Patterns

A pattern is a claim about many companies, so it needs many companies behind it. Each one publishes only when at least 5 published company records support it, and it must show the companies that did the opposite and still worked.

• 17 companies · 8 counter-examples

  Self-serve first, sales later

  Seventeen of the thirty companies started with a self-serve product and added a sales motion in a later phase, a median of seven years after their first self-serve phase.

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• 9 companies · 4 counter-examples

  AI moved seat pricing to usage

  Nine companies that sold seats or plans added usage or credit pricing in a phase that began in 2024 or 2025, alongside their AI products; four others priced on usage long before AI.

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• 14 companies · 4 counter-examples

  Cloud marketplaces became a sales channel

  Fourteen of the thirty companies sell through AWS, Microsoft, or Google Cloud marketplaces, and thirteen of them added that channel in a phase that began in 2019 or later.

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• 13 companies · 4 counter-examples

  Shared work is the growth loop

  Thirteen of the thirty companies grew through a loop where using the product exposes it to people who are not users yet: a meeting link, a shared file, a published app.

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