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Build the Future First, Enable Rapid User Value

Christian (Chris) Bach (CEO @ Netlify )'s framework for becoming the obvious choice in your category: Start with a strong worldview about where the market is going. Then reverse engineer what needs to exist for that future to happen. Then build the layer that enables that future. That mindset shaped everything Netlify did. 1. Start with the future, not the product Before building much, Chris and the team spent serious time understanding where the web was heading. They saw several shifts happening at once: - Git replacing FTP - JavaScript becoming far more powerful - APIs connecting modular services - the browser evolving into a real runtime If that world became the default, the web would move away from monolithic applications toward modular architectures. Netlify focused on enabling the workflow that made that architecture practical. 2. Product-led growth only works when users reach value quickly Chris shared a simple filter for PLG. Can an individual user experience value quickly? If a product only becomes valuable after company-wide rollout or heavy configuration, PLG will struggle. Developers could deploy with Netlify quickly and see the benefit immediately. That made bottom-up adoption possible. 3. Pick a motion early Many founders want both product-led and sales-led from day one. Chris believes that usually spreads teams too thin. Early companies should choose the motion that matches how value first appears. Build momentum there first. Add another motion later when the company has traction. 4. Category creation must help the ecosystem Netlify introduced Jamstack as a category. The goal was not to promote Netlify alone. It gave developers, frameworks, and tools a shared language for a new way of building. That helped the entire ecosystem move in the same direction. 5. Start with the first 20 believers Instead of targeting “developers,” the team identified around 20 influential builders who already believed in the new architecture. Those early adopters became design partners, advocates, and connectors into the broader community. From there adoption expanded in concentric circles. The big lesson from Chris: Companies become the obvious choice when they align deeply with where the market is heading. When that happens, alternatives start to feel like extra work. Want to know exactly how to apply these to your product, and market? Listen to the full conversation here: https://lnkd.in/g6wCrAqf