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Podcast: The SaaS Podcast - AI, Growth & Product-Market Fit for SaaS Founders
Episode: First Customers: How Wade Foster Got 800 Paid Beta Users
Description: $100 per user. Unfinished product. No venture capital. Wade Foster charged for Zapier's paid beta from day one and signed up 800 paying first customers in nine months. Founders will hear exactly how early traction came from hunting SaaS forums where posts converted at 50%+.
Wade shares why charging from day one filtered out tire-kickers, how forum hunting on sites like Evernote and Wufoo delivered hyper-qualified first customers, and the 10,000-email waitlist mistake that cost them at launch.
Zapier went on to join Y Combinator's Summer 2012 batch, built a developer platform that grew integrations from 30 to 350+ apps, and...