Unlocking the Secrets

Behind Airtable's Horizontal SaaS Growth

Recognizing that customers love showcasing their solutions created using the platform, Airtable made it effortless for creators to share their work through the Airtable Universe publishing page and in-product sharing. This approach generated a continuous stream of positive word-of-mouth recommendations from satisfied users.

Psychology Insight #1: "When people invest their time and effort in building something, they develop a sense of pride and great attachment with the final product and want to showcase it to others." - IKEA Effect

To attract new users and help them overcome the initial learning curve, Airtable created a wide range of industry-specific and use case-based templates. These templates serve as a starting point, making it easier for users to get started with the product.

Airtable leveraged the network effect by integrating referral marketing directly into their onboarding process instead of as an afterthought. During sign-up, users were offered $10 worth of Airtable credit for each referral, increasing awareness and incentivizing users to refer others. Isn’t that genius?

From the early stages, Airtable recognized the importance of building a strong community around its product. What began as a forum for users to ask questions and share tips has grown into a thriving community of over 53,000 customers.

PLG companies navigate a balancing act between two key metrics: user growth and revenue growth. Traditionally, they face a choice between freemium models or free trials for revenue. However, Airtable took a different approach—reverse trial.

During signup, users are automatically granted access to the Pro Plan, the top-tier self-serve offering, for a 14-day trial period. This gives users ample time to explore the product. At the end of the trial, users can choose to upgrade and continue using the features by subscribing to a paid plan or opting for the free plan.

This reverse trial strategy leverages the concept of loss aversion, where people tend to feel the pain of losing something more intensely than the pleasure of gaining something of equal value.

Psychology Insight #2: "People feel the pain of losing something twice as intensely as the pleasure they experience from gaining something of equal value" - Loss Aversion

Onboarding new users in the self-serve era can be daunting, especially when you are a horizontal SaaS business. However, Airtable's product design team took a fresh approach by introducing an immersive wizard to guide users through the onboarding journey and beyond.

The journey begins with targeted questions to understand users' specific needs and goals with Airtable. Then, users are treated to a personalized tour of the product's key features, ensuring they get a tailored onboarding experience. A brilliant way to keep them hooked, don’t you think?

Building on their existing approach, Airtable targeted individual users who could become advocates for the platform within their organizations. As mentioned earlier, they even implemented an automated email workflow, offering personalized 1:1 onboarding sessions to potential evangelists. The goal was to support these champions and foster organic growth through their endorsements.

Incorporating user feedback, Airtable refined its product to cater to specific use cases, like marketing and operations, with future monetization in mind.

Additionally, Airtable adopted a "Land and Expand" go-to-market strategy, adding inbound sales and customer success to drive product adoption across organizations.

They focused on long-term retention and expanding into different departments. Close collaboration among customer success, IT, sales, and implementation teams was crucial.

The customer success team worked closely with users to ensure effective platform usage and gathered additional functionality requirements. Implementation specialists and integration engineers then tailored Airtable to meet specific customer needs, maximizing its value.

In order to identify sales opportunities, the company tracks important indicators of product usage, including W2 active users (users who develop a habit and return in week 2), W4 Multi-User Active or team activation metrics (the number of active users in week 4), and build metrics (users who have created something meaningful and advanced in the past month).

Once specific benchmarks were met, the IT team initiated the sales process, leveraging usage data as social proof. This approach facilitated horizontal growth within organizations and maintained a low churn rate.

And the results? Airtable's enterprise revenue is growing at an impressive 100%, and their net dollar retention from existing customers exceeds 130%! [Source]