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Wade Foster

Co-founder & CEO, Zapier · 2 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveinvestorhost@wadefoster ↗LinkedIn ↗zapier.com ↗

Foster co-founded Zapier in 2011 alongside Bryan Helmig and Mike Knoop, leading the company in workflow automation. He bootstrapped the company to profitability on $1.4 million in outside funding while scaling it into a fully remote business valued at $5 billion.

25statements → 16claims → 9claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 4.04/5average certainty → 1.24/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 16said about them ↓

9 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 7 not checkable as stated how the 16 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

16 assertions · 1 opinion · 5 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 16 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 9 are resolved, and 7 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Wade argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier has grown profitably on customer revenue since 2012 $1M seed
“We did do a small round when we were first getting started, so we went through Y Combinator and then raised I mean, what today is a modest seed round, about a million dollars in September, twenty-twelve. But since then, we've grown profitably and on customer r…”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 6:32 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
100% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Wade Foster on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Wade Foster said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Foster: Remote Work Strips Away Superficial In-Office Management Illusions
“So I actually think that that when you're in a remote environment kind of strips away all of the like ornaments of being in an office where you kind of kid yourself that you're doing a good job at management where you're like, Oh, I see him sitting there. I sm…”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 13:53 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier has grown profitably on customer revenue since 2012 $1M seed
“We did do a small round when we were first getting started, so we went through Y Combinator and then raised I mean, what today is a modest seed round, about a million dollars in September, twenty-twelve. But since then, we've grown profitably and on customer r…”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 6:32 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier passed $50 million in ARR
“We passed fifty million.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 1:46 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Foster: Zapier customers almost never churn to enterprise tools like MuleSoft
“And very rarely, I can't even think of a time when someone said, you know, I'm stopping using Zapier. I'm going to go start using something like a MuleSoft.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 3:08 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Foster: Zapier has over 100,000 paying customers
“We have over a 100,000 paying customers today.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 4:47 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier has raised right at $1 million in capital
“Right at a million.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 9:20 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Opinion
Foster: Y Combinator continues to add value to Zapier at scale
“We went through YC, a big stakeholder for us, one of the larger stakeholders for us, and they continue to just provide a lot of useful value, even at the stage that we're at.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 9:38 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier has 60,000 paying customers
“The latest public numbers we've shared is 60,000 customers using Zapier.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 8:01 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier has over two million users on the platform
“We've got over two million users on the platform.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 8:10 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Insight
Foster: Great SMB SaaS Companies Maintain 3% to 4% Monthly Churn
“Monthly is average for like a great small business. You're probably in like that three to four percent range.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 12:03 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Foster: Zapier Achieves Net Negative Revenue Churn Year Over Year
“Yep. Right at it.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 12:41 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Disclosure
Foster: Zapier reached its massive scale using zero paid marketing
“So, today, no. We're getting ready to start experimenting with it, though.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 20:06 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier passed $20M ARR as of May 2017
“We announced in May we passed twenty million ARR.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 23:41 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Foster: Zapier has broad Fortune 500 usage through bottoms-up adoption
“We do have customers across a Fortune 500 broadly, so we have lots of enterprise usage, but it's very much a bottom-up, bottoms-up product-driven sale.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 2:14 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Foster: Zapier's average revenue per user exceeds $20 monthly
“Yeah, we've raised it quite a bit. So we're doing a little better than that, but in the ballpark.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 4:05 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Insight
Foster: Users do not join Zapier for internal utilities, but retain for them
“Users don't come to Zapier for these things, But they stick around for them, which are things like our filters, our formatter, our code steps, our delay steps, our scheduler, our email parser.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 6:58 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Disclosure
Foster: Zapier has kept early investors on its cap table
“No, they're still on the cap table.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 9:26 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Supported
Foster: Eight of Zapier's First Ten Employees Remain at the Company
“You know, of our first 10 employees, eight are still here.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 11:05 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Foster: Zapier's monthly logo churn remains sub-5%
“Yeah, that's right. More or less.”
Wade Foster May 2, 2020 ▶ 14:26 1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships
Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier integrates with approximately 900 apps
“We hook into about 900 different apps and let people set up automations between them.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 2:35 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Foster: Average Zapier customer pays about $20 monthly
“About 20 bucks a month.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 3:30 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Assertion Supported
Foster: Zapier operates as a 100% distributed team of 110 people
“So zap your day is about a 110 people. All across the world, we're a hundred percent distributed team, which is a bit unique.”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 5:01 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Insight
Foster: Zapier's primary LTV driver is users triggering their first Zap
“For us, it's like setting up a zap and having it like do its first thing. Like as soon as it does that first. Yeah. Fire once. It's like, oh my God, this thing is amazing. Right. But you know, if they don't get to that point, like if they trip up along the way…”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 8:27 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR
Insight
Foster: Effective SaaS Pricing Leverages Feature Tiers and Usage Meters
“They tend to have two axes on their pricing levers. They've got like a feature tier. So this is like, you know, small, medium, large sort of thing, right? It's like, here's a small bucket of features, a medium bucket of features and a large bucket of features.…”
Wade Foster Jan 3, 2018 ▶ 13:18 893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR

Show 1statements(1 left)

The other half of the tape: Wade Foster's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 16 times in 9 episodes on Top Founders. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 10Gal Dubinski 5Casey Hill 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
003254201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions
024201720182019202020212022202320242025episodes it came up in
002.5254201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions per episode
2025 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 3 mentions in 1 episode
2018 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
2017 5 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
1743 Zapier Hits 100k Customers, $50m in ARR, Eye on Doubling YoY with New Partnerships May 2, 2020 15m
893 SaaS: How Zapier Passed 60k Paid Seats and $20m in ARR Jan 3, 2018 13m
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