The Not So Cookie-Cutter Approach to Company Building — 8 Lessons from Zapier

• Don’t be afraid to zig when others zag. Canva made contrarian but conviction-driven decisions like staying private longer, avoiding outside leadership hires, and building a Swiss Army Knife product when conventional wisdom favored single-purpose tools. Staying true to your vision can be a key advantage.

• Canva employees have coaches, rather than

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Don’t follow the fad:  “We were a bit contrarian. At the time, it was all about the Lean Startup, getting early customer validation and failing fast. This book making the rounds called ‘ The Four Steps to the Epiphany ’ espoused this lean company development model, where you put out a super rough prototype to get to know the customer and quic

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Assess the potential and spot the openings:  “We spent a lot of time thinking about ‘What is the market for this?’ Spreadsheets have been around forever, but most of the time, people use them to track objects: people, companies, simple tables. They're not doing modeling and number crunching, which they were invented for,” says Ofstad. “And wh

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Clarity of purpose Summarizes the company’s business on the back of a business card. Large markets Address existing markets poised for rapid growth or change. A market on the path to a $1B potential allows for error and time for real margins to develop. Rich customers Target customers who will move fast and pay a premium for a unique offering. Focu... See more

Because big businesses aren’t built on gimmicks. You can blitz your way through Sand Hill Road and spike up the App Store charts on gimmicks, but you can’t actually use them to replace Gmail, or Salesforce, or Instagram, or Instagram, or Instagram, or Instagram. Even seemingly instant successes can’t become lasting companies without putting in the ... See more

Early on, the way we approached our go-to-market was opposite of what most companies do, which is start with a super niche audience, find them, target them and expand to new markets

We started completely horizontal with a blank-slate product, and we got more and more narrow with our focus on landing customers over time. We started seeing organic ado

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