I was living in Miami. I was working as a auto mechanic for McLaren. So, by all
0:07
means, like I had my dream job. I was working on multi-million dollar cars.
0:11
Um, doing what I what I love to do at the time, working with my hands. But I
0:15
couldn't afford rent in Miami because when you're going through McLaren,
0:18
you're apprenticing. You really don't make that much money. And kind of at the
0:21
same time, I had stumbled into Zapier. Welcome to Agents of Scale. I'm WDE
0:36
Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier. On this show, I sit down with leaders
0:41
transforming their work and their industries with AI and automation. Most
0:45
weeks, I talk to execs in the seauite, but today we're going to do something a
0:49
little different. This is one of the people who's actually in the trenches
0:52
implementing AI across dozens of organizations from airlines to retail to
0:57
influencers. Joe Zapian's story is remarkable not just for his personal
1:02
transformation but for how he drives AI adoption at scale for the companies he
1:07
works with. Joe's start story starts with living out of his car and working
1:11
job after job until he's discovered Zapier which unlocks a path that changes
1:16
everything. And since then, he's become a force multiplier for businesses of all
1:20
kinds, showing how the right tools and the right hands can change entire
1:24
industries. Joe, welcome to Agents of Scale. So, Joe, you have this remarkable
1:33
origin story. Uh, at one point in time, I think you were living in your car. You
1:37
tried 32 different jobs. Tell us more about that.
1:42
Yeah. Um I uh at the time um I was living in
1:49
Miami. I was working as a auto mechanic for McLaren. So by all means like I had
1:54
my dream job. I was working on multi-million dollar cars. Um doing what
1:59
I what I love to do at the time working with my hands. But I couldn't af I
2:02
couldn't afford uh I couldn't afford rent in Miami because when you're going
2:06
through McLaren, you're apprenticing. You really don't make that much money.
2:09
Yeah. the origin I I won't make it super lengthy, but the the switch kind of
2:13
flipped. I had gotten a job. I had previously worked in roofing. I was a
2:17
door to door salesman at a roofing company. Had worked a lot of different
2:19
types of roofing jobs. And I had an old colleague of mine reach back out and be
2:22
like, "Hey, I know you're living in your car. You know, you should come back and
2:26
do some estimating at our roofing company." And kind of at the same time,
2:30
I had stumbled into Zapier when I started estimating at this company. So,
2:34
I was on my 2011 MacBook Pro in my car, you know, bouncing back and forth
2:39
between doing like estimating, writing estimates for roofs and playing around
2:43
with Zapier to try to like help some of my uh the marketing work I was doing for
2:48
them get done. Wow. Let So, let's go let's rewind the
2:50
clock even further. Um, you mentioned, you know, working at McLaren, that's
2:54
your dream job. Was that like were you always into cars as a kid?
2:58
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've been into I've always been into into anything fast. So,
3:02
like the 32 different jobs, there's more now uh that I had. So, I didn't go to
3:06
college. I didn't do much in high school. I had a full-time job when I was
3:10
a senior. Um I it's I didn't switch a lot of jobs because I hated them. I just
3:16
always I was the kid at the movie theater. I was more interested in what
3:19
was behind the door at the movie theater than what was going on with the movie.
3:24
And I got maybe I I got exposed to Gary Vee too early, but I was always just
3:29
like taste taste taste. Like see what you want to do. figure it out. So, I
3:33
worked as a flight attendant. I worked as a bartender server. I worked uh
3:37
training and breeding horses. Um, I worked at a trampoline park. I was a
3:41
professional skydiver for a long time. I still do that on the weekends. I was a
3:45
firefighter for almost 5 years in in Northern Virginia. I I did a lot of
3:50
stuff and I never just had one job, you know. I I did multiple things, but I'd
3:54
always loved cars. Um, I had gotten done working a skydiving contract in El Paso,
4:00
Texas. I was doing skydiving and I was a nut farmer. So, I operated this big
4:05
machine that shook trees until all the nuts fall off. One of the largest pecan
4:09
farms in the United States is in Bino, New Mexico. So, I was doing that and I
4:13
was like, I don't want to work outside anymore on this farm. Skydiving grade
4:17
doesn't pay the bills. My sister lived in Miami and I'd always loved cars. So,
4:20
I actually went to work at Enterprise, taught myself on YouTube, how to pass a
4:25
mechanics test, went to work at Enterprise as like a lube tire tech,
4:28
worked into becoming a full technician, then I applied at McLaren once I could,
4:34
you know, rub two bolts together and make a car. Um, I shifted from
4:37
Enterprise Fleet Mechanics to McLaren. And at the time, that like was my dream
4:41
was to work on these cars I never thought I would be able to afford. Um so
4:46
long answer to say it my dreams shift and move as time goes on but at the time
4:51
that was really what I wanted to do. How did you was this you know through
4:55
all these jobs um did you have a thought process or was it just sort of like you
5:00
know following whatever like interest comes your way like how are you sort of
5:03
maneuvering from you know the nut farm to the cars to the skydiving to the you
5:09
know whatever. Yeah. It's a question my dad asked me a lot.
5:12
Um cuz my my dad's a systems engineer so he's you know he he was early days of uh
5:18
he he was a he was a coder before people knew what coders were but
5:21
um not not much honestly and probably not to my credit. I mean I went and did
5:27
things based off of what sounded fun. I tried to focus as little as I could on
5:33
what would make me money. I just wanted to do stuff that I thought was cool.
5:38
Um I wasn't married at the time. I had kind of no bearing on. I knew like,
5:43
okay, I want to maybe get into real estate. I want to do things that
5:46
long-term set me up for financial success, but most of all, I don't want
5:49
to hate my life every day when I wake up. I care about that. So, I would I
5:53
would move in between things that brought me fulfillment. I mean,
5:56
firefighting probably brought me the most personal satisfaction I'll ever get
6:00
because there's nothing like helping people out of horrible situations. Um,
6:04
but yeah, it was just like, hey, this is really fun. I've learned a lot about
6:08
hospitality from working as a bartender. Like, this is great. Now, let's take
6:11
that and let's go do something else. That sounds fun. You know,
6:15
what do what do you think you learned working across 32 roles that maybe
6:21
somebody who only has worked in a handful of jobs?
6:24
Oh man. Um, it's so hard to distill that because it depends, but just people.
6:29
There's so many types of people out there in so many different industries.
6:32
It's just reading and understanding the way people think um is probably the most
6:39
valuable thing I got out of it. You know, I could talk to somebody that
6:42
works in a technical role and get along with them. If you're from the country
6:45
and you grew up riding horses and milking cows, I can get along with you.
6:50
You know, if you work with your hands and you're very bluecollar, we can I can
6:53
get along with pretty much everybody. I think I learned a lot of empathy and
6:58
perspective about where a lot of people were at from bouncing in and out of so
7:03
many of these different industries because a lot of people where I worked
7:05
with they've been doing the same job for 15 20 years
7:08
you know so I would say a tremendous amount of empathy and just people skills
7:14
at the risk of making this like super philosophical you see all these
7:17
different types of people like what do you think is the is there a common
7:20
thread across all of these that you're like you know what humans at our core
7:23
we're we're just X. Yeah, I would say, and this is a I don't
7:28
know who said this, but it it kind of rings true across whatever you're doing.
7:31
People don't remember what you said. They remember how you
7:36
made them feel. Yeah, I think that's my Angelou quote,
7:39
right? Yeah. I I I can't remember. I I read a
7:42
lot of books now. So I I try to like write down these these quotes and stuff
7:46
that I hear. But that kind of if you want to talk about things that
7:48
string through about people across all these industries, it tends to be that
7:52
people and even in my marriage, you know, like my wife, people who I'm
7:56
talking to, they very rarely care about the words that you say, how they
8:00
perceive what you say and how what you say impacts them and makes them feel
8:03
matters tremendously more than anything else.
8:07
Okay. So, zooming forward again, we're at McLaren. Uh, you're living out of
8:14
your car, you're uh in the church parking lot, you've got your MacBook
8:17
Pro, and somehow you stumbled across Zapier. Do do you remember how you first
8:23
came across Zapier? I was I was thinking about that over the
8:26
last few days. Um, I had a friend of mine named Garrett Hlip who runs a
8:31
massive um kind of like Harmon Brothers style
8:34
agency now. they do creative and at the construction company I was working with
8:40
um they had hired Retain Garrett for some work and he had he was like yeah
8:44
we're going to use Zapier to take whatever marketing stuff and like put it
8:47
into your Salesforce or whatever CRM you're using and that was the second
8:50
time that I'd seen it because I had seen it once before and I was like oh this is
8:55
kind of cool and I think the first time I had to do something was just like
8:59
taking the title of like a Google doc and dropping it into like some CRM
9:03
somewhere and I think that was like the first I'm I looked at I went into my
9:07
Zappier and looked at the oldest edited one. I think that was the first one was
9:11
was one that was similar to that. What were you doing that you needed to
9:14
to do that? So remember okay at the time I was
9:17
working really hard on social media Tik Tok in particular. So I had blown up I
9:20
had not blown up but I had had you know 30 40 million views on my profile like
9:24
50,000 followers not tremendous but I was doing like a lot with short form
9:28
social in my personal life through all these different jobs and stuff
9:31
storytelling. Um, and so the construction company I was working with
9:34
was like, "Hey, you should help us with some of our marketing. Like, can you
9:37
kind of peek in on this stuff?" So, I was getting into the marketing stuff and
9:41
then that's where I kind wanting to do some of the Facebook
9:45
analytic stuff, zap it into our CRM. Got it. And with Zapier, was it
9:51
something that it just it just like immediately clicked for you
9:55
or No. Yeah.
9:57
No, not not it. Well, once it clicked, it clicked. Like, once it made sense,
10:03
then it's just like it was night and day. It was like I kind of I'm using a
10:06
tool and like it's like I'm pressing the gas
10:09
in the car. I I had bought a Udemy course on API integration and I only did
10:16
like 15 minutes of it. All right. And I basically got through CRUD, right?
10:21
Create, read, update, delete. I understood that about how APIs worked
10:25
and what an API actually was. And then it was and it was game. It literally
10:29
went from like one day I use Zap year this way and there was some stuff I
10:33
thought I could do with it. Then I understood what an API and what an HTTP
10:37
request actually was and then it was just like
10:40
then it was just I just dove into learning and and playing with stuff and
10:43
it was it was night and day. I mean my my wife will tell you I just I just
10:47
disappeared for like weeks. Yeah. What were what were the problems
10:50
you were solving before you sort of figured out the like you know how to use
10:53
an API versus after? Uh it was little stuff, right? Uh at the at the
10:59
construction company I was working with. Um and I had started using ClickUp at
11:03
the same time by the way. That was like the first API doc I ever read was like
11:06
what you can do with ClickUp's API. It was it was like uh you know when a
11:11
Google doc is created, drop the title in here and put the link to the Google doc
11:14
in the task. Um when we have a new idea for a um and a Jasper had just come out.
11:21
So I think I was integrating with Jasper before OpenAI like made its big splash
11:26
with GPT, but it was like when we have a new marketing idea, create a template
11:30
doc for brainstorming. It was a lot of like marketing. Yeah.
11:33
Content creation type of stuff. Got it. And then you know you you sort
11:38
of have this like wakeup moment. Uh te tell us a little bit about like how how
11:47
sort of life has changed for you, how work has changed for you once you sort
11:50
of have this like big unlock. Like what are the types of jobs you're doing now?
11:53
What are the types of problems you're solving? Yeah. Give us a little bit of
11:56
that like, hey, you're not living in your car anymore.
11:59
No, no, no, no, no. And I'll try I'll really try not to go down the rabbit
12:02
hole with this because there's like a lot of ways to answer this question.
12:05
I'll tell you what I was I remember what I was actually doing when I
12:09
uncovered this. So, I was using uh so ClickUp has a native form feature that
12:15
like when you fill out a form it creates a task in ClickUp. Okay. And one of the
12:20
features there is like when form is filled out call a web hook. At the time
12:24
I had no idea what a web hook was, right? Um but it I I learned that like
12:29
okay call a web hook I can trigger something in Zapier and like start a
12:32
series of automations. And so what I wanted to do was like I was taking like
12:37
content courses and stuff because I was trying to up the company's social media
12:40
game, trying to up my own social media game. And I would find YouTube courses
12:44
and YouTube assets at times that I wanted to distill. So, I was like,
12:48
"Okay, I want to take an automation that I can take like a video, upload it to a
12:53
like put it into ClickUp through a ClickUp public ClickUp form um and then
12:58
it will transcribe it, distill it with AI down, like distill it down for me and
13:03
then drop it in my workspace as like a knowledge base of things about content
13:07
creation." It is actually still live. If you go to scrolladdict.com,
13:11
it's a redirect to a ClickUp form. This is like the first automation that I ever
13:14
made that meant something to me. It's still It's still up. So, I took me I
13:19
think like 5 days to build that. And at the time it was like 13 steps. It was
13:25
like, "Oh my gosh." It was like the biggest automation I' ever done was 13
13:28
steps. And I like I remember seeing like the little 13 plus thing and I was I was
13:32
like, "Holy crap." Like this is huge. It's a 13step automation. I'm using
13:37
three different app AP. It was like a huge deal. And it worked. Like I could
13:41
go to the I could go to scrolladdict.com at any point, drop in a link or I forgot
13:45
a video that I wanted to distill and it would create some different assets for
13:50
me to use and stored in ClickUp. And during that process, I had started to
13:55
read the open AI API docs and I started to read more deeply into the ClickUp
14:01
docs. And then I started to like really understand what APIs are. Like I'm
14:06
borrowing the transmission from McLaren, the body from the Chevy, the wheels from
14:11
the Corvette, like all these different things that I can make. I was like
14:14
scroll.com is an app. Like I built a little mini application. No databasing,
14:20
no front end, no backend, no middleware. Like I'm not using my own API servers.
14:24
Like I'm building all this stuff. I'll tell you about that later, like the
14:27
companies I have right now. But I just built a little mini app called
14:30
scrollic.com that takes and like once I did that and I realized I'd created like
14:34
a mini app. I I I literally remember that day like like it was yesterday cuz
14:42
I sat back in my chair and I was like, "Oh my gosh, like I can I can do some
14:46
damage with this. Like I could build some I could build things with this."
14:50
Um, and so kind of how things changed from that till today was I went to some
14:56
of the influencers I had in my network at the time. I went to everybody I could
15:00
find and one person in particular that that made a huge difference. And like
15:03
it's crazy that like one connection, one conversation can change the trajectory
15:07
of your life. And I went to every influencer that had Open DMs and I was
15:11
like, "Hey, I'm building automation. I'm not very good at it yet, but I'd love to
15:14
do some work for free." And I went around and begged people to do work for
15:18
free. as many people as I could. Um, and I stumbled across this across this guy
15:23
named Christopher Claflin and we got along really well and I built some like,
15:28
you know, not so advanced for me now, but back then I built some really
15:31
advanced like CRM automations for him that helped him manage part of his
15:36
business and part of his editing workflow and part of his media workflow,
15:40
which I had a little bit experience with at the construction company. and um he
15:45
ended up being contacted for a brand deal by ClickUp, oddly enough. And so he
15:52
plugged me in with one of the founding members at ClickUp directly. And that
15:56
connection completely changed my life. Completely changed my life cuz then I
16:00
showed him, here's all the form apps that I've built in ClickUp. Here's all
16:04
the stuff that I've built with your ClickUp API with Zapier. Like I with
16:09
ClickUp and Zappier, I can turn ClickUp into anything anyone wants it to be. And
16:14
I had completely blown it out of the water for Chris Claflin and a few other
16:17
people. And I was just again, please let me do free work. You don't have to pay
16:20
me. And at the end of the day, these guys were like, please let me pay you.
16:23
You've saved me so much time. And so now through all of those different types,
16:28
like I hate like if if you're if you're good at something, never do it for free.
16:30
It's like that's so stupid. like do stuff until people like if you're good
16:35
enough at it, people will want to pay you to do it. And that was my experience
16:40
here. Anyway, so um ClickUp, I actually worked at ClickUp for a while. I got a
16:45
head title at a $4 billion tech company by being good at Zapier. Like no nothing
16:52
on my resume with tech. Guy in the car in the Lincoln Town Car in the church
16:56
parking lot. I knew control altdelete. That was it. Right. By the time I had
17:00
gone through my Zap year learning process and landed a head title at
17:04
ClickUp, I was much more advanced than that. I was writing my own HTTP
17:08
requests, JSON, like I think in JSON now. Um I think in input output, I think
17:13
in CRUD and um I landed a head title there. I end up leaving ClickUp. Great
17:19
relationship with them still. I work with them all the time. I left there
17:23
because my automation business was was picking up and I I I couldn't meet the
17:27
demand that I had in my own business while still working at ClickUp. So life
17:32
is just I mean I have two children now, one on the way. I'm married. I have a
17:37
house. I paid for my own wedding. I mean the amount of things that have changed
17:42
in my life in the past four years going from
17:48
controlalttdelete I know task manager to like I have like at glorium day it's
17:54
Latin I have a portfolio of companies now because I do kind of like tech
17:59
venture capital where companies will approach me I will take
18:04
large equity in their business and do all of their automation all of their
18:07
scaling I build web applications now. Like I have an web application building
18:11
team that just does web apps that talk to my automations. Like I have this
18:15
whole system now where I have I have equity in all these different companies
18:18
that I never would imagine I would have equity in. And it's all because like
18:23
when I started this thing, I just kept asking questions. And Zapier like paved
18:28
the way from very very simple like okay here's a trigger and here's an action
18:32
and you can just understand it as pushing the pedal. But if you want to
18:35
like look at the brake lines and understand how an ABS pump works and a
18:39
fuel system works and you want to learn the different types of gasoline that can
18:43
power your car, like you can build your own car that goes way faster than anyone
18:47
you could buy from the store and people want to buy that one from you. And it
18:50
just turned into that and I just kept learning and learning and asking
18:53
questions and it was like it moved so so far beyond um you know basic zaps and
19:00
everything. But Zapier is my foundation really for all of my technical
19:04
knowledge, which is crazy. Anyway, that was a really long answer. I don't even
19:07
know if I answered the question that you asked.
19:09
No, that was great, Joe. Congrats, man. That is super. Um, yeah, it's
19:13
remarkable. Um, I think one things folks will be interested in is, you know,
19:18
you're you're talking about APIs and web hooks and JSON and you're, you know,
19:23
using all these technical terms. When you started, you didn't know any of
19:26
these things. like walk us through like how quickly it took you to,
19:30
you know, go from, you know, okay, I'm just like checking out Zappier, checking
19:35
out ClickUp, checking out some of these tools for the first time to like your
19:38
sort of like expert what what feels like expert level automation uh wizard at
19:43
this point in time. Yeah. So, good question. Um, and it
19:46
doesn't fit my and I think this is the thing that maybe can people who know me
19:50
really well, like Joe as a software company does not mesh. Like I'm an
19:54
adrenaline junkie. I like running into burning buildings. cuz I like jumping
19:56
out of airplanes. I like riding motorcycles. Like these are things I'm
19:59
passionate about. And there's something about like I love to play Legos when I
20:03
was a kid. I still love Legos. Like my son I buy my son Legos and I build them
20:07
with him and it's and it's so much fun. And like why is that fun? It's cuz like
20:11
the the endorphins like the the rush you get when you build something and it
20:16
looks the way that you imagined it to. You created something that didn't exist
20:20
before you put pen to paper, put your thoughts into the machine. when you
20:24
build something that didn't quite exist before, there's like and you get a 200,
20:28
right? You get a you get it works, right? There's something about that that
20:32
is super exciting. And early on in Zapier, I was using a system I didn't
20:37
quite get, but I would somehow make it work. And when I would get the 200, when
20:42
I'd get the positive response, when the thing worked, it just felt so good. Like
20:47
it felt so exciting that like I'd be laying there in my bed and I would go,
20:51
"Oh, wait. I could try to build that." I'd run to my laptop and spend three or
20:55
four hours building something and then it worked. It was like, "Oh, that's so
20:57
cool." And it would get me so I would get I it would get me I would get so
21:01
excited I couldn't sleep because I have this idea that I can bring to life like
21:05
that. And it was amazing. And so it's like, okay, first thing is if you're not
21:11
excited about something, there's no amount of like forcing it that you could
21:14
probably do um that's going to make you like it. You know, like the fact is is
21:20
like I'm excited about this. I'm excited about software now. I'm excited about
21:23
automation because it allows me to be creative in the way that I enjoy being
21:27
creative and it g it creates a positive feedback loop for me. And something
21:31
that's super powerful is like like the way I use GPT like I have the the GPT
21:36
app on my phone and you can do the voice thing and you can just talk back and
21:40
forth with it. And I would spend it an hour every day started okay tell me
21:45
about HTTP versus HTTPS and what's the difference between Nex.js and Node.js JS
21:50
and React and what is CRUD and I'm getting a 500. What is an internal
21:54
server? What is a server? What's a backend server? And I would just talk I
21:59
still do this. It's been like like imagine years of just going back and
22:04
forth with a teacher and not using AI to like replace you, but to use it as like
22:10
an expert tutor, expert college education that I never got. Now I can
22:15
just every day just talk back and forth with AI and have help me learn Zappier,
22:20
help me learn automation, help me learn APIs and what this different stuff means
22:24
and how I can be more creative like like Socratically like ask me questions and
22:28
pull this stuff out of me. Um, it just got me more more excited because when
22:33
you can ask questions and kind of build a story in your head, like that's what
22:38
to me gets me excited and what gets people excited is like you ask the right
22:43
question, you get people to start creating relationships in their head.
22:46
Um, and then you get that 200, you get that positive feedback loop and it just
22:49
feels amazing. So, um, it just I just never stopped learning. I didn't I
22:54
didn't go to school. I had no nothing going for me in particular. Like um I
23:00
wasn't getting an inheritance. No one was paying for my school. I paid my way
23:04
through everything. So from my experience, like you read and you learn
23:10
and you dig and you dig and you dig. You don't think 9 to5. You don't think when
23:15
is this going to end? You just think learn as much as you can. And that's
23:19
been my philosophy with skydiving. That's been my philosophy with farming
23:23
nuts. That's been my philosophy with working on cars is like there's always
23:26
someone better than you. So if you can't get excited about the learning process,
23:31
you're not going to make it very far. And that's what the learning process got
23:35
me really excited with this because it just allows me to continue to expand my
23:39
creative ability. And money comes with that. Like I
23:42
haven't even talked about the money, but it's not that's not like that comes as a
23:46
result. Yeah. It's the output. It's not the
23:48
input. Exactly. you you know you say you know I
23:52
don't have an education you know you know I didn't come from you know you
23:57
know much things things but it it's pretty clear like listening to you talk
24:01
you do have an education you're constantly learning and maybe I you know
24:05
I don't know if it you know came from all the jobs you worked or if it was
24:08
there before you have this like innate curiosity and you're constantly asking
24:13
wow how why etc and then you know these tools come along things like Zapier
24:18
things like chat gbt that allow you to just like keep asking more questions and
24:22
start to apply your knowledge in interesting ways and all of a sudden it
24:26
feels like there's a big unlock that it's like hey I can now go do a whole
24:31
bunch of things that before maybe felt out of reach. Um
24:37
maybe can you talk a little bit about like how your own view of your own
24:43
capabilities have maybe shifted over time?
24:45
That's really Yeah. So, I think that's that's a great point cuz I think a
24:51
person's we're all so curious. People have an innate curiosity built into
24:56
them. And of course, we're all different and people are good at different things.
24:59
But I think so much of our curiosity and how we learn is stifled by our own
25:04
limiting beliefs of what we can or can't do or it's like so big and I can't
25:08
figure it out. Um, I think life is about collecting as many small wins as you can
25:14
and not worrying about the big wins. And when I got started with this stuff, like
25:20
I am a very curious person. And with these different jobs and all the things
25:25
that I had to do and just growing up and the way that I live my life, I've
25:28
learned that like the the asking questions and seeking the answers is a
25:32
very rewarding experience. And I think most people think to themselves like, I
25:36
wonder what's behind that door. One of the worst things I think I did initially
25:40
learning Zapier was like go on YouTube, go on Reddit, like go on these places
25:44
and try to learn and you just get like bulldozed with information about like
25:48
all of this stuff, right? And it's very scary. And again, there's always
25:54
somebody that knows more than you. There's always somebody that has a
25:56
bigger agency. There's always a bigger fish. And so for me it's like okay I'm
26:00
not going to worry about all the literature that's out there about coding
26:04
and integrations and RPA like robotic process automation and all this really
26:08
high level stuff. Like I'm just going to focus on getting Google Drive to work
26:12
with ClickUp and getting a 200. And I'm going to go to GBT and I'm going to ask
26:15
questions and I'm going to say explain it to me like I'm a 5-year-old. I'm
26:18
going to build my analogies in my head for how my car works. And I'm just going
26:21
to collect the little wins. Somebody knows way more than I do, but by the end
26:24
of today, I'm going to understand a little bit more about how an API works.
26:28
I'm going to understand what the S and HTTPS is. Like, collect your little
26:33
wins, put them in your little box, and just keep filling your box up, and one
26:36
day someone will look at you and go like, "How did you know all this stuff?"
26:39
So, talking about doing the things that you thought you couldn't. Uh, I'm sure
26:43
there's a lot of folks curious about like the art of possible. So, let let's
26:47
um let's talk about maybe your biggest highlight reel. Like what what's the
26:50
thing you're most proud of building? Your best automations, your best builds
26:54
that you look back on and you're like, I I I didn't think that I would ever be
26:57
able to do that. So, there's there's like a couple. One
27:00
of them is the simplest automation I've ever
27:04
built and has the most meaning to me out of any of them that I've ever built. And
27:10
it's those that are like the simple ones that people go, "Wow, this changed my
27:14
life." And it's like, "This took me five minutes to make. What do you mean this
27:17
changed your life?" I uh I was really into I I still am like Brazilian
27:22
jiu-jitsu and and mixed martial arts and stuff. When I was younger, I did a lot
27:25
of that. I got knocked out a lot. I have had many concussions. I There's like a
27:32
lot of the big things about my life I remember, but a lot of the small things
27:35
in my life I don't. I don't remember a ton of my childhood unless someone asked
27:39
the right questions. like a lot of the little details that I want to remember
27:42
about my life, I don't. And so after I got married and I started having my
27:48
having kids, like my favorite fast food is Taco Bell. I love Taco Bell. And my
27:54
oldest son Oliver, he's four now. When he was like a little bit over two, the
27:58
he walked he waddled up to me and he was like, "Taco Bell?" And I was like, "The
28:03
first time my son ever asked me for Taco Bell, like I don't want to forget this.
28:09
I don't want to forget. I don't want to forget my life. I don't want to forget
28:11
my children. Like I don't want to forget these things. And I do. And journaling
28:15
doesn't like journaling is great, but I don't always have my journal on me. And
28:18
the way I live my life, like I'm so busy sometimes I don't have a pen. I leave it
28:22
somewhere and then I get off the I get off the the feedback loop and I forget.
28:26
And I don't want to forget anymore. Um and so my proudest automation is I it's
28:32
in my ClickUp workspace is don't forget. Every day at 5:00 I get the same text,
28:37
click this link and put your memory in. And every day I write something down,
28:41
one little thing from that day from my kids, for my whatever it is that I don't
28:45
want to forget. And that's it. There's three boxes. You can upload an image, a
28:49
picture, a video. You can select whether the good was the day was good, bad, or
28:52
meh. And then you can freewrite in what's something today from today that
28:57
you don't want to forget. And I started that this year. That was my new New
29:01
Year's resolution is from now until the rest of my life, I'm not going to forget
29:05
the little things. I'm not going to forget my daughter reaching up and
29:08
touching my face for the first time. I'm not going to forget her saying dad. I'm
29:11
not going to forget my son, you know, saying I love you. Like I'm not going to
29:16
forget these things. I refuse to. We not in the age that we live in. Um and even
29:21
with like remembering like today was the day that I believed that I could make
29:26
this much money or today was the day that me and my wife overcame this thing
29:29
that we've been trying to work together on. Um, that has been the single most
29:34
important thing that I've ever done in automation was figure out how to not
29:40
forget the little things that make my life worth living. Cuz it's not the big
29:43
stuff, it's all the little stuff. Um, that's my proudest one. Uh, I can go in
29:48
today and look at January. I can open up any day and be like, "Holy crap, I
29:53
forgot that I made Sam, my wife's name is Sam. I forgot that I made Sam laugh
29:56
lucky charms out of her nose because I made a joke about something." You know,
29:59
like, I totally forgot that already. I already forgot that. I already forgot
30:03
what I put in my memory from yesterday. I I already forgot it. But I could go on
30:07
my phone right now and queue up any of them and it could turn into a product.
30:10
Like I could make automate like a you know a book um of uh like one that gets
30:16
autobound and like mailed out to me every year. But like 20 years from now,
30:19
can you imagine 20 years from now? You look at any particular day, you can see
30:23
the picture, the video, and what you were the small thing from that day you
30:26
didn't want to forget. Imagine giving that to your kids. Imagine if you pass
30:29
like you can give that to your family members, your your great grandchildren,
30:33
like whoever it is. Like so simple. Schedule start Zap every day at 5:00
30:39
p.m. Send SMS text message include form link. It's two It's two steps, dude.
30:44
It's two steps and it completely changed my life. And I only
30:48
It's only possible because I was sitting around going like, I'm so tired of
30:51
forgetting my children's faces that they make on certain days. I'm like, dude,
30:55
I'm a software developer at this point. Why can't I just build? Like, you tell
30:59
me I can't automate my way around something. And so I did. And it ended up
31:02
being the simplest thing I ever did. And now my family does it. Like my mom, my
31:06
dad, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, both my sisters, my brother-in-law, like
31:10
they all do it, too. Like I set up the automation for them. So, um, most
31:15
impactful one that I've ever made. Now, I have, um, I have some other ones that
31:19
were fun. Like, I maxed out I remember the first time I maxed out Zap's
31:23
Zapier's 100 step limit. Um that was for um I've I built a bunch of custom CRM
31:29
like using ClickUp as the base. Like I've replaced Salesforce because of
31:33
Zapier. I've replaced Salesforce for like a huge roofing company, huge public
31:37
adjusting company. There's like a bunch of advanced calculus that goes into
31:40
calculating price sheets and how much people are owed on different types of
31:44
insurance claims that is just basically a bunch of custom Python inside of Zaps.
31:48
Is that the best way to do it? Probably not. But the be beauty of Zapier, the
31:53
absolute beauty of Zapier and why I know how to use uh make.com, I know how to
31:58
use other passes, like even work, I know I can use Wcado, but like why do I come
32:03
back to Zapier? I can build something, hand it to somebody with no experience
32:07
in automation and they can kind of understand what's going on. Like you
32:10
look at Maker or even some of these other ones, you build something really
32:12
complex and you open it, it's like, oh my gosh, like you need some really
32:16
detailed explanation. But I can relatively simply build a complex set of
32:21
automations, even if there's custom JS or custom um Python and give it to
32:26
somebody and kind of walk them through very easily like what's going on in
32:29
this. Um so that's probably like the craziest one I ever did was maxing out
32:33
100 steps on a on a on a zap. Um I built another one like my landlord was driving
32:39
me crazy and there's an API endpoint called LOB, right? and it allows you to
32:45
send send mail. And so I was like, okay, I'm looking in their in the lease
32:49
agreement and it says like every time I send them a maintenance request, they
32:52
literally have to scan it into their computer and they have to document it.
32:56
So I'm going to send them 50 maintenance requests a day using this API because
33:02
they're straight up violating my lease, not taking care of things that need to
33:06
be done. And it was it was not good. Like they straightened up immediately
33:10
after this. But I was I just started mailing them all these maintenance
33:13
requests cuz I'm just a renter. Like when you're a renter, you get taken
33:16
advantage of all the time and there's like you have zero power and your
33:20
landlords can basically do whatever you want. So that birthed that and then an
33:23
application called Rate My Rental that I'm working on that's like a Yelp for um
33:28
a Yelp for renters. So like be able to actually review property management
33:32
companies and have it like show up on Zillow. Anyway, um that one was probably
33:36
one of the most fun that I ever built because I had direct impact on my life.
33:40
I got my property manager to like, you know, do what they agreed to do, fix my
33:45
house when it broke. Um I mean there, dude, there's so many fun ones.
33:49
Um I there there's there's there's there's
33:52
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of ones that I've built at this point, but
33:54
those are the ones that immediately stick out to me when you ask the
33:57
question. Well, and it's incredible how the impact of these um is not
34:04
necessarily correlated with the complexity or the amount of effort you
34:08
put in. No, it's you know the simple things can be
34:11
just as impactful as the big things uh at the end of the day. Uh and so it kind
34:16
of just speaks to you know no matter who you are like there's
34:20
probably a thing that you can do that's impactful um
34:23
with with automation uh even if you're just getting started. Yeah, even like uh
34:27
I have one that reminds me and my wife when the trash goes out. Like every
34:31
other Tuesday and then on the right day we just get a text like here's when the
34:34
trash goes out. And when I'm setting this up for businesses like at this
34:36
point I've implemented Zapier for so many businesses. It's always like little
34:42
simple things. They're like oh yeah I didn't I didn't even think about that.
34:45
It's like yeah this isn't anything fancy. This is five or six steps. Maybe
34:48
plug in AI somewhere to like help with some part of it. But um sometimes they
34:53
are really complex, but they don't always have to be crazy. And again, it's
34:58
like when I'm looking to hire somebody or like I'm scaling my business, it's
35:03
really if you understand how to think about a problem, it's it's learning it's
35:07
training your brain to think the right way and then the technical skills follow
35:11
up. But if you under if you understand how to think about the problem and you
35:15
understand the way that APIs work and and you can think through it on a
35:20
whiteboard that's then the technical stuff is easy like anybody can write
35:25
JSON like it's not hard anybody can learn to do this stuff understanding how
35:29
to think about the problem that's that's it that's everything in my opinion.
35:34
Yeah. So yeah, let's let's transition and talk about um you know the types of
35:40
people who who should maybe be doing more of this type of stuff, who should
35:44
be building automations, who should be building um systems. Um you know folks
35:48
are like curious to to do this. Are there types of people or types of skills
35:52
that you think are like the best place to start?
35:56
Yeah. Um, generally if you like if you're the type of person that likes to
36:02
make up their bed, like if you if if you like to be organized and you like
36:07
systems, right? Um, you're a great you're probably a great candidate. I'd
36:13
also say like um kind again the way you talk and you think is is very important.
36:18
If if you're like I remember in in algebra 2 in high school we drew a
36:23
little input output machine and even since then I like to think about things
36:27
in terms of inputs and outputs. If you're like a very logical type of
36:30
person, if you get in arguments with your significant other because you're
36:33
like, "These are just the facts and this is what I said and this is what you did,
36:36
right?" Like, if you're an input output type of person and you think very
36:40
logically that way, um, this is a great great place to go. If you like to
36:45
abstract problems and break them down of your head, if you like if you like
36:49
solving problems, I think this is a a great field for you, which is a lot of
36:53
people. I would say if you enjoy the process of mapping out how you would
37:00
solve a problem, even if you're not the one solving it,
37:03
it's a it's a great it's a great place to start. And and I and it's and it's
37:07
hard for me, Wade, because I think so many people would do well with this.
37:13
They just think they're not the right type of person because be to be honest
37:17
with you, it doesn't just take a super logical person. Like this is just stuff
37:22
that I look for. But it doesn't take any of those things. It just takes an
37:24
understanding of if you can visualize I have a car, but I like the mirrors
37:30
from a different one and I like the tires from a different one and I like
37:33
the steering wheel from a different one. If you can understand that architecture,
37:36
then you can do this and apply that to your business. Right? I like the
37:40
document signing feature of Docuign. I like the CRM capabilities of ClickUp. I
37:45
like the payment abilities of Stripe. And you you can think that way and you
37:50
can build your own little car then you can you can automate it like if you
37:53
think it you can build it 100%. Zapier has so many connections at this point
37:57
like and and the fact that you can do custom you can do Python and stuff like
38:01
that you can create your own web hooks there's really nothing you can't at
38:04
least get a beta of you know at least try to build.
38:07
So you you mentioned to me uh before that you're you're building an AI
38:11
consultant that that helps people get started with stuff like this. Can you
38:15
tell us a little more about that? Yeah, I'm that's still something I'm I'm I'm
38:18
working on. It's not it's not live yet, but um
38:22
yeah, I I think pulling people out of their own misbeliefs about what's
38:28
possible is a huge huge problem. You know, I try to tell people like I'm a
38:34
I'm a very narrative driven person. I like I think in stories. I think in Star
38:39
Wars. I think in um The Great Escape. I like I I like I love movies and I think
38:46
I always put myself in a story somewhere. And one of my my my f
38:50
probably my favorite quote ever is uh the uh the bigger the dragon, the
38:56
greater the hero, right? The if you have this huge dragon and you kill it, you're
39:01
big. Like the it's a better story. No one likes a story where there's like a
39:05
little like, you know, halfling size dragon. You just come and cut its head
39:09
off, right? it's you you want to have a big dragon because it's a better story.
39:15
Um, so with the AI consultant thing, it's like let's break down your life.
39:19
Let's break down your problems into dragons and picture yourself as a hero
39:23
and let's figure out how to defeat it. And so for me, I struggle sometimes with
39:29
with hiring and with getting people to understand what their capabilities are.
39:33
So, I'm trying to build a kind of an interactive um and I I started thinking
39:37
about this when I was building an AI homeschooling thing for my kids because
39:40
I wanted them like my wife to be able to just generate lessons on the fly and
39:44
like homeschool with with AI um of like, okay, if you want to learn Zappy, if you
39:48
want to learn automation, you can start at any point, you can start at any point
39:52
and whether it's you want to have your own agency or you just want to implement
39:56
something for your company, where do I start? Well, it's it's a very again it's
39:59
a Socratic thing. What do you already know? Have you ever do you like Legos?
40:02
Do you like building a car? Do you like makeup? Um, do you like swimming? What's
40:07
your thing? And then building kind of a um a automation blueprint if you want
40:12
with AI based on the type of person that you're talking to. Because it really is,
40:16
again, this is a 32 job speaking. It really is going, "Oh, he does he likes
40:20
this. We're going to break it down in terms of this. Oh, he's a cook. We're
40:23
going to break it down like a recipe." Right? That's kind of where I feel like
40:27
the AI consultant could could play a a huge role in in teaching automation or
40:31
at least showing somebody what they might need to do in Zapier because it's
40:35
just about again making people feel a certain way, leaving an impact, leaving
40:40
an analogy in a way that clicks with them versus just talking at them and
40:43
like here's the lessons one, two, three, you know.
40:46
Yeah. Joe, your story is incredible. Uh congrats on all the success. Thanks for
40:50
sharing it with us. Uh to wrap up, if someone's really into getting or is
40:55
really excited about getting started with automation, what's your number one
40:58
tip to help them get going? Just start. Just get your just
41:02
immediately get your hands dirty. Open Zapier and just start like just start
41:07
doing stuff. Look at the technology you use every day. Is it Gmail? Is it is it
41:12
ClickUp? Is it Google Drive? What is it? And just make something work. If you
41:16
want, go into chat GPT. This is what I used to do. give me any two apps and
41:20
give me a scenario. Like just think of scenarios in your head. Um because
41:24
that's what I would do a lot. I still do that. So I have an automation um that
41:28
just tells me whenever somebody creates a new app in ClickUp, whenever anybody
41:32
creates a new like connection and it's just like, okay, this is a newsletter
41:36
app. Let's let's try let's try their API. Let's do something with that. And
41:39
that's part of my flow still is continuing to experiment with ways of
41:43
building. Do that. Literally think of two apps that you use every day. Look
41:47
up. Does ClickUp have an API? Does Google Docs have an API? If the answer's
41:52
yes, go to Zapier and try to make them work together somehow. That's the only
41:56
way to do it. Don't I mean, everybody's different, right? But for me, don't get
42:00
lost in in the YouTube. Don't get lost in Reddit. Don't get lost in all these
42:05
super highlevel things. Collect your little wins. Try to make something small
42:09
work and then continue to ask questions. I think that's the biggest thing as a
42:13
now semi-technical person. Like legitimately, I have a portfolio
42:18
company. I own equity in six different businesses. I have income. I quit my
42:23
job. My children can eat. My wife drives the car that she wants to drive. I can
42:27
afford to put food on the table. I can fly to see my parents when I need to see
42:30
them. Like, I can buy nice things for people. I remember when I was living in
42:35
my car, dude. Like I was crushed at Christmas time. Like Christmas time
42:43
would come around and I was like everybody would get me presents. Like my
42:45
sister got me presents, my dad got me presents, my mom got me presents. Like
42:49
everybody got me something and I could never buy anybody else anything. Like
42:53
everybody always took care of Joe and all I could do was say thanks everybody.
42:57
And it felt horrible. It felt horrible. I could I I couldn't reciprocate. I was
43:01
miserably in in credit card debt and I I couldn't I couldn't reciprocate. And
43:07
like now I like every year at Christmas I'm like I can buy everybody in my
43:15
family a gift, you know? Like I can go and see my family when I want to. Like
43:20
if somebody in my family's in trouble, I can help them. I have businesses that
43:23
support me. I paid for my wedding. Not like I have so much. I have so much. And
43:31
it all came back to like in the like you know was zap year looked a lot different
43:37
3 four years ago but like coming back and being like oh 501 like why what is
43:43
that and and what is a server and what does a server do and like a 200 great
43:48
but like what does it mean? Oh there's a call and a response. Oh I'm calling an
43:53
API to use one of its oh application program interface. Okay I'm using the
43:58
app the way someone would on their screen. I'm just using a different Okay.
44:01
And I'm just using a different door that looks like and I every time like around
44:06
Christmas time I I go through this thing again where I'm like I could I could
44:10
afford nothing for anybody and I could help no one and like now I can have a
44:14
positive effect on people's lives and like my children benefit from it. And
44:18
it's this man like what you've done for me personally
44:24
I could I could like I could lose my entire business today. Zapier could
44:29
completely go away. You guys could shut down the service, but it doesn't matter.
44:32
Like the dy is cast. You've already you and your team and your product team and
44:37
everything that you guys are doing have already had such a profound impact on me
44:41
that will that's forever altered the course of my life. And I always wondered
44:46
what am I going to be doing? And I had the same question my dad would ask me
44:50
like what are like what's the big plan here? And it's like I can now create
44:55
wealth. I can create value. I can provide insight into lots of different
45:00
things. I've combined all of my experience and all of my jobs with
45:05
technical ability that I've only learned because Zapier paved the way for me to
45:08
be able to ask questions and get answers and now I have like a life that I'm
45:13
proud of and my I have things that I can share with my kids and I can talk to my
45:16
dad about this stuff. Like I'm going on a tangent here. I'm sorry, but like my
45:20
dad's very technical. He's done systems engineering. He worked for a startup
45:24
called uh cosign and 3COM and he was in Silicon Valley and he was working on
45:29
kernels you know like he was working on like early code stuff that work like he
45:34
wasn't dealing compiled languages like well I assume you and I are both dealing
45:38
with compiled languages right um he doesn't he didn't use pre-ompiled
45:42
language and I can call him and talk to him about systems and I can talk to him
45:47
about engineering and I can talk to him about code and I can talk to him about
45:50
Python errors and I can talk to him about libraries and all this stuff and
45:53
like we can bond about it now. Um, and I'm sure my dad would tell you that he's
45:59
that he's proud of me. Um, but again, I it's always it's it's what you've built,
46:03
dude. Like this has completely changed my life and I'm probably read way more
46:08
into it than most people do, but this software legitimately has altered my
46:12
family's history. So, thank you. I'll stop rambling, but I I really apprec
46:17
appreciate everything you've done for for my family and uh I love I love
46:20
working with your uh with your software. Thanks for sharing that, Joe. Congrats,
46:24
man. Uh I am uh stoked to get to meet you. Uh you're uh what you've done is
46:29
super impressive. Uh and I think there's a lot that folks can learn from you.
46:33
Thanks for listening to Agents of Scale. Joe's story shows how automation and AI
46:37
don't just change individual careers, they shape entire industries. If you
46:43
found this inspiring, please share the episode with someone who's leading
46:47
transformation in their own organization. And don't forget to follow
46:51
Agents of Scale wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss a story of
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scaling with AI. I'm WDE Foster. See you next time.