FLASHBACK: The future of remote work, juggling APIs, and dream integrations with Wade Foster of Zapier | E2221
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
This episode of This Week in Startups showcases the evolution and enduring relevance of business automation and AI-powered solutions. The show features three distinct segments: Tour founder Amulya Parmar presenting his AI-driven property management platform, Alembic's Thomas Puig discussing causal AI for marketing attribution, and a fascinating flashback to 2016 when Zapier CEO Wade Foster shared his vision for workflow automation. (02:40)
- Main themes: The episode explores how automation tools have evolved from simple scripting to sophisticated AI agents, while highlighting the persistent challenge of making complex business processes more efficient and accessible to non-technical users.
Speakers
Amulya Parmer
CEO and co-founder of Tour, an AI-powered property management platform that automates virtual tours and competitor research. Previously worked on conversion optimization at Google and Amazon, and became a part-time leasing agent to better understand the rental market firsthand.
Thomas Puig
Founder and CEO of Alembic, a causal AI company focused on marketing attribution and data analysis. His team includes former Google and LinkedIn executives with deep expertise in cloud infrastructure and scaling technology platforms. Alembic has raised $145 million and operates its own GPU clusters for advanced computational work.
Wade Foster
CEO and co-founder of Zapier, the workflow automation platform that connects over 5,000 apps. In this 2016 flashback segment, Foster discusses building a fully remote team and creating what would become a multi-billion dollar automation platform that now serves millions of users worldwide.
Key Takeaways
Build Products That Meet Users Where They Are
Tour's success comes from recognizing that younger generations research apartments online extensively before visiting in person. (07:51) Amulya noted that people are "shopping for apartments online" and "looking five times more" at digital footprints before making in-person visits. Rather than fighting this trend, Tour embraces it by creating interactive, choose-your-own-adventure style video tours that give prospects the information they want in the format they prefer. This approach generated four times more qualified leads because visitors who complete the digital tour are much more likely to lease.
Use Friction Strategically to Improve Lead Quality
Tour implements a brilliant gating mechanism that requires phone number verification before allowing access to property tours. (13:45) While this might seem counterintuitive in a world that emphasizes reducing friction, Jason praised this approach because it "eliminates the looky loos" and "increases the hit rate." By requiring prospects to invest slightly more effort upfront, Tour filters out competitors, scrapers, and casual browsers, ensuring that property managers only receive genuinely interested leads.
Leverage Private Data as Your Competitive Moat
Thomas Puig emphasized that in an AI-dominated world, private data becomes the key differentiator. (41:38) He warned that if companies rely solely on public AI models, "if you have the same model, asks it the same question. And then we both do the same thing. How in trouble are we?" The solution is building evolving models trained on proprietary datasets that give companies unique insights their competitors cannot access. This creates sustainable competitive advantages that persist even as AI tools become commoditized.
Embrace Remote Work with Transparent Accountability Systems
Wade Foster's approach to managing Zapier's fully remote team centered on transparency rather than surveillance. (64:23) Rather than trying to monitor hours worked, they implemented weekly "Friday updates" where team members publicly shared their accomplishments, upcoming plans, and personal updates on an internal blog. This created natural accountability while allowing teammates to learn from each other's work and ensure everyone was aligned on company priorities.
Focus on Outcomes, Not Activity
The most powerful insight from Wade Foster was that remote workers "leave a digital trail" of their productivity. (63:38) Instead of measuring time spent at a desk, Zapier evaluated actual deliverables: GitHub commits, published content, completed projects. This approach proved "more efficient, because now you're looking at the byproduct of the work, rather than necessarily looking out over the room and seeing people in the chair, which isn't work in and of itself." This outcome-focused mindset allows companies to hire the best talent regardless of location while maintaining high performance standards.
Statistics & Facts
- Tour has delivered over 1.4 million property tours and driven over $100 million in leases for apartment complexes. (05:46) The platform serves 130+ property managers and has added $80k in ARR in recent months, demonstrating strong growth in the property management sector.
- Rent has increased by 30% in the last five years and now represents 28.9% of median income, according to Amulya. (18:54) This statistic underscores why property managers are investing more heavily in digital marketing and tools to attract qualified tenants.
- Alembic processes trillions of connections for individual customers when analyzing causal relationships in marketing data. (39:49) This massive computational scale allows them to identify patterns and causal links that would be impossible to detect through traditional analytics methods.
