We raised $1.4 million. Total. Ever. And we built a $5 billion company. The best fundraising strategy is not needing to fundraise.
We have never had an office. Not because of COVID — we were remote from day one in 2011 because we were in Missouri and could not afford San Francisco rent. Turns out that was a competitive advantage, not a limitation.
Every SaaS company on the planet markets Zapier for free. When Shopify says "we integrate with Zapier," that is a free ad for us. Our distribution is built into everyone else's marketing.
We wrote tens of thousands of SEO pages — one for every app combination. "How to connect Gmail to Slack." Each one ranks in Google and brings us users. Content marketing at an industrial scale.
People ask me why we did not raise more money. Raise more money for what? We were profitable. We were growing. More money just means more people telling you what to do.
We met at a Startup Weekend in Columbia, Missouri. Three guys who could not afford to move to Silicon Valley built one of the most valuable SaaS companies in the world. Location does not matter. The product matters.