Pattern Breakers · 2025-11-18 · 42 min
When Wade Foster was a kid growing up in Jefferson City, Missouri, there weren’t many models for how to carve out a career in entrepreneurship. But when he and his friend Bryan Helmig developed an easier way to help users connect web-based applications, they ushered in what would eventually become Zapier, a remote automation giant that’s now worth an estimated $5 billion and is ideally positioned for the AI era. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr. of Floodgate speaks with Foster about his early days in Missouri and his first impressions of Silicon Valley, the concept of seed-strapping and how the company has thrived despite raising just $1.3 million, the importance of making constant contact with reality, and why Zapier is the perfect model for how to build a large-scale company while challenging virtually every part of the conventional wisdom. Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike. Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books. Follow Mike on X!
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