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Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

georgesequeira.com

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Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#31

Post by kfk »

andybak wrote: post #13
kfk wrote: post #3

UI based flows for integrations are as bad as UI based flows for ETL. For some reason, we managed to move past UI to code for ETL, but now we are taking the exact same path for integrations. Integrations are complex, you might have complex requirements, polling and pushing needs depending on the applications, fast lookups needs, legacy IT solutions that hold critical data. I don't think we are ready to go full UI in…

How about catering to non-programmers?

There is a space for that for sure, but when things get serious, the programming bit is 10% of the capability, domain knowledge, data expertise and SQL become more relevant. Those skills are not fulfilled with UI tools. Sometimes in fact UI tools make the skill gap bigger because new hires might know SQL, but for sure don't know your expensive proprietary tool of choice.

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#32

Post by tomatowurst »

kfk wrote: post #3

UI based flows for integrations are as bad as UI based flows for ETL. For some reason, we managed to move past UI to code for ETL, but now we are taking the exact same path for integrations. Integrations are complex, you might have complex requirements, polling and pushing needs depending on the applications, fast lookups needs, legacy IT solutions that hold critical data. I don't think we are ready to go full UI in…

Depends where those UIs are on. If you have some sort of agreement set in place where they won't update the interface, then this is very much possible.

If it is relying on an 3rd party platform that you can't control and not know when UI changes are coming, then it can be bad for criticality.

However, I fail to know how urgent criticality is in ETL space, especially when UI changes can be as simple as "theres a new button" or "margin on form changed". The key process features and UI related to it would rarely change.

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#33

Post by crisnoble »

alberth wrote: post #21

What do you use Zapier for? I feel like I live in a cave. Over the past 10+ years, I’ve yet to understand what use cases people use for things like IFTTT/Zapier/etc. I clearly must for alone I’m not understanding. Can someone please help me understand their specific use case. I’m genuinely curious.

I am a software developer, have a paid professional plan, and am almost out of my "zaps".

Here are a two of my favorites:

* Non profit community organization wants to sell event tickets. Paypal Order -> Add row to spreadsheet for simple reporting -> Add/Update user in mailchimp with a tag so they don't get future emails asking to buy tickets again.

* Small client wants a gated webinar signup. Wordpress Contact Form -> Zapier Endpoint POST -> Add user to Zoom Registration -> Add/Update to mailchimp with a source tag -> Add row in spreadsheet

Could these be done without zapier? Sure. But using zapier we can create that within 30 minutes without a server, or even dealing with serverless. Even if someone had those workflows as a one click install for lambda workflow, I would rather use zapier than deal with any AWS overhead.

To everyone who thinks that "a webform to google docs" is the most common use case you are probably right. If you think that you could create the infrastructure to do that consistently with automatic retries, logging, error handling, keep on top of API changes from both ends, across dozens of clients, proper authorization and secret management, for cheaper than $50/month, then you are kidding yourself.

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#34

Post by ngz00 »

supersync wrote: post #5
kfk wrote: post #3

UI based flows for integrations are as bad as UI based flows for ETL. For some reason, we managed to move past UI to code for ETL, but now we are taking the exact same path for integrations. Integrations are complex, you might have complex requirements, polling and pushing needs depending on the applications, fast lookups needs, legacy IT solutions that hold critical data. I don't think we are ready to go full UI in…

Check out Make, n8n, workflow86 Agree that coded integrations are still very relevant, but the addressable surface for UI is pretty large now.

Is there any open source, embeddable alternatives or frameworks? I've got an ETL DSL that is fully serializable and I've been looking to create a UI tool for it.

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#35

Post by crisnoble »

tucaz wrote: post #10
dnndev wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the kind of comment I was hoping to see. May I ask, what kinds of things are you using zapier for that are not just nice to haves. Something that you would say it pays for itself (increases revenue somehow)

I would love to get an answer to this question as well. I keep comings back to Zapier and the likes hoping I will find a useful use case but can’t. It seems that all it does is add stuff from email marketing forms to Google spreadsheets.

Even if that was literally all it could do, it would easily be worth $50/month for marketing teams.

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#36

Post by georgesequeira »

1minusp wrote: post #23

How is this different than workflow automation (for non-developers) solutions? Or is the takeaway that any workflow automation is ripe for unbundling?

I think it's two things

Is the workflow automation tool big enough that subgroups of users are still a big number of users to service

Of those subgroups, does one (or more) stand to have a better product experience if someone focused on their core use-cases / workflows. (e.g. Reclaim takes a bunch of calendar automation around scheduling and makes a product that reduces the work needed to optimize your calendar).

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#37

Post by howmayiannoyyou »

Zapier is vulnerable to disruption both ends of the dev/integration chain (code/no-code), and they have been for some time. Their primary edge (IMHO) is a huge ecosystem of integrations unmatched by their competition. I don't see that edge persisting. It won't be long before OpenAI-esque UI's can generate no/low code integrations and as you'll see below there is plenty of conventional competition.

They've had adequate funds and time to implement bulk actions, interface improvements and ecosystem enhancements that would benefit users, but not much has emerged. I use Zapier and some of the providers below as alternatives:

Integromat

Pipedream

Mulesoft

Jitterbit

Built.io

Workato

JBoss

Celigo

Parabola.io

Integrate.io

IFTT

CloudHQ

MixMax

Regardless, as a private company they're really only beholden to their owners, and they generate enough revenue (and presumably NET profit) that one could imagine ownership perhaps confusing focus for what might (or might not) actually be arrogance.

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#38

Post by Forgeties79 »

cm2012 wrote: post #4

Zapier is a god send for the non developer portions of a company. I work in marketing. Marketing projects are inherently speculative, you don't know what they will achieve until they're done. Add to this that dev teams at every company have full sprints planned for months. Getting a marketing project done through the dev team is months of exertion and sweat. Or... get Zapier approved by security, get platforms plugge…

I should look into more features with it. Right now I mainly use it to link my Slack and GitHub presence. Very very useful since I get all sorts of notes from folks on both platforms. It's been critical to avoid having things fall through the cracks. I keep a special private slack channel that has slackbot message me whenever someone pings me on GH and lays out all the relevant info.

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#39

Post by Forgeties79 »

tomatowurst wrote: post #29
alberth wrote: post #21

What do you use Zapier for? I feel like I live in a cave. Over the past 10+ years, I’ve yet to understand what use cases people use for things like IFTTT/Zapier/etc. I clearly must for alone I’m not understanding. Can someone please help me understand their specific use case. I’m genuinely curious.

if you have to ask you are not in the need to know, this is an automation tool for non-developers at various organizations

>if you have to ask you are not in the need to know

Does it really need to be said that we don't all know about every program/service available to us that we could use, and thus could occasionally use someone telling us about them?

Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity

#40

Post by TameAntelope »

Reddit is the B2C version of Zapier here. It's ripe for unbundling. You're safe from Reddit itself because historically they've moved very slowly for some reason (though marginally faster, lately), and you're safe from the big players (Google, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok) because of Reddit's reputation for going after a (now) older, "savvy" customer base that is hard to monetize.
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