

I actually have a project... How Zapier rode forum posts to 100m requests/month - brandnewlow
http://blog.perfectaudience.com/2013/03/05/im-actually-working-on-a-project-how-zapier-rode-forum-posts-to-100m-api-requestsmonth/

======
taf2
Zapier has been really great for my service CallTrackingMetrics - they made it
incredibly easy for us to provide integration with our service to all the
services offered on Zapier. This is huge because one of the most time
consuming efforts we focus on prior to integrating with Zapier was 3rd party
integration. The integration isn't perfect, but it has been extremely valuable
and their support team has been very responsive. I'm really excited to see how
the team at Zapier evolves their platform. It's like a pipe that makes it very
easy to connect web services.

------
brandnewlow
We asked our writer to talk to the Zapier guys because we love their product.
When reading the piece she came back with, I was struck by how "I actually
have a project that..." is a bit of a meme on Hacker News and sites like Stack
Exchange, but also how it's just good customer development. IAHAP-driven
customer development might be a good topic for a future post. We've certainly
gotten many of our smartest customers for our company by responding to openly
posted pain points online.

------
xur17
I think this is key: "He and co-founders Mike Knoop and Bryan Helmig
identified a real problem and came up with a usable solution."

------
gnosis
_"Zapier... has grown to process 100 million API requests per month"_

How many unique user views is that per month? How many sales? How many
customers?

For all we know, they could just have an incredibly inefficient system which
makes 100 million API requrests for a single web page view.

~~~
WadeF
> “well into the tens of thousands” customers.

We don't disclose exact numbers, but there are quite a few users.

~~~
gnosis
Just out of curiosity, what's to stop companies about lying about numbers like
these?

Obviously, it's very much in their interest to make themselves appear bigger
and more successful than they are. After all, who would know? And, if they
ultimately actually do become successful, who would care?

~~~
WadeF
I'm not sure appearing bigger and more successful would actually lead to a
company becoming bigger and more successful though.

A company lying would ultimately just be fooling themselves.

~~~
gnosis
Most people want to do business with successful companies, because they're
under the impression that a successful company is a competent company and can
deliver on whatever it is they're promising.

Successful companies also usually tend to get favorable news coverage (this
article being a case in point). And companies usually become bigger as they
become more successful.

There's every incentive to appear more successful than you are, if you can do
so without getting caught.

------
sauteedbiscuits
Not to be a negative nancy, but I hate these bullshit statistics.

When you break it down, its only 35 requests a second. Not a big deal at all.
Any website that is relatively popular will do above and beyond that.

