Airtable VP of Product on Building No-Code AI-powered Enterprise Applications | Anthony Maggio | E248 | #TheProductPodcast

"Using the service itself, people talk about eating your own dog food. I think, of course, it can uncover problems, but it can also uncover the joys of your product."

In this edition of #TheProductPodcast newsletter, we explore the world of no-code platforms with Anthony Maggio, VP of Product at Airtable. With his extensive experience in product management, Anthony shares valuable insights on scaling an enterprise platform, leveraging AI for app creation, and balancing product-led and sales-led growth strategies.

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There are many incredible lessons to learn from Anthony. Here are a few of the top ones:

Scaling from Consumer to Enterprise

"We've continued our investments with CoBuilder to not only help you just create that first version of the app, but actually to continue iterating on the application and evolving it over time."

Anthony discusses Airtable's evolution from a user-friendly spreadsheet alternative to a robust enterprise-grade application development platform. He emphasizes the importance of solving problems unique to large-scale customers and buyers, such as supporting thousands of users on individual applications and managing complex workflows. This approach has allowed Airtable to serve half of the Fortune 500 companies and scale to a valuation of $11 billion.

Revolutionizing App Creation with AI

"We launched a product called CoBuilder in July of this year that will actually move the process of building applications away from an individual atomic level building and actually into the world of AI."

Anthony shares how Airtable is leveraging AI to democratize software creation. With CoBuilder, users can describe their business problem and provide context, and AI will help design the application. This innovation significantly reduces the barrier to entry for non-technical users, allowing them to create custom applications quickly and easily.

Aligning Product Teams with Revenue Goals

"We actually align our product organization to lines of revenue for the company. We divide into segments."

Anthony explains Airtable's unique approach to structuring their product organization, aligning teams with specific revenue streams. This strategy helps measure the success of the product organization more effectively and ensures that product development directly translates into value for customers and revenue for the company.

Balancing Product-Led and Sales-Led Growth

"The way that we think about PLG and how it bleeds into our enterprise motion is that it's really just an early indicator for us that there might be a bigger problem for us to go solve within a company."

Anthony discusses how Airtable combines product-led growth (PLG) with sales-led growth (SLG) to better serve enterprise customers. He explains how the PLG approach fuels their larger enterprise sales motion, using individual user adoption as an indicator of potential larger-scale problems to solve within an organization.

Fostering Innovation through Customer Feedback

"We've invested significantly in solutions that are really dedicated towards solving problems that are top of mind for executive level buyers in large companies."

Anthony emphasizes the importance of staying close to customers and solving real-world problems. He discusses how Airtable invests in solutions tailored to executive-level buyers in large companies, focusing on areas like end-to-end marketing processes, product development, and supply chain workflows in retail.

🔑 Key takeaways:

• Scale your platform by solving unique problems for large-scale customers and buyers.
• Leverage AI to democratize software creation and reduce barriers for non-technical users.
• Align product teams with revenue goals to ensure direct value translation.
• Balance product-led and sales-led growth strategies to better serve enterprise customers.
• Stay close to customers and focus on solving real-world problems for executive-level buyers.

🎧 Check out the full episode here  🎧

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Credits:

Anthony Maggio

Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia

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