Zapier Beta was full of bugs. The initial prototype was built within 54 hours at Startup Weekend in Columbia.
Wade Foster, Bryan Helming, and Mike Knoop needed people to test their software and give them feedback. Foster went to online tech forums and looked for people interested in apps integration. He posted links and got 10-20 new visitors from each one. About half of that decided to give it a try.
The founders also asked people to pay a one-time fee to test their beta product. They didn't want to make money on beta. They wanted to make Zapier look more "exclusive." It was $100 from the first few users and then $5-$10 for the rest.
