Airtable co-founder and CEO Howie Liu explains Airtable's transition from a lightweight productivity tool to an enterprise application platform.
Insight
Liu: Retrofitting PLG onto enterprise sales is harder than adding sales to PLG
“It's probably harder to retrofit, you know, delightful, you know, bottoms up adoptable or PLG you know, adoptable product. You know, after the fact than it is to figure out how to start with self-serve adoption, PLG, and then layer in enterprise sales.”
Insight
Howie Liu: A bottoms-up model alone cannot sustain growth to $1B revenue
“Bottoms up is great... But at the same time it's, you know, it's probably not enough in most cases to provide durable growth. For the next 10 years, right? If your aspirations are to become a billion dollar plus revenue business, like it's very unlikely”
Opinion
Howie Liu: Big Tech giants are directly attempting to replicate Airtable
“Microsoft has a product called list that is in many ways, like a direct, you know, kind of attempt to replicate air table. We think we have a lot of product advantages over that product, but, you know, it's a much more direct play against air table. Google has…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Liu: Microsoft Lists is a direct attempt to replicate Airtable
“Microsoft has a product called list that is. In many ways, like a direct, you know, kind of attempt to replicate air table. We think we have a lot of product advantages over that product, but you know, it's a much more direct play against air table. Google has…”
Insight
Liu: Building vertical edges on horizontal software enables repeatable enterprise sales
“Creating vertical edges on top of a horizontal platform has given us this much sharper focus. And we, you know, we've seen the results you know, speak for themselves, like being able to much more easily sell into the same use case, same buyer type again and ag…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Liu: Classic top-down enterprise sales will become increasingly outdated
“I think that model is going to become increasingly, you know maybe not obsolete, but just It's gonna be increasingly outdated relative to this new you know, product-led approach”