Bryan Helmig

With almost all services going digital, remote working has become a big part of our lives. Even in India, we are seeing a lot of new tech companies giving their employees the option to work from home on a regular basis. However, it is difficult to integrate all these employees and build a cohesive team. Well, that is where companies like Zapier come into the picture. This global remote company allows users to integrate all the applications they need from the comfort of their homes. Therefore, large companies get to bring all the web applications they need under one umbrella for easy and comfortable use. Here’s the story of how Zapier grew from being a small side hustle to a multi-million-dollar company employing over 250 employees from more than 23 countries around the world.

Founding Zapier

Zapier began in Missouri as a collaboration between friends Wade Foster, Bryan Helmig, and Mike Knoop. The idea for such a platform came while the trio was participating in the first Startup Weekend Columbia, way back in 2011. After their initial submission for the Winter funding cycle got rejected, they built a prototype which brought together 25 apps. This prototype was then accepted by Y Combinator, which is a startup accelerator. Follow this, the company shifted its base to California and in October of 2012, they received funding worth $1.3 million from investors such as Bessemer Venture. The company then grew at a rapid pace and became profitable by 2014.

Setting Up the Ground Rules

Right after winning Startup Weekend, the trio decided to pursue Zapier as a side hustle, opting to work on it only during their free time, such as nights and weekends. However, when they got picked up by Combinator, they decided to see it as a full-time project. The biggest challenge they faced while expanding was establishing its ground rules. Since they were a remote working company, the employees rarely met, and hence communication was key. When the CEOs sleep, most of their employees who are on the other side of the world, are waking up to start their day. Hence, the company had to implement some ground rules so that everyone stayed on the same page. The company utilizes Slack to maintain communication channels with their employees. They also have policies wherein every week pairs are matched for a video chat to build better employee relationships. By saving money in the form of rent, they host semi-annual retreats to get everyone under the same roof.

Growth and Success

Zapier’s success didn’t start in Silicon Valley, but in a college, hackathon based out of Missouri. Since then it has grown to become one of the world’s largest SaaS service providers, with over 1.5 million users. The trio grew from being full-time students and employees to co-founders of one of the US’s biggest companies. The main lesson here, as per Brian is to allow yourself to commit to your passion project, the way those three did. Furthermore, the co-founder states that the company never wanted to be a remote working one, but became one by pure coincidence. After winning Combinator, Mike was traveling back and forth to be with his girlfriend. This enabled him to see just how useful remote working is. So, when the time arose for them to scale their operations, the founders decided to try out remote working employees. Their success wasn’t easy, and they faced a lot of competition and struggles along the way.

Furthermore, Zapier is one of the few companies that have gotten by with just one round of funding. This is of course without counting their bootstrapping, which helped them raise $1.2 million in 2012. Eight years later, they have no office space but employ over 200 employees from all around the world. The company saves a lot from doing so, with their CFO estimating that they save $2 million a year thanks to this innovative approach. In under five years, starting from 2012, the team had surely yet slowly grown into a team of over 100 professionals. The company’s policy is to hire when they feel they are running short on people. The weekly one-on-one culture helps the higher-ups understand if anyone is feeling overworked and burnt out. Since hiring is restricted to mission objectives, their main priority is a skill, and this helps them access some of the best people out there.

All these policies have helped them grow exponentially, with the Zapier suite now containing over 800 apps. All of this has been without the help of even a basic sales team. Rather than invest money acquiring customers, the company believes in spending money serving their customers better. The company turned profitable for the first time in 2014, and have now had 6 profitable years. They have since gone on to make over $35 Million dollars in annual revenue.