Webflow - What Was the Core Product Idea?

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Vlad and Sergi wanted to build this visual abstraction over something like Django or Ruby on Rails. That didn't necessarily get a lot of momentum because it was just too big. The team started to coalesce around the idea that, hey, let's actually just solve for the segment of the development lifecycle where people are disenfranchised from the process.

Todd Jackson is back on the mic to guest host another product-focused episode this week. He chats with Bryant Chou, co-founder and founding CTO of Webflow, a no-code visual web design platform built with freelance designers and developers in mind.

Today, Webflow is valued at over $4 billion and has millions of users all over the world. More than 200,000 freelancers, agencies, small businesses and enterprises use Webflow to help design and power their websites at businesses large and small.

But Webflow didn’t always market to such a wide customer base. In our conversation today, Bryant rewinds the clock to Webflow’s early days — when it was just a co-founder team of three building a better tool to design a website.

We explore why the Webflow co-founding team had such a strong conviction that designers were their ICP, and why they took much longer to launch than other folks in their Y Combinator cohort. Bryant also explains how Webflow wrangled their viral launch on Hacker News into a sustainable revenue and shares his root cause analysis framework for collecting customer feedback.

On the surface, Webflow’s path to product-market fit seems incredibly smooth. But as Bryant tells it, there were plenty of bumps in the road — and he’s got tons of advice for early-stage founders that are finding their footing.