We moved to Discord and most apps only support Slack (looking at you, Datadog and Github!). Zapier has saved us in a couple cases from having to go back to Slack.
Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
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Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#92Has the author just not heard of Jitterbit or Mulesoft? Tangential rant - I feel like there is this group of 20-somethings that just assume that because they haven't heard of companies like SAP, Oracle, etc. that they just dismiss them as being dumb and boring and then when they analyze a problem space. Yet have no idea how a company like P&G operates at a global scale (hint - they use software like SAP). Jitterbit a…
Don't forget Microsoft Power Automate (and Logic Apps). For anyone in the 365 ecosystem these become the default, and yet I never seem to see them mentioned alongside the more start-uppy stuff like Zapier and Imtegromat.
Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
> get Zapier approved by security How do you manage this when marketing relies on PII to do anything? We just went through a switch over to a multi-channel messaging SaaS from an internal solution that "worked" for 6 years. Handling the PII aspect of things was taken care of by the SaaS being SOC 2 and GDPR compliant, but something like Zapier seems like it gives users the control to move PII into systems that don't…
Long story short, you don't . No competent security organization taking their responsibilities seriously is going to issue a blanket approval of something as broad as Zapier. What you can do is get an enterprise relationship in place, deploy tight endpoint monitoring and management, careful management of permissions at every level, and then make the review processes relatively fast. Not marketing-wants-to-build-a-who…
Yep, in small companies you get carte blanche, and there are two kinds of big companies. Those that make it work with a process like the above comment (which looks like a great and reasonable set-up), and those that kneecap their marketing departments by rejecting the tools needed for modern marketing.
As a side note, I've worked with 60+ startups. One thing that kills start-ups whenever it happens is giving too much power too early to the "default to no" departments of a company - security, legal, brand.
Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a Marketing Ops guy, this gives me pause. > nice and tidy. And then the marketers can do what they need in the platform, and they're able to iterate and learn at a much faster pace. It changes the whole game. The reality is, marketers will frequently plug in any and every thing they can without thinking about the broader context. Sure you can plug all this stuff together, or you can spend a bit of time with ETL an…
>or you can spend a bit of time with ETL and rETL tools and develop a stack that isn't reliant on a bunch of third party silos This is the real future of 'unbundling'. I love reading this article because while it sets up the problem and solution proposition quite well, all I could think of was how the author is proving reverse-ETL engines (& not their own platform) are the best investment right now.
At the end of the day, most business owners don't want to connect all these tools together. It just allows them to accomplish business outcomes. What makes their job hard is keeping track where all the data is and how to know if things are working.
Solutions to that problem can take shape as a CRM (and keeping it updated) or something as dumb as a dashboard of dashboards.
Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
>or you can spend a bit of time with ETL and rETL tools and develop a stack that isn't reliant on a bunch of third party silos This is the real future of 'unbundling'. I love reading this article because while it sets up the problem and solution proposition quite well, all I could think of was how the author is proving reverse-ETL engines (& not their own platform) are the best investment right now.
At the end of the day, most business owners don't want to connect all these tools together. It just allows them to accomplish business outcomes. What makes their job hard is keeping track where all the data is and how to know if things are working. Solutions to that problem can take shape as a CRM (and keeping it updated) or something as dumb as a dashboard of dashboards.
Agreed. It's a common trap of technologist thinking: if we gave people better access to primatives, they'd have more power to assemble what they wanted!
In fact, it's "assembling" that most people hate. Which is why products that sacrifice power to limit assembly tend to be successful.
Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#96The article describes an idea that there are startup opportunities to be found by identifying horizontal platforms (e.g. Craigslist) that cover a lot of ground and build something that handles just one use case (e.g. job posts) covered by that platform. The article calls it "unbundling". A while ago I was involved in a startup that attempted to compete with a dominant horizontal platform in this manner (Craigslist, i…
I think the canonical example of 'unbundling' is every startup that does a thing that could be done via Excel and streamlining the experience around one use-case: time tracking for freelancers, inventory management, etc. I hear there's been a bunch of money made around making SaaS out of things that used to be done in Excel sheets.
Totally, outside of people trying to make a "smarter" excel like Airtable or Rows, different business units will make some "template" that lets them run their orgs in excel. Those "templates" could certainly be better products.
Packy talks more about how this is also a platform being unbundled: https://www.notboring.co/p/excel-never-dies?s=r
Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#97Zapier has a large moat.
I would like to think anything you can bring to the table to compete or add value (maybe flow-based logic rules or inclusion of serverless script-level transforms similar to pipedream) could be cherry picked and added onto zapier with little stress. I'll add that it is relatively trivial to wire your own serverless function into zapier to this end. One thing lacking from the article as a niche proper webhook management (ie hookdeck).
There are many industry-niche api-interchange products out there... many predating Zapier and remaining the defacto in that industry. Think logistics, ERP and finance systems.
As much of a case that can be made for unbundling - I don't think such can be said for zapier and the breadth of moat they've created. Zapier integrations on a given SaaS usually don't hold a candle to native/direct, but they are certainly universal.
I'm very curious to hear a concrete example of a segment/industry and how it could be "unbundled", but unfortunately there is none in the article.
SOC/PCI compliance? Remember Microsoft Flow (now called Microsoft Power Automate)? Hundreds of connectors and deep integration into azure/microsoft platform... all underwritten and stamped by Microsoft's level of enterprise.
Looking at that ARR growth curve, they've certainly demonstrated the value of wide integration over deep/niche integrations.
The only argument to be made here for market displacement is that a cheaper alternative would come about offered as a loss leader by big tech, or an open data interchange standard/paradigm could come abound and disrupt the necessity of this.
Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#98Earlier 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)
Facebook and LinkedIn leads ads to Marketo/Hubspot/Salesforce, Facebook Conversion API from Salesforce to FB are vital connections for B2B companies.
Would love to hear more about your experience with these platforms. Thought they were mostly plug-n-play these days. Could I email you?
Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#99Are they in direct or indirect competition with IFTTT and also Microsoft PowerAutomate... How much space is in the industry for these no-code automation tools?
Re: Zapier: A $5B Unbundling Opportunity
#100Zapier has a large moat. I would like to think anything you can bring to the table to compete or add value (maybe flow-based logic rules or inclusion of serverless script-level transforms similar to pipedream) could be cherry picked and added onto zapier with little stress. I'll add that it is relatively trivial to wire your own serverless function into zapier to this end. One thing lacking from the article as a nich…
`I'm very curious to hear a concrete example of a segment/industry and how it could be "unbundled", but unfortunately, there is none in the article.`
Alloy Automation is making a better Zapier for E-commerce: https://runalloy.com/
Anvyl is making a better Zapier for supply chain: https://anvyl.com/
That being said. I think that you're right! Trying to just take workflows (or zaps) from Zapier is not going to be the best move. These companies have focused on their verticals and started building a product where automation is a feature, not a product. Anvyl for example is a pane-of-glass for supply-chains orders/parts/sourcing along with automation to supplement the experience. I believe Alloy is trying to become an E-commerce CRM. Their wedge has been enabling some tricky workflows that aren't well supported in Zapier.