#197 – Inside Zapier's First Acquisition with Ben Tossell of Makerpad
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What's up, everybody? This is courtland from any hacker's dot com and you're listening to the end hackers podcast. More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process.

And on this show, I sit down with these andy hackers to discuss the idea that s the opportunities and the strategies they are taking advantage of, so the rest of us can do the same. So maker pad, for people who don't know, is really the best place to learn how to build apps and websites with our code. So you have no idea how to code. You get going to make a pad. And I know how long you take you to learn, but you'd eventually be able, able to build something like, I don't know your own, like air began b clone without knowing anything about how to code.

right? To put that, you can do IT in minutes, you can learn to do something. A quick automation to save you hours at work, or building website, building A A B clone, building up stuff.

which is really changing because I don't know how many people my life you'd like court, and if only you will build me this APP, you know, I can no achieve this vision or make this much money and that i'm like, sorry, like scotland of money and my can do for free. But now I will see we don't have to bug me that can just get to make pad and learn how to do IT on their own.

And I think when I talk to you, you would you want to make a path of like, I don't know, like six months or something, solo founder and you'd already done like one hundred thousand dollars in revenue, and your expenses were like nothing IT was like five percent expenses or something and there was like ninety five percent profit. And you are super happy to, and you had even quit your job yet you like, I was still wait and quit in my job. I think you quit like, maybe a month or two out of the podcast.

Now lesson, two years later, maybe like a year and half later, you are at four hundred thousand dollar revenue run rate. You ve got multiple employees. And you just recently announced that your company was bought by APP er, which is kind of the premier no co tool that people used to automate tasks and connect different apps tween each other on the web. So congratulations, that's A A lot of progress and very little time.

Yeah yeah, it's been a IT roll coaster. I don't think IT feels like that at the time. He doesn't feel like this is all very quick. But yeah, we will look back on IT.

Yeah, I was like eighty months of me actually go in full time and yeah, we've been a quiet and couldn't be more excited with the outcome. Really, I think is huge and obviously will get all the wise and details and stuff. But it's just like a credit to the movement in general has been growing and growing, and we've been lucky that we've sort of been at the forefront of that community.

There's something about being like the entry level option. Paul gram, a good blog post recently and talking about kind of like different things. He's learned from things that he worked on.

And he said there's this idea that the low end eats the high end and that's good to be an entry of option even though that's less prestigious than being the higher the option because if you're not the international level option, somebody else will be and they will eventually squash you against the ceiling, which means that you should be kind of like worry about prestige. And I want to think about make your pad like you're at the entry level option. Someone knows zero about no code, they know nothing.

They're going to go to you. And that means that you have a lot of power because like, that's where the most people are. And like you can gonna to direct them.

You can say, hey, you should go use APP er you should go use air table. And IT makes lot of sense for company like exactly to want to like own maker pad because they want to be the entry level option. They want to be able to drag brain new people to where they want to go. I do that is happier. So it's kind of cool to teach ally to look at like how that worked for you.

And programs said, like that was kind of the biggest lesson that he learned that helped him start why commendatory and via web his company before that like why commentors that can entry level option for start founders and like, yes, aqua entries and horror ds might be more procedures, but at the end of the day, like if yc like disinvited them from demo day or something, that would be kind of crappy for them because they wouldn't able to take a look at all. These are a really cool early stage companies. And so you in a lot of ways, like the yc for no code.

So when I was first to make that, IT was like, oh, just finding out about these tools and just figure out what you could do like pushing IT to N B B B C or whatever. And I sort of made the mistake of thinking that everyone was learning, the pastor. I was learning stuff.

So if I find out something new about website and air table together, I would teach that and put that video out. And then IT was really clear that like await, there's more, more people coming into the no code space at level zero. They don't know what you're talking about with multi level TM s items and reference in things through air table and things like that is just like what I need to get my footing. The door was my first step, had I first do that bit.

So I picked wade. The cees up here, is he, or is he or boston to report to him? Or there are in immediately between the two of you? Now how does that work?

He's my boss. Yeah, I mean, he's a CEO. I'm not sure what I would call myself self now like I run, make a pad still. So make staying independent, like it's staying his own company with the inacio. So essentially make a bad a apian company, much like I think you guys are right in the hackers, a start company .

very similar.

Me I get a master class of like how to be A C, E, O from wade, whose raised had any money going from the Y C. Too like a five billion dollars, four hundred employees or complete a remote. I couldn't think of A A Better person to be like hold my hand through how to run a company yeah.

it's pretty amazing. And your situation is it's hard for me to think of somebody who has a more similar situation to what I have a strike. So iran, any hackers like nine months, eight months, got acquired by stripe, taught to Patrick the CEO, just a whole bunch.

And I like the exact same thoughts to learn an amazing there are no enemy areas between us but i'm super independence stripers and telling me I want to do and it's like you're like the exact same situation. Some have lunch questions for you based on my experience. First of all, I feel we weird to have a boss having not had a boss for the last year and I have two years like what does that like for you?

So it's kind of like you're not sitting in with way behind me anything. You know that that's my bus. I will be make busy time. I me know what i'm doing a way i'm heading with.

Make part of team like almost or if you like, really close investor friend who was invested in new and had done all before and like done a really well before. You just have ask them, hey, does this seem much to you? Like what would you do in this .

situation on paper, if you like, I have a boss. In reality, I feel the same as you like. I don't have a boss. I'm to doing all the same things I was doing before I join strike. No one's really telling me what to do.

Like somebody on andy hack's other day asked I how any actually doesn't have like a gum road revenue option and then someone else like it's because they are own by stripe that's so they only have strike. I had to come in and be like, no, no one on slave has ever told me to build anything for the website. It's one hundred percent.

Me just do whatever I want and it's a lot of trust there. And so IT doesn't feel like give a boss and I think you use the word investor. That's kind of what IT feels like to me.

IT feels like stripers invested in in the hackers and he feels like zipp years invested in maker pad, which is a whole different kind of relationship. We're like now I feel like this pressure to like do right by my investors. I don't want to let them down.

I don't want to make them feel like IT wasn't a good acquisition. Is that the same thing having a boss like I don't know, like i've literally never had a boss before, but I definitely feel like know some amount of pressure and I don't know how things you're set up with you as happier. You know maybe you have milestones you want to hit or maybe you have goals you wanted reach. Like I seem that didn't just buy make her patents. I keep doing you let's not talk about IT, but I would assume that like if you in my situation, like there might come some day where you're like know what I do, feel a lot of pressure externally to have these goals that maybe you wouldn't you know maybe on your own, you feel of completely different goals and it'd be easier to breath, easier because there's really nobody to disappoint .

beside yourself. IT was a complete opposite for me. I felt like when I was just running make part before I was you at the helm of everyone else like these people relying on you.

There's customers are relying on you there relying on you. I'm relying on myself like the local movement of everyone else is sort of relying on me to do well with make pat and make the right decisions and do the right things. And there's just something to make as running company.

And I keep on saying to a few people who ve asked, I don't think i'm delirious. I think just tech twitter in general or start of twitter is like, oh yeah, I never start a company in one day. I'll be like a public company.

I'm like, do you have any idea how different a company is IT like so many different pages. When is just you great? That's fine.

Like it's just you happened away is like a cypros CT to go to trying and get to work and is plenty of those people on any hackers. And then when you get your first employ, sort like two friends having away at something and then you get five mpl yees like. How to share? This is a team.

And then you like ten people, you think, and wait, what the fuck I do? And I got to like, have team meetings and one of wonder people. And there must be such a small percentage of people who have the skills try to learn, or just like have that in them, to start a company from zero and then grow IT all the way up, like always through those bucket of team.

Ten people, hundred people, a thousand people, ten million in revenue, hundred million in revenue, like IT seems like impossible task unless you're like a very small amount of people. And I think fair enough that lots of people have that dream or have that like drive to get there. But I think when you in if you look at what you want to do and how you want to do IT, I think that does take some look at IT yourself to say, am I the person to do that?

Because I think it's okay that not everyone is. And I think for me, I for make a pair to be what I could be, i'm going need some help here, not unnecessary. We just help from. We need an amazing team. It's like we need someone or something that has done this before. I don't want to necessarily go and ask for VC money, pretend to build a billion of company that on the person to do that, what I need is like a long term partner is gonna guide me through some these steps and let me screw up a couple of times, and like guidance to the good stuff, too. So yet, when this sort of happen with chen to waiting, explore and this is potential, I just like this seems like the exact perfect thing that I was looking for.

So in a lot of ways, it's like you felt like you have the way of the world on your shoulders because you're in the sort of like very important position at the core of the no code movement. And you see all these like crazy, ridiculous outcomes and lots people like the Steve jobs complex, so they need to get to be so easy and they have the chosen one. And IT turns out like you feel much more comfortable on the situation.

We are actually working with somebody who has done that to be able, able to get to that goal. I think about this a lot actually. Like we we were living like primitive humans lived and like a small try.

You know, like you might be impressed by other people really good, like that tching roofs are really good at making a speer or cking or whatever. But like there's not that many people you know like hundred people or something to be impressed by. And like you're trying going to be pretty good at something.

But now we live in this crazy connective society where everybody's on twitter, everybody can search google, body watch TV. And like the most impressive, people are not like one and one hundred. Now they are like one in seven billion.

And it's really hard not to compare us out to that. And it's also really hard to even find them like how good that person must be to be good enough to get on the radar. And so it's really easy, I think, you know, miss judge, and say I need to be good as people not really realizing like how crazy of a task that is. And it's also really easy to just feel like shit all the time because you're comparing yourself to people who like you really didn't compare yourself to you. So that is very wise for you to want like a mentor.

What I said before, where I felt like before when making pod was just semi independent, we had some investors, but IT was like, we've gotto make this work for them and for like the local movement and all this sort of stuff can take that weight on. But I was really applying that Price other than yourself.

It's probably more of an ego thing of like A A fact that had something going IT was sort of working in these ways and not these ways and that that was down to me that I mess that up. Yeah, we're always experiment. That was just like experiment the whole time.

I mean, I tell you my perspective, which is that no one's done this before. No one has ever built like the premier no code community that's going to ask us into the future, like there's no one who knows what the answer is. And people who have done up before other is, i've thought, is a very impressive, very successful people.

Like what would you do with any hackers? And like that, though not the same ideas as literally everybody up. So I all keep tabs on what happens to make really super interesting to see, like how joining happier helps because I truly don't believe anybody has the answers.

You know like you're not doing a you're not doing like only you would be to be safe company where there's like a giant playbook and a thousand people have done this before. You're like playing nearing a completely new space that like quite Frankly, no one can even say what it's going to look like five or ten years from nouns you can possibly to predict, but i'm sure you have an exam sort of vision. And i'm just curious like, let's say you do do everything right?

What are you hope maker pet is? What is APP your hope that make your pet is if they buy your company assumingly? You know the really investors are not buying for you are today. They are buying if what you can become like, what's the grand vision?

The thing that waited I both definitely aligned ourselves on was like, we hope the no code is like, not a thing in five years. I hope that no just sort of fits in, or what we called no today sort of fits in the democratization of life. Software development IT is the thing, I think that democratized IT to the point of, we don't have to talk about code.

This is no code anymore. We talk about software development as a whole. No code that first run on the later and writing actual code is probably the very top and the more specialist, highly skilled stuff.

So that's like something that we both like happy as more democrazy of automation and we are democrazy of soft development. And there's a huge overlap, if not like completely overlap with those things. How am in this position is because I chose to not listen to anyone when they said learn to code or find technical.

I just was not willing to say, okay, yeah, that's what i'll do. I did just a complete opposite whenever I was like, you're doing IT wrong. Like this is not the way you to do stuff. The no code peace for me is just allowed me to start a company, build a company, sellar company, or while pushing the same mood, like the same thing that empower me to do that in the first. So like i'm not gona ever stop beating this problem, I think so yeah I A lot .

of people who have like the same, I don't even call like a contrarian streak. They're just going against the grain intentionally. But it's like it's more like I don't even care what the grain is to be a mender. One of the lee designers is spotify ed for a long time like just brilliant designer and alec, andy hacker and founder. And like you like make all these apps that were just like, uh, I hate what the design community is doing like you make the school weather apps where everybody was making these beautiful ly designed weather apps and he just may like a super underdeveloped basic, like just nothing but text weather APP and I would say things like it's fucked in raining and just just tell you, like straight, like IT is and wouldn't be fancy like like a million two dollars is like weather APP just getting one against the rain and make pad learn to build things without code when everybodys saying we should all have to code and the hackers only had to build to start up without raising money when everyone saying you need to raise money and said, like there's a huge pay off and like taking these contrarian bets, but also like it's so risky because you just don't hear about like all the tens of thousands of stories of people who just bet, who bet wrong.

Sometimes you're right, sometimes wrong. I was, I tried to do like, like the APP store for box when like facebook botts and stack bottle, like really hot, and they were just coming out. I started with mobs and seth, two other windy hackers.

Basically there was bot list. And now this is going to be huge, is like it's going be massive. It's going to be this that the other and like who gets a fuck about bots these days that .

really is not like didn't work .

out yeah just like, okay, find that will draw will mark that went down as a lot but you just keep going. I hate listening to pop up where people like I just sort of happened to be the thing as interested in and then IT worked out in the end and of that stuff and then is out of happens for you and then you say the exacting thing and you're the person you hate listen. So I read in an article and .

business insider about zapp er buying maker pad and claim that basically you tweet about different apps and products at the most popular make pad and like air table and zapp er at the top and there are whole bunch tip of them and then somebody else tweet and then they basically like air table is apiary needs to buy maker pt quick they to actually acquire the company and wade from zipper saw that twit and then called you because apparently he's just like throwing ling twitter to find companies to buy. Is that true? That how exact can contact you?

That is actually mostly true. So yeah, water chan said our air of tax air table was up you by makeprd a ap. We emailed me a linked to that tweet.

I mean, I replied to the tweet, son, oh, IT be like picking between your parents as a joke and way to pick me that tweet and said, did you see this tweet? He's not wrong. I have a chat. So we had to. And here we are six, seven months later.

And do you know like what was gone through weights head at that time? Because I see me you didn't like just then, considers that we should buy big or party assumed like they have had conversations internally is happier because of you and they had their own process for because you're little in the very first acquisition. That's something .

thing you do lightly. I've met wade in person in the new cocos and some of disco november twenty nineteen and most of me. So we have dinner with a few of the people.

So yeah, just got on and talk about the new set then I thought cap in touch appeal or a partner of of makeup ads. So that was a relationship there. And wednesday, ken witter stuff.

I've also spoken to mike, one of the other two founders, because he's like product person who builds a bunch of staff and experiments. And I tasted things at them. So I knew some of the people with example.

And from what I understand is, why has been just eying up make a pair for a while and seeing how been growing and seen there the community grow and told milk movement grow and things like that. So maybe it's just a tweet to some say, oh yeah, that's like kick this international conversation. So i'm fever grateful for water and twitter prety crazy.

There is like i'm sure you've seen tweet about this like trend right now, basically like really big tech companies who are now trying to own media companies.

And so if you look at like the long story of the internet, IT has been thirty years of people figuring out new and more efficient ways to go directly to readers, directly to consumers, without having to the knock on the door of some jackey ber and ask k, we publish our story because, like one thousand, nine and ninety, if you want to get a story out, lots people, if you had to go find a reporter for fox news and the new times, whoever, and they were basically saying, you know, they're not going to publish to worry, we're not going to publish IT this way. It's set right like you had to do P, R. Where is my twenty twenty one? You have elon mass firing the P R team at tesla because he can just tweet whatever he wants.

And then you have like lots of these acquisitions like strike bias and I hackers club spot bought the hospital recently and business insider bought a stake and morning brew like these huge newsletters. And now you have, uh, maker pad, which in many ways this kind of immediate company and you read lots and lots of people with a really cool message and educational content and you have zap ier, which is a big fast company. And yeah, they've got a blog, but like a blog doesn't have the same credibility as I can.

Independent media company like you have, they could published up on apps blog. It's really good and really well written, but it's kind of because it's this is owned by and written bytes APP er a huge bias there. Where is that? They buy you and they leave you alone and your sort of front independently.

You can basically make moves and kind of shift in the industry and people trust to you and they don't really lose they their trust in you. People even know andy hacer is own by strike because stripe book just doesn't touch IT. I would not have a ton of strike branding everywhere.

So i'm curious what you think about this. Like what do you think about this sort of movement for companies owning media companies? And how do they feel like potentially be one of those media companies like is now old, we fall into that bucket?

definitely. I don't know if we are a media company, we call ourselves like a learning community. And if it's I think IT makes sense in these SaaS companies buying communities, I think that feels like that of gets whole bucket of morning proof trends or the hustle.

I think we put out content that has a community that congregate around IT. And then if that's called a media company or community, then like there's two sides of IT, is the product teams who get the product right and build a really good product and know how to do product stuff. And then they use community incentives and community things around IT to help that product grow.

So that would be happier. And I have amazing content that like drives people to go and eventually use zapp a but the other side of IT, where wheels of players, we just focused around the content, the community experience of how people feel and what they're experiencing. And if if that happens to point them to a product, not one that we're affiliated with or a care, which one that sort of a win is just i've helped them figure out the product for them or what they need to do.

So the alignment ment there is completely different anyway. There's ways that they can be paired up together and work amazingly, like I think is actually will be almost used tool on all of our tutorials and stuff just because IT is the product that glues other products together as long as there is a true beneficial way that both can work like that and work independently and not be owhere zi company. All you got to use as zapp, and that's tools to use, use whatever tools you want.

We're not gonna involved in any that stuff. And I think part of the point of maker is we're not just teaching one stack of tools every time because that's not fair or right. I think that, that would just thinnish IT straight away and wouldn't work out the way I was all have.

So you're making like four hundred grand in a year in revenue for micropore before zapp requires you and you are also profitable. I have to imagine the exact just doesn't care about your revenue because this is kind of what happened, andy. Hackers, where it's like, well, strike makes so much money that the amount of money that I make grand hackers will literally never amount to anything.

And I mind as well, just completely stop doing this. And like, the only thing that I can do is a value, which is make the community bigger and Better and reach more people. Is IT the same thing for you right now?

I don't think is the same necessarily. I think this like without our business model, obviously been up front with you and anyone else like there's a few ways to monitise this type of community where which one feels right, in which one alliance with what we want to do in the future. You, anna, reach as many people as possible about no code and teaching them that stuff.

So how does that a line with how we make money doesn't feel right. And I think with with dizaei opposition is just there's not a rush to hit revenue goals. Now he doesn't need to be gay next months needs to be pip kate, then, then after that needs to be tempted more.

And things like that, I think, is just let's figure out how we can make this community as big as possible whilst having the same outcomes for the community. We want make part to have its own revenue stream, have its own team that takes care of itself. But I mean, yeah, I mean, is happier having hundred plus million A R R.

I know, right? Like like you ever be able to touch that? Like why make money at all? Why not just say it's crew IT that should be as big as possible?

There be both of the things. I don't think what we did is make up before or what I chose to do, I guess, is stand our growth because we had to make money. Whether this scenario is not about around is less grow house as bigger we can and like figure out the right way to make money in that scenario rather than okay, you've got to hit revenue goals.

First and foremost, an important peace. If you've got a team of five now and we want to get to a team of ten, and yeah, I mean, all of that cost could be swell in the zipper. But I think it's more beneficial or for us to feel like we sort of take care of ourselves where the independent company as part of that pier, we take care of ourselves.

We do well. I'm growing and we're still reaching that many people. And I would like to do that as the person running make that. That's what I want to figure out too.

Do you know very much about, uh, free code camp turn by this guy, queens y. larson. I was talking him a couple weeks ago.

And like, how are you so big? How are you reaching so many people? This obviously a large moment to learn how to code. There's a large women to learn, be an eighty hacker and a large women to learn to no code. And like we've got, I think like four million email subscribers, that's a bigger email is is almost anybody that I know.

Even these other like media companies like the hustle morning brew, like combine, I don't know if they have four million more subscribers plus they're get like over a million people away from you. They're got like a forum. They're in like two million minutes a months that just crazy numbers.

And it's going to pick quincey's brain when the cow he's doing this and like a big part of IT was just just being free. The fact that he's offering something that people are so used to paying for her, but providing IT for zero dollars like the the whole sites of non profit, it's funded by donations. And I can go learn how to code and have this like cool, bright future in front of you and you're not to pay anything.

It's pretty cool. So it's like it's hard for me to look at that and that be like and this seems like a model that you can use, although no code is so much more nicer. There are so many people who are already understand the benefits of code, and you have this like kind of a do responsibility. We like not only the people how to build up with our code, but teach people that like you can do IT and here's why it's valuable and here's like what you can do if you learn these skills. It's like A A whole another level of sponsibility.

I think that's part of this whole look, let's get ready with no code peace or that's why i've disagreed with maybe how is how the term has come about because it's if my mum is like searching how to build the website. She's not typing with code or without code, she's just typing how do I build the website?

So what you want to have there is the first thing is use card or next level may be use one flow and the next level from that might be lean hasta CS s like I think that should be path. So it's how do we get that across well and there's loads of things we need to improve and make a part of like what is the first thing on the the home page is like learn how to build software like the developed software. And I know that ever like this going to be alternative of going well, that's not what i'm after, but I don't know.

I struggle to figure out what that thing is to get people, but but I think I should be as much free stuff as possible. And we we ve got loads of blog content that's been coming out. We've most of our content is free. So it's just behind a world like get people to sign up and maybe we'll go await and maybe I just feel like, okay, you can just read this. But I think yeah, what we look at is.

How do you get double, triple that content on there because you get that content in front of people when they are search in that thing, which is one thing that is that he does extremely well, is if you're searching for something in the tech world, you probably land on is is a log post about that thing, or like how to use that thing, whatever. So educative do we have our education struct in A A good way? And then all we get in front of people when they are like waking up these options of how do I build a website?

One of the things that happened when strike hot in the hackers was because it's a community site. A lot of people feel ownership of the community. Therefore, a lot of people very strong opinions about like how this should all go down.

I'm sure it's the same with make a pad. But like one of the big things that people you know were worried about was is and the hacker was going to be able to be independent. Another big things that people wanted to know was just like one of the numbers you like.

You've always shared exactly how much revenue you are making. You've always shared, uh, where is coming from? What's go on up with this acquisition? Like why is the secret? What's the deal with you, your acquisition and you're sharing the Price, like how much you get acquired for because you've always been super transparent about revenue numbers.

I found this really all actually some part of the same thing where he's like always really open about numbers. He talks about he always looked up. He was numbers and and talked about that.

And then when his analysis came out, he said, you are one another Price. I'm not taking anyone i'm taking out for the great. But now I think once you ve gone through an acquisition, I don't know that there's anything beneficial to come out of IT other than people going, oh, cool.

Now I know how much I could I could get my own thing for. I think that is there should probably be some sort like glass or for acquisitions where, okay, this is a bus. Big bus company buys community company, and I went for this much.

But I think if you are in an acquisition, you going to show the lawyer stuff or the agreements stuff is just part of the process like that is part of IT. So it's difficult to then if you're the ones being acquired to then say, I really would love to tell everyone about this number. Can I do that? That's not your thing to do.

It's usually part of the legal proceed. So it's it's not that like people don't want to share and necessary. I think it's probably the same with you.

right? Jack, I have are if I could, but it's like there's a second party there, stripes going to make more acquisitions m in the future. And like it's not like you're just sharing your own financing of your own business, like you're sharing this transaction that happened with other people that like they might not want you to share. So that kind of what missing from the outside perspective, like they might think like you're just being super mom and not sharing because you don't want to. But even if you wanted to share, like you can't .

really yeah exactly. Then like if you share, the whole purpose of the opposition is like a tarnish relationship straight away, then you you're in a long time relationship with someone else. Now do you want that to start off on like a this guy can't keep his motion or they're gone against terms of the straight. So it's I don't think you understand that until you food position that like, oh, it's not that easy to just say, can I just tell the number?

And there are sometimes as people share the numbers and it's completely fine. And like usually those are for bigger deals or deals were like people just don't care about the things that they're worried about. But like I think about the reasons why I acquire might not want you to share, number one is because they have to do future negotiations and then I want to sort of tip their hand is still like what they are paying for companies.

Number two, this is kind of potentially adversarial, but because they don't want you to get a bunch of advice from people like what you should have sold for, right? Because I assume you had an negotiation process. You had a whole thing.

If you go around everybody, I said for x everyones like a man you should sold for two x like how are you gonna probably, you know, not very good and then you might go back to them and it's just like it's kind of the deals done. Move on, you know ever be happy. So that's like two.

The biggest reasons I think, and I am sure there's more, but i'm curious, sk, about your negotiation process was stripe. I also you know how the deal that came in that I wasn't really expecting. And I think I was like maybe four or five days from like the first contact that had a Patrick to you, like we have agreed to numbers and these are the numbers.

So like super super whirlin tour and I was just reading a lot about like had negotiated who says the first number of blog there's not enough that I could have read. There's never be enough. It's like i'm a master at this compared to someone who does this for a living, how do I look for? Like what are you practicing? What do you like learning? Or do you just like screw IT? I got a number in mind like what was your your process .

so yeah when when we mentioned that and then we ort of kind of break chat and said, this is what was thinking like of acquiring human. We can do. We can do this of trying quite quickly, have a simple agreement, blah bar.

We went away and then I think we scheduled a call flag a week later. So that week is like the way, longest week of your life. And i'm thinking about what the numbers gonna could be. Could be this number.

What would be happy with that? Could be this number could be, would I be happy with that and really just making up stuff and winding itself up like all week? And this there's no, no point there.

But that was like what I did and I got on a call and wait, said the number knows like, okay, cool. Then we went away and sort of didn't thinking about IT. And I was like, I was really happy with what was offered.

I was just like, that feels good, but there's just a just a process. I luckily my best friend, as i've known him since I was like, two years old. He does this for living.

He's like emini adviser and does a bunch of that stuff. So like the whole process, he was basically uncle with me all time. I like, what do you do? How to say? Yeah, that sounds good. Do I say, no, I want more.

Do you start like throwing out what you want in employment? Do you start saying about your team? You start say like, yeah, when do you do what thing? And yeah, I was just like learning as I went. There is a back for a bit of actually, I think depending on how you look at numbers, when you look at them, IT could be higher, could be lower, like you sort of just play that game.

And I think I don if you followed, if I think everyone feels like, no, my ideals different, like it's not going be complicated like everyone else is, is maybe straight forward me and the like acquiring see that we get on very well. So i'm sure that would just like maybe a one page document will both side that will be finally we be done in like a week? The head is just not that at all.

It's just the same thing for everyone. IT takes months and things getting the way things change. Lawyers attending one thing, you read that as one thing and then you speak to like the other company you like, you know, this is what we both thought I was like a crazy .

game of telephone where it's like you're talk to each other, you agree, you tell the lawyers, lawyers to talk to each other. And it's a completely different message that gets into the thing. And like that whole processes took two days and I got to go redo IT and there's some other translation area. It's going to comical and .

I still like the like the legal is is everything to be translated into the the legal terms. And every time I just like, right, can you guys just explain this? Like i'm five years old, explain me exactly why this is niche. But the one the few things I took away from this whole experience was remember to keep on having contact with the person who is on other end.

So like way, and I having conversations really helped because we were talking about like what's going to happen after what are the things we want to do and what's the vision? What's that cool stuff like, I know lawyers, lawyers and they're speaking in to each other. So there's obviously like back and four and they might be seem heated over there.

Us on this side, whether one still really excited and we've to work together after this. So as long as you stay on that level, I think is just keep reminding you like, oh yeah, this is just lawyers talking to. Lawyers don't need to worry about that so much.

And another thing was you're an entrepreneur. You're in our position is your company, you're an entrepreneurs. So you always think the best of something like you've thinking of the best case scenario all of the time because otherwise you would not be an entrepreneur. But lawyers are thinking of what happens in the worst case scenario in this deal. So like, we used to have someone who's trying to protect you and saying this could go go wrong in this way, this way, this way, this way.

What happens? In that case, what happens that case and i'm thinking, yeah, but it's all going to go fine like not be fine and hopefully, obviously, you hope that they will all be fine, but is just one of those weird games or weird things in the head. You've got a sort of draw line and say, OK, I understand that i've got to consider these things because that's the lawyers way of thinking, but i'm assuming the best, which is fine. But just remember that there's different parts of this.

There's a lot of times where you see companies being just like real assets about stuff and what's really going on. And there's just like lawyers at the company who are like you must do things this way or we might get suit.

And it's the same thing if you're going through a an acquired you know, like you're lawyers are just like imagining the worst possible case scenario and painting this terrible picture and you're like, yeah there's no way like. Wait gonna like take my company and and send in this asset to my house and like, shake me like that. But you learn ever detail for every single thing.

And so at some point you just got to draw the line to be like, i'm not worried about this, just just move forward. Otherwise IT can take forever. And like a Lawrence, incentives are just like not do that. They are instead is to make sure you are extremely protected, that no one can never say that they didn't do a good job with you. And that also IT takes as long as possible because because they are charged by the hours of like good case.

So another thing that happened in um my acquisition that still happens today, literally someone had a twitter post about IT earlier this week is like people try to guess so much you can acquired for because you're not sharing. I'm going to do that even though I know you're not to confirm, I just get fun to do so. The first thing I think people don't realize about these deals is everybody thinks that there's just like a single number.

Oh, you know, you've got acquired its x but reality is like it's usually more complex than that lic. Are you're getting cash or are you're getting stuck? You're getting stuck as you can best over time, the over four years, over two years, quarterly for the next three years, like all these different like numbers that matter.

And then like do you have milestones and metrics that you need to hit a so I would guess for make her pad that you raise funding last year, right? Like you've actually raise from some investors, yes. So you're entirely ly be strapped probably and this was a seat round raised like a one or two million dollar valuation.

And probably to make you happy, if read throughout the number and you felt good, it's probably somewhere around at least double that, maybe triple out or something. So I would guess that you got acquired for somewhere between three to six million dollars. Lots of IT will probably be in zambia stock, which I think is probably a good bet. And that since they want you to get bigger, there might be some miles to one attacked to that, but maybe not. And this is where you make a book of face.

I see if i'm right. Well, never know. I guess your .

deal you could do to the same thing, but that is quite a good to have that your stock I mean, they just got well, like a five billion dollar, which is absolutely not because they're like the andy hacker ist of andy hacker companies like they rates a little bit of money like a whole bunch of years ago and they just like that, screw you investors, never raise any more money ever again.

And they finally just let some investors in and it's like, no, zapper is not worth like a few million dollars. Example is one of like the premiere, unicom companies in the world is pretty nuts. So if I were, you probably take the star.

Japie is a phenomenal company and that's one of the conversations I had with weighed. And the other code is just like I just like that you do stuff weird. You do stuff that isn't in the playbook of silicon valley start up stuff.

And i'm the same. I do stuff weird. I that we both do we have stuff.

You know there is a threat on hacker news where people are talking about this five billion dollars happy or summary that you vision and it's like a typical happened ony thread you know people are are saying I don't understand why anyone would pay five billion dollars for this set. I have my own thoughts like I am very bush on zab. Er I think it's got what three thousand apps that are connected to.

It's got like more integrations and almost anybody. It's a huge mode. It's very hard for nobody to catch up to that. It's not like building your entire apps APP. Er it's kind of like what help you connect stuff and do things in the background.

It's kind like the glue that holds aps together, which is really cool because that means that like that he doesn't necessarily directly compete with things that let you build a website like you can build all those other things and still use apiary to like make IT so that when somebody adds a row to a google sheet that I send an email to someone else is set around. So like it's really never a reason to stop using this up here because using something else for the part, and I think culturally, you know what you're saying about how they do things differently, like they've been a remote companies sense the beginning. I think in everybody like twenty, twenty was extremely to figure out how to be remote and appears like live in ten years ahead of everybody.

And they are probably just flying. And so like there's a lot to be english about. I'm curious, like you are from your perspective, you know where do you see happier in the ecosystem and why do you think it's worth investing in?

But exactly that is the glue that combines all products together. What are those things that make been hard to figure out, is it's not necessarily at all you could live without like you rely on IT, rely on IT every month. So for me, there's to runs up to run make up, didn't runs up to run make up. There's my email marketing software like I need that. I need to use that every month.

So i'm gonna pay for IT and i'm gna continue paying for IT until I don't know what I don't see if having to turn that off is that it's one of those things like the email you will the email email me yesterday like one of our accounts IT said this this after save you like twenty eight hours in last six months. You like, okay, i'm i'm gonna now start doing that money now, probably never. So yeah exactly.

You keep you keep Carrying on, ll pay, i'll pay whatever is to to save that time. I think it's one of those things that when you have a couple of use cases for IT, then it's just IT stays in your product. I think IT is their growth over the years of revenue and everything else, like we've built a product that works really well in like the sad world of very, very thicky.

Putting all those two together is everyone else is sort of trying to be the one tool that does IT all. And I just don't believe that there is ever gonna a one tool does IT all. I know there's many who try, and I just people like different things and different teams work in different tools.

And there's always gonna like at any company, some version of like a sweet of tools is never gna just be this is the one tool we use for everything. I just don't think that's true. So when is more more tools coming out as like you just can keep keep get Better? I think it's cool.

They are living in the world too, where there can be a tony tools and those tools can be worth billions of dollars. Like if you go back to the internet like fifteen years ago, kind of the ethos was know you've got ta be the categories winner, you've got ta be number one in your space and number two is to be a super far distant second. Otherwise like you're not even worth investing and paying attention to is like the VC mines.

And now it's like, well, there are a ton of like, I don't know, task managers and like a sona, I just want public billions. They are like a ton of like no co tools and like a ton of just a lot of tools and every space that are like thriving because the internet so big right now that like a lot of people can succeed if they have their own unique approach. And like I don't think that's onna stop.

I think we've like creative economy and we've got more and more andy hacker is coming online in many ways like africa party, south america, south of waking up billions of people who like previously weren't really engaging on the internet. We're going to start and IT just seems like I mean, it's crazy like there is a report yesterday, I think that stripes got a new valuation of ninety five billion dollars and like the entire shapes, like worth more now than the entire and internet economy was over when stripe started. Just to give you like a sense of a cow fast.

And the internet is growing. And so i'm super bullish on no code. I feel like almost no matter what path you take, like you're going to capture some big part of IT. And even if the term no code goes away, like people are still going to be doing the stuff and learning how to do the stuff and more, more people are going to want to make money online and make a living. So I think you're in kind of a sweet pot.

So how is you your life going to change? And you been through kind of the entire ny hacker journey, and you worked on a bunch of stuff that we talked about the first time you're on the podcast. I didn't really work out and IT failed.

You relente them and change things and then you build something that worked. And you're worked really hard on IT for the last few years and I got acquired. Does this feel like the end of the road for you as I feel like the begin, there's you feel like getting things going to change, you know, you going to go and make a big purchase. What what's different for you ah .

and again is one of those things that you listen to pocket and you expect someone to say, oh, my life changed overnight and I was like this crazy thing happened but i'm still that in my little room i've just like doing the same stuff. Um be at this like they'll be less little changes that happen. We buy a house and things like that which is amazing. But I personally, I think i'm still just mostly the same. My girl from might want a few presents .

in and it's just been a year you like to spend. Do you have a plan out of a date? Fourth day, a fourth day?

This is a to be for start a company .

where you can make money and I can earn your freedom and I can get you to the point you don't have to have a boss and know your life is comfortable. But beyond that, IT has some cool effect on other people in the world. You're not just sitting down making an APP that can make you money, but you're making an APP that to teaching people to develop skills like change their lives.

And so when you have this cool liquidity event, we're like you sell your company and like you presumably your rich. Now you like, well, i'm going to quit as a sex. You're like, hey, I still have this cool thing that i'm really doing and you going to get to like the the higher level of.

You know, mazdas hiera needs. You're no longer worried about your freedom and you're no longer worried about your bells or anything. And you have the cool mission that you you're excited to work on. And I meet a lot of people who have something where they've they've sold IT are.

It's gone really big and suddenly they feel super loss because like, I not only want to work on this, like I accomplished all the goals in my life that I wanted to accomplish, like i've got this money now, like i'm done with IT. But I think it's pretty special being in your position where you built something that has kind of like the next level of goals built into IT. So you don't have to like quit and share to go find out what you really want to do with your life is already doing. Having already gotten, I guess, to this point, what your advice for andy hackers who are just starting out.

you just nail that where this is the thing that I wanted to do, I just made that the thing I wanted to do was big stuff, no code, and just have other people who would like IT. I just don't want to be those annoying people that says, like follow what you're interested in but I don't know what else to say from my experience. Yeah, there's a few things are going to be interested in pull out, pull that thread and see where IT takes you.

IT might take you actually nowhere, but that's that's actually part of the reps you've ta put in unfortunately is seven. That stuff just doesn't work out and they'll be a reason for why IT doesn't work out and you just got to take that on and figured out the next time. And but I think for me, it's just been i've gone against what I was supposed to be learning to code.

And Lucy and of people also figured that out and no reload. That's that's an option and the tools got Better, the community got Better. Bad advice. I don't know that i've got IT figured out.

So I don't anybody think that i've met on the people who who have done the same thing. Follow your passion, follow what your genuinely interested in, and then also prepare for the fact that, like, a lot of time is not onna work out and you ouldn't get super discovers. You shouldn't quit.

You should just keep going. And that's as you did. I'm super happy to having you on the show for a third time. I wish everybody could come on the show for a third time and and talk about their smashing ly successful acquisition. But thank you coming .

back on to me.