464: Silicon Valley Outsider Michelle Zatlyn on Building a Tech Disruptor
Jun 17, 2023
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Michelle Zatlyn, a Silicon Valley outsider, talks about launching Cloudflare during a recession, using visceral feedback, and being a female founder. The podcast covers starting with a freemium product, challenges of being an outsider, and evolving pricing models for global growth.
Leveraging crisis as a motivator for change drives positive transformation within organizations.
Cloudflare's success is attributed to easy onboarding, supporting a product-led growth strategy.
Validation of an idea through strong user feedback confirms the necessity for bold innovation.
Deep dives
Founder Plus Introduction and Mission
Founder Plus is introduced as an all-access pass to online courses and programs aimed at providing entrepreneurs with proven frameworks for success. The goal is to empower entrepreneurs by offering strategies compiled from world-class instructors and connecting them with a global network of like-minded individuals.
Michelle Zatlin's Journey to Cloudflare
Michelle Zatlin, the COO and co-founder of Cloudflare, shares the story of how she met her business partners at Harvard Business School and how their initial conversation sparked the idea of building a service to stop malicious online behavior, leading to the creation of Cloudflare. This initial encounter laid the foundation for Cloudflare's mission to provide online security and reliability.
Validation Through Customer Surveys
Cloudflare's validation process involved conducting surveys with small business owners to assess their concerns about online security threats. The qualitative responses highlighted a strong need for effective solutions beyond the inadequate measures being used at the time. This valuable feedback reinforced the importance of developing a product to address these security challenges.
Importance of Easy Onboarding and Product Led Growth
Cloudflare's success in attracting and retaining customers was attributed to its easy onboarding process, taking less than five minutes to sign up. This streamlined approach contributed to Cloudflare's product-led growth strategy, allowing customers to experience the service's benefits quickly and efficiently, driving user adoption and satisfaction.
Lessons in Handling Crisis and Driving Change
Michelle Zatlin emphasizes the need to leverage crisis as a motivator for change in organizations, citing the equation 'Change equals vision plus pain.' She underscores the critical role of using crises as catalysts for transformation and driving positive change within the company, turning challenges into opportunities for growth and improvement.
Michelle Zatlyn and her co-founders were outsiders when they moved to Silicon Valley to launch their web security startup. It was 2009, in the middle of a recession, but the team knew their visceral early-user feedback validated the need to be bold. In 2010, Cloudflare launched its first freemium product and hasn’t looked back. Today, Cloudflare has four million customers worldwide, surpassed a $1 billion revenue run rate, and employs 3,200 team members. Zatlyn currently serves as the publicly traded company’s president and CEO. She is one of the few women founders leading a public tech business.
Listen to Nathan and Michelle discuss:
A “made for TV” meeting with her co-founders
Validating an idea with visceral feedback
Being a Silicon Valley outsider
Starting a tech business during a recession
Launching a product MVP
Six business reasons to have a freemium product
Being a female founder in the tech industry
And much more tech founder advice…
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