Zapier

Zapier bootstrapped to $60-70M ARR on ~$1M raised, then valued at $5B

Sam highlights Zapier as a bootstrapping outlier: it reached roughly $60-70M in recurring revenue quickly on minimal funding, then raised at a $5 billion valuation with only 350 employees and remote since day one.

“First, they bootstrapped it to like $60 to or $70 million in recurring revenue, and they did it very quickly. They recently raised a little bit of, uh, funding at a $5 billion valuation by, uh, I believe Sequoia. They currently have 350 people.”

Sam: Zapier will be a $50 billion company, as big as Atlassian

Sam makes a bold prediction that Zapier, the archetypal infrastructure company, will become a $50 billion software company on par with Atlassian; Rahul agrees they could if they play their cards right.

“I have a bold prediction. I think Zapier is going to be as big as Atlassian. I think Zapier is going to be a $50 billion software company.”

A morning/evening email loop that needs zero willpower

Shaan built a Zapier email loop tied to his five life categories (health, money machine, family, contribution, learning). Each morning it asks what he'll do; each evening it emails back his own answers and asks 'How'd you do?' to check whether he kept his word.

“And then in the evening, it emails me and just said, it emails me back my answers and it just says, "How'd you do?" And it just sees, did I stick to my word? Did I actually exercise or did I say I got too busy and skipped it? And so that's my whole system was just that, like, just a little email reminder loop in the morning and in the evening.”

Steal thisBuild a no-willpower accountability loop: an automated email each morning asking your intentions for each life area, and an evening email replaying your answers to ask whether you delivered.

Zapier: $50-60M recurring revenue on just $1M raised

Sam estimates Zapier is a $50-60M recurring-revenue business that has only raised $1M in funding, making it wildly capital-efficient and potentially worth up to half a billion dollars.

“So first of all, Zapier, they've built this company now. I've heard they're speaking at HustleCon, so we'll learn, but I've heard that it's a $50 or $60 million recurring business. They've only raised $1 million in funding. So like on the really high end, this company could be worth half a billion dollars.”

No-code economy will be bigger than the sharing economy

Sam predicts the no-code economy (Zapier, Webflow, IFTTT) will be bigger than the sharing economy. He notes Zapier is only four years old, around $60M ARR, and could be worth roughly $500 million.

“this whole no-code economy thing, if no-code's huge, if we want to call it no-code economy, whatever, that's gonna be bigger than the sharing, this whole sharing economy stuff. There's Webflow, Zapier, If This Then That, all these things.”