In Episode #628, Nathan interviews Iddo Gino. He’s the CEO and co-founder of RapidAPI which he founded when he was 16 years old. He’s listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list and previously, he was the co-organizer at Hacking Gen Y. Originally from Israel, Iddo, currently resides in San Francisco, California where he runs RapidAPI and runs JavaScript projects on the side.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Stewart Butterfield
Favorite online tool? — GitHub
Do you get 8 hours of sleep? — 6-7 hours
If you could let your 10-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I knew what I didn’t know back then”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:22 – Nathan introduces Iddo to the show
01:57 – RapidAPI let developers find APIs online
02:09 – RapidAPI has a marketplace model where developers can pay for the APIs
02:16 – RapidAPI’s processing fee is from 10% - 25%
- 02:30 – The fee depends on the API vendor
02:46 – RapidAPI is like a point connection for developers to find APIs
02:55 – Iddo was part of Hacking Gen Y
- 03:09 – Iddo realized how powerful APIs were while he was at Hacking Gen Y
03:18 – Iddo created the first version of RapidAPI
03:41 – Together with Iddo is his co-founder, Mickey Haslavsky
03:49 – Team size is 20
03:58 – The engineering team is in Israel and marketing and sales teams are in San Francisco
04:10 – Developers’ salaries in Israel
04:34 – RapidAPI just announced their seed round in November
- 04:44 – Total amount raised was $3.5M and an equity round
05:00 – RapidAPI started as an open-source project
05:40 – There are 148K apps or projects that have used Slack in RapidAPI
05:54 – Slack is a free API and the service is free, but there are paid APIs
06:43 – Average MRR
07:06 – The fee is charged from the API and not the consumer
07:16 – Any consumer transaction in RapidAPI is free
07:31 – One of the most popular paid APIs is Twilio
08:01 – If someone connects to Twilio API through RapidAPI, that’s when RapidAPI takes the processing fee
08:31 – “RapidAPI is all about neighboring developers to connect with APIs”
08:40 – RapidAPI will soon open a facility for developers
09:12 – Iddo volunteered for Hacking Gen Y and helped Hackathons
09:21 – Iddo was working on creating apps and websites prior to RapidAPI
09:36 – Iddo is currently 19 and his parents are just excited for him and what he does
09:54 – Iddo still thinks of going back to college, but is currently enjoying RapidAPI’s success at the moment
11:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

APIs are powerful and having a one point connection is beneficial for the developers.
In the process of helping people, you also learn from them.
Being an entrepreneur at an early age opens you up to the opportunity to learn more.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
Organifi – The juice was Nathan’s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 628: RapidAPI w/ 19 YO Founder Raises $3.5M, Helping You Connect to API's Faster with CEO Iddo Gino

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders