pretty low compared to RSUs at a big tech co or the yearly bonus in finance.

I don't know what qualifies as "massive base salaries" but most folks in Support (the team I worked on) were on around $70k+ USD base compensation. Profit sharing happened twice a year, but I don't remember it ever going above 10% of your six-monthly compensation rate (so effectively, you got 20% at most).

70k? In San Francisco? Big oof.

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

#245

Post by makeboss » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 12:26 PM UTC

herodoturtle wrote: post #240

tjbiddle wrote: post #165

I love Zapier and wish them the best. Been using them the past couple years to automate many things in my e-commerce business. That being said, I come from a software background (As many here at HN do), and I recently found "Integromat" and have completely switched over all my Zapier automations to them. Their price point is much cheaper (Zapier was beginning to charge a few hundred a month for me - and now I'm down…

With $5 billion valuation, am I alone in suspecting that it's now only a matter of time before Zapier acquires Integromat?

Too late. Celonis already acquired Integromat[1].

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/14/celonis-acquires-czech-sta...

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

#246

Post by RA_Fisher » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #156

bradlys wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once companies start paying $500k-1mil/yr liquid - fine. But as it stands, I make a lot of money off those "uncertain" lottery tickets and demand a lot of them wherever I go.

This is mostly a US only thing, outside of it there are very few places where this would even be an option.

It’s a very powerful way to align incentives. It results in a major reduction in political arguments and a major increase in productivity. It’s a long-term incentive, so it causes employees to take good risks for the customer even if they won’t be apparent today.

Stock is literal ownership and it eases “ownership problems” proportionate to the meaningfulness of the expected value of the stock to the employeee-owner. It’s a powerful tool for increasing teamwork.

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

#247

Post by cosmodisk » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

ralph84 wrote: post #167

cosmodisk wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was hiring locally in San Fran, maybe,but it's a fully remote company with many devs in places where things like stock options sound are as distant dream as $100K salary being on the low end of things. Europe is full of successful companies,albeit not necessarily with such valuations, where any stock distribution is unheard of.

> not necessarily with such valuations Well yes, if you remove the "unicorn" qualifier you can find lots of companies that don't give employees equity. In many European countries the tax treatment of stock-based compensation is quite unfavorable. Which is one of the reasons Europe doesn't have as many unicorns in the first place.

I think employee comp is pretty low on the list of contributing factors. It's more like because: 1) US is huge market. Any company starting there has a huge headstart compared to one in Netherlands or Poland.

2) European VC sector is almost 20 years behind to the one in the US.

3) American VCs are more like to throw more money at you in general. Many European startups don't even consider seeking capital in Europe, because why get 500K if you can get 2M across the pond for the same thing?

4) Europe doesn't have such a shortage of tech talent as the US, primarily because of the differences in educational systems/funding model, etc. So companies don't need to pay 300K/year to get someone who can do magic.

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

#248

Post by Hir0ki » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

rimiform wrote: post #244

matthewheath wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what qualifies as "massive base salaries" but most folks in Support (the team I worked on) were on around $70k+ USD base compensation. Profit sharing happened twice a year, but I don't remember it ever going above 10% of your six-monthly compensation rate (so effectively, you got 20% at most).

70k? In San Francisco? Big oof.

It's a remote first company so i don't think most people in the support team live in San Francisco. I don't think 70k for a support position is that bad.

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

#249

Post by specialist » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

ghiculescu wrote: post #124

bradlys wrote: post #16

Congrats to the founders for not taking much funding but for employees... this has to suck unless they get to sell their shares to Sequoia as well. (If they even got any options...) Maybe they don't compete for SV talent and most employees aren't used to even getting options as part of compensation. Is there a specific reason a company would have IPO in mind but wouldn't say they are looking to do an IPO eventually?…

Most people would prefer to be paid a good salary for doing good work, rather than uncertain lottery tickets and an obligation to understand how they work. I think most companies would prefer to operate this way, too.

Some of us want a fair share of the wealth we created.

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

#250

Post by marketingtech » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

dillondoyle wrote: post #222

marketingtech wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have 100k transactions or even landing page views per month, $599 is going to be the cheapest part of your advertising stack.

What?!?!?! first of all if you only have 100k pageviews a month you're probably not even making $599 from serving ads and second i don't understand what Zapier is supposed to accomplish in your mind? maybe you have been using it in a way I can't think of? from what I think you are talking about: is zapier supposed to like sit between website & like some SSP or DSP? during the bid!?!?! or just to like establish an aud…

It sounds like you're referring to the sell-side of advertising (i.e. a publisher running ads on their site).

I'm referring to the buy-side of advertising (i.e. an ecomm business running a marketing campaign). Each task could be "Tell Google that person 123 visited landing page X." or "Tell Facebook that person 456 purchased a tshirt." This lets you create targeting segments on the platforms and measure the results of your campaigns.