Zapier
How Zapier Built a Business on "Glueing" the Internet Together
Zapier created a massive business by enabling non-developers to connect different web applications and automate workflows, acting as the "glue" for thousands of SaaS tools.
As businesses adopted more and more specialized SaaS tools, their data became fragmented and siloed. Moving information between these apps required manual copy-pasting or expensive custom API development, which was out of reach for most small businesses and non-technical users.
Zapier built a simple, visual interface based on "Triggers" and "Actions" (e.g., "WHEN I get a new email in Gmail, THEN add a row to my Google Sheet"). They invested heavily in building a massive library of integrations, supporting thousands of apps. This allowed users to create powerful, custom automations ("Zaps") without writing a single line of code.
Zapier unlocked massive productivity gains for its users and became an essential piece of the modern business tech stack. Its growth was driven by the network effects of its app directory—the more apps it supported, the more valuable it became, which in turn encouraged more app developers to build integrations for Zapier.
- Integrations can be the core feature of a product, not just an add-on.
- Empowering non-technical users to do technical tasks is a huge value proposition.
- A platform's value increases with the size of its integration ecosystem (network effects).
- Focus on a simple, intuitive user interface for complex backend processes.
Zapier's success shows the immense value of integration and interoperability in a fragmented software landscape. By empowering non-technical users to build their own solutions, they created a powerful and defensible product.