Rujul Zaparde is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, the world's leading Intake-to-Pay solution, adopted by leading enterprises and startups including Snowflake, Canva, Airtable, Webflow, and others. In 2023, Zip raised $100 million in a Series C round, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. Before founding Zip, Rujul was a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and a product manager at Airbnb.

In Today's Episode with Rujul Zaparde We Discuss:

From Airbnb PM to $1.5BN Founder

How did Rujul's first company fail? What were his lessons?
What did Rujul learn from his time at Airbnb?
How did Rujul come to co-found Zip? What was the aha moment?
What did Rujul wish he'd known when he started Zip?

Standing Out in a Hyper-Competitive Market

Why did Rujul pick such a competitive market? How did they stand out?
Does Rujul think founders should focus on pain points or platform solutions on day one?
What is Rujul's advice to founders who are in the discovery process?
Does Rujul agree with Trae Stephens @ Founders Fund that serial entrepreneurs doing B2B enterprise SaaS are wasting their talent?

The Biggest Lessons Scaling Zip to $1.5BN Valuation

Which key moment caused Zip to accelerate?
Why does Rujul think speed is the most important element in startups?
Why does Rujul not believe in design partners?
Why does Rujul believe repeatability is the most important thing when pitching?
Does Rujul think AI will destroy outbound sales?

How to Hire & Manage Teams

What was Rujul's "rude awakening" building a sales team?
What was Rujul's biggest hiring mistake? What did he learn from it?
How does Rujul decide where to focus his attention and resources?
Why does Rujul believe younger managers are more creative?

The Saturday Edition | 21 Feb 2026

FEAR & GREED | Business News

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