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Building responsive and high-powered websites through an intuitive and visual development approach is Webflow's core strength, with its no-code technology offering broad appeal to marketers and engineers. Vlad Magdalin, co-founder and chief innovation officer, tells Bloomberg Intelligence. Linda Tong, Webflow's CEO, also shares her thoughts on software-spending trends and customer segmentation in this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast, Magdalin and Tong sit down with Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Niraj Patel to dive into the details of Webflow's differentiation and its targeted customer. Hear their insights on the competitive positioning among website builders, Gen AI as a potential disruptor and what product features to expect next from the company.
So, for the 100th episode, I decided to get the big guns in, fly to SF and do this bad boy in person with the CEO (at the time) and co-founder of Webflow, Vlad Magdalin.Vlad came to US as a refugee with his parents from Russia.He learnt graphic design almost by accident when he worked with his entrepreneurial dad asked him to convert catalogues from english to Russian.This lead to a job with a company called Russian American media → deepened his interest in graphics and then 3D animation.At college, he studied computer science but dropped out to go to the academy of art in San Francisco.The technical aspect of sophisticated 3D and animation tools and feeling like he was getting superpowers really interested Vlad.He dropped out of art school and got a job at a design agency.Why can't web designers design stuff and hit publish to be live on the web just like 3D - render something and it's live on the screenAs you may have guessed, this spark was the catalyst for Webflow.Webflow now has over 200,000 users and is over $100 million annual revenue.And it was an easy ride with no failures whatsoever.No no no dear Webflailer… it wasn't quite this easy.The failures that we'll talk about today are:1) Not valuing himself when he went back to freelancing – until a client rejected my invoice for $750 and said that to him the site is worth at least $5k2) Stopping to work on Webflow in 2008 (for the 3rd time) when there was a trademark issue and I couldn't use that name – combined with Weebly raising money3) (Not sure if I can talk about this one publicly yet… noodling on it) Getting too caught up in the no-code hype and trying to do too much (e.g. Logic) before fully nailing the fundamentals (e.g. CMS)WEBFLAIL FREEBIES10 Step Process To Land Your First Webflow Clients: The Ultimate Guide:https://www.webflail.com/resources/10-step-process-to-land-your-first-webflow-clients-the-ultimate-guideLINKS FOR TORY
In our latest episode of the Remotely One podcast, our hosts dive deep into the world of remote work, exploring its challenges and successes within startups, especially during the pandemic. Joining us for this insightful discussion is the remarkable Heather Doshay, Partner at SignalFire, renowned Doctorate in Leadership holder, and a visionary in all things People and Remote Work.Heather's journey is a fascinating tale of resilience and humor, tracing her trajectory from her college days in Greek life to a prominent career in remote work and organizational leadership. She shares candid anecdotes from her past, including overcoming rejection during a sorority election, highlighting the transformative power of setbacks in shaping her leadership skills and resilience.Venturing into the professional arena, Heather was an early advocate for remote work, recognizing its potential for enhancing flexibility and productivity. Her tenure at Webflow, a pioneering remote-first company, further solidified her belief in distributed work models, positioning her as a thought leader well before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.When the pandemic struck, Heather's leadership at Webflow faced unprecedented challenges. However, rather than resorting to layoffs, she and her team devised innovative contingency plans to preserve jobs, exemplifying Webflow's commitment to its values and leadership ethos under CEO Vlad Magdalin.Heather's journey is replete with valuable lessons for navigating career transitions and embracing remote work culture. Her experiences underscore the importance of resilience, adaptability, and forward-thinking leadership in the face of professional challenges.Tune in to gain invaluable insights into the evolving landscape of remote work within the startup and venture capital sectors. Heather's expertise sheds light on both the opportunities and challenges of adopting a remote work culture in a post-pandemic world. Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge on remote work, startup culture, and venture capital, Heather!Learn more about Heather:Heather's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doshay/Discover SignalFire: https://jobs.signalfire.com/jobs
In the bustling world of Silicon Valley, where success stories and innovations are born, one individual stands out with a remarkable journey that spans continents, cultures, and challenges. Vlad Magdalin, the co-founder and CEO of Webflow, has not only carved a niche for himself in the tech industry but has also overcome incredible odds to get there.
First Block, a Notion series - hosted by Notion's Co-Founder Akshay Kothari - where founders and executives from some of the world's leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience. In this episode, we have Vlad Magdalin, Co-Founder and CEO of Webflow, the leading visual development platform for building powerful websites without writing code. In this episode, we do a deep-dive into the early days of Webflow and its journey to sustainable growth and financing, their hiring principles, the importance of user feedback, the "no-code" revolution, and much more. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 03:22 Co-Founder Complimentary Skillset 07:26 Early Attempts at Webflow 12:21 Perseverance Despite the Challenges 17:49 Reaching Product-Market Fit 21:49 Fundraising 25:21 Hiring Principles 29:42 Building in Public & User Feedback 33:39 First Enterprise Customer 39:44 No-Code Revolution 42:44 A Day in the Life of Vlad Magdalin 47:02 Notion for Startups Special Offer (https://ntn.so/n0Iy5d)
Vlad Magdalin is the Founder of Webflow, a no-code platform which allows people who aren't software engineers to build complex websites. They were valued at $4b at the last count but amazingly he tried doing the business three times before getting it right. He wouldn't advise a friend to take the same risks he did - despite the enormous pay off. Here's why. -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders. Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders. Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/. You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes.
Vlad Magdalin is the Co-founder and CEO of Webflow, software that empowers designers to build websites without code. Vlad started the company with his co-founders Sergie Magdalin and Bryant Chou in 2013, and has since raised roughly $335 million supported by investors like Accel, Khosla Ventures, YCombinator, Capital G, and Eric Bahn. — — — — Brought to you by Mercury, the bank built for startups. Join more than 100,000 startups and venture capital firms on Mercury, the powerful and intuitive way for ambitious companies to bank.Sign-up now: https://bit.ly/46ImCuD Disclaimer: Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. — — — — Topics discussed include: • The history of web browsers, websites, and web design • Why websites are the ultimate economic enablers • How Webflow empowers anyone to design websites without code • Why website design is a gateway into programming • How the movement to CSS and web standards in the 2000's and 2010's created the opportunity for Webflow to build a product around responsive design • Moving to the US with his parents and five siblings as refugees from the USSR at nine years old • How losing half of their luggage and immigration documents in the move enabled his dad to buy the family's first computer • The first website Vlad ever designed for a Brad Pitt movie • How his experience dropping out of a computer science degree to work in 3D animation at Pixar, then going back to school gave him the idea for Webflow • Failing to build Webflow three times between 2005 and 2008 • Why the spouses and partners of founders are the unsung heroes of startups • The moment he immediately quit his job and attempted Webflow for the fourth time • Burning three months of runway on a Kickstarter that never went live • Liquidating his retirement account, paying rent with credit cards, and selling and leasing back the family car's to keep the business running • Vlad's exuberant optimism that kept him going for 10 years • Failing to get into YC, and the crazy story behind getting accepted the second time • The trajectory-altering customer and fundraising advice they got from Paul Graham • The “Investing on Principle” contract they signed with Accel who led Webflow's Series A • Why Vlad thinks every startup founder should operate with the assumption they'll never be able to raise money again Referenced: • Inventing on Principle (Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII • Inventing on Principle (Transcript): https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/inventing-on-principle-by-bret-victor • The Infinite Game: https://simonsinek.com/books/the-infinite-game/ Where to find Vlad: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/callmevlad • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladmagdalin Where to find Turner: • Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it • Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
Show Notes:Inventing on Principle Talk: https://youtu.be/PUv66718DII?si=FQgWF4018HGpin7ahttps://youtu.be/PUv66718DII?si=FQgWF4018HGpin7a (0:00) Intro(1:56) Essentialism(6:01) No one is a natural great manager(15:01) The Freedman Doctrine(22:42) Distinction between behavior and core values(26:23) Two sides to any coin(32:31) Choosing who to do business with(38:31) Working remote(44:57) Early days of Webflow(57:07) Looking for silver bullets but finding lead bullets(1:05:57) The YC interview and walking out of Oblivion(1:10:01) Joining YC(1:14:57) From Skype calls to brand ambassadors(1:24:02) Product roadmap and development(1:27:24) Graduation vs churn(1:37:10) Taking your time raising money(1:24:17) Big product market fit(1:44:59) Pros and cons of venture capital(1:52:10) Not a zero sum(1:57:01) B2C versus B2B(2:04:22) Immigrating from Russia(2:11:24) Influence of Pixar(2:15:07) Favorite interview question Mixed and edited: Justin HrabovskyProduced: Rashad AssirExecutive Producer: Josh MachizMusic: Griff Lawson
Looking to discover the story behind one of the most successful website-building platforms in the industry? Tune in to this episode of The Room Podcast, where we sit down with Vlad Magdalin, the founder of Webflow, for an in-depth conversation about his journey from designing websites for clients to building a powerful platform that has revolutionized the way we create websites. To date, Webflow has raised over $335M in funding from the likes of Accel, CapitalG, Draper Associates, and YC.Join us as we delve into the early days of Webflow and the challenges Vlad faced in bringing his vision to life. We'll explore how Webflow has evolved over the years and the key features that have made it a favorite among designers and developers alike. Vlad also shares his insights on the future of web design and development, including his thoughts on the rise of AI and no-code tools and the importance of accessibility in creating inclusive online experiences.In this episode, we discuss the importance of timing while building a startup and how ideas sometimes take years to come together, how Webflow established a multi-layered ecosystem for their customers and developers, and what's ahead in the future of websites. For The Room Podcast in your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.5:33 - How did moving to a new country at a young age shape Vlad's view of the world?7:59 - How did Vlad's childhood shape how he operates as a founder?10:02 - Why did Vlad love digital design and animation in college?12:22 - How was Vlad's first startup experience?16:12 - What was the “aha moment” that sparked the start of Webflow?20:48 - What encouraged Vlad to focus on Webflow full-time?26:33 - Who was the first investor to say yes to Vlad and Webflow?29:32 - Who are the core customers of Webflow and what was the initial go-to-market strategy?34:48 - How does Vlad see Webflow's position in power and commerce beyond the storefront?36:56 - How is Webflow thinking about the future of websites and generative AI?38:53 - Is there a language model or transformer that Webfow is considering partnering with in thefuture?40:03 - How many websites has Webflow helped build?40:53 - What's next for Vlad and Webflow?43:11 - Who is a woman that has had a profound impact on Vlad and his career?WX Productions
Today, Webflow is a company valued at over $4 billion. But it took Vlad and his cofounders repeated attempts to get the company off the ground. In 2012, they started gaining steam for their vision to allow people to create websites with no coding experience. The company now brings the power of software engineering to designers through an intuitive visual interface and has grown to over 3.5 million users. Vlad shares how Webflow has made its user community a superpower, why having two kids when he started the company gave him extra motivation to succeed, and how he predicts no-code and generative AI will intersect.
Today, I dig into the founding story of Webflow through the journey of CEO Vlad Magdalin. This is a story of multiple (4) founding attempts, the early founding struggles and a crisis of identity. Finally, I share a few lessons from Vlad's story about being Default Alive and how NoCode impacts developers. Resources: Webflow MVP: http://playground.webflow.com/ Default Alive vs Default Dead: http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html Web: webflow.com Music: RYYZN Follow me on Twitter @AyushSharma for more updates! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mynocodestory/message
This podcast was one of the best experiences I've been gifted. Hope you enjoy a few hours with a guy who needs no introduction, Vlad Magdalin. Find Guest: Vlad Magdalin Twitter: https://twitter.com/callmevlad?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Website: www.webflow.com Contact Host: Emily Giordano Email: emily@greatdesignlead.com Website: www.greatdesignlead.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQfSnsyrx3kGp92-s0Jj91w LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-giordano/ Instagram: @greatdesignlead - https://www.instagram.com/greatdesignlead/ Resources: The Infinite Game Book by Simon Sinek Inventing on Principle by Bret Victor - https://youtu.be/PUv66718DII Magic Ink by Bret Victor - http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ Bret Victor - http://worrydream.com/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Vlad Magdalin is the founder of Webflow, a powerful visual development tool that enables people to create professional websites without writing code. Webflow is on a much lower level of abstraction than something like Squarespace, and users still need to understand the core fundamentals of web development. You might think that tools like these are going to take jobs away from developers, but it actually does the opposite! When innovative technologies allow more people to do work that was once restricted to experts, it benefits everybody. That's what the no-code movement is about. Removing barriers, and giving development power to non-experts. As developers, we'll be able to collaborate better with designers and other team members. And with the increased output of surface-level webpages, there will be more demand for developers with a deeper skillset.HomeworkTeach a non-coder one coding related topic without using codeResourceswebflowGuest: Vlad MagdalinTwitter: @callmevladGitHub: @callmevladHost: Kent C. DoddsWebsite: kentcdodds.comTwitter: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsEpic React: epicreact.dev
About this episode This week's episode features an interview with Vlad Magdalin, co-founder of Webflow. For those that may not be aware, Webflow (at its core) is a website building platform, but yet it is so much more. Webflow is a platform that has enabled thousands of designers to act as an design and development agency because Webflow allows anyone to design masterfully, and develop online engagements without any need to know how to code. In fact, just a few weeks ago we had Duncan Hamra, cofounder of Memberstack on The Startup Story. In his episode we discovered that Memberstack was built ontop of Webflow. So the reality is that Webflow is not just a website builder but an entire web and software development platform that is democratizing how web design and development is achieved. Vlad is an incredible storyteller and you're going to love his full episode. But for me, one of my favourite aspects of his entrepreneurial journey. Is the fact that both he and his brother (who is also his co-founder) are refugees from Russia and who grew up in the Shadows of Silicon Valley. Having immigrated to the US only days before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vlad knows quite a bit about starting over from scratch. And aside from overcoming many personal struggles as he adapted his life to try and fit in within the United States. It also took him and his brother four separate tries to get their now two-billion-dollar company up and running. Vlad's story is so incredibly relatable because the startup story for many companies is not one continuous thread, sometimes it has many starts and stops and Vlad was no different. In this episode, you'll hear: Vlad shares how he was born in the USSR and his parents took the massive risk to move him and his siblings to America in 1991. He shares what it was like growing up in American from the age of 9 and how he struggled with his identity and he tried to hide that he was from Russia. When Vlad was looking to go to college his parents said he should do a computer course like his brother. He did this for one term then dropped out to go to art school to do 3D animation as he aspired to work at Pixar. While he was at college Vlad had his first entrepreneurial venture. Vlad was using Quickdot to chat with his friends but the app crashed. So picked up a book on programming and started writing a clone of Quickdot but developed it and started ChatterFox. Here he fell in love with programming. Vlad shares how he first came up with the idea for Webflow when he was an intern at a design agency. He accidentally saw how the company was charging their clients hundreds of thousands of dollars while Vlad was getting paid $7 an hour. This sparked his entrepreneurial flair and he wanted to fix the problem he saw and make it better for everyone involved. Vlad shares how he pushed back starting Webflow for 6 years and experienced many ups and downs with this. He almost gave up until one day he randomly receives a trademark certificate for Webflow, that he applied for it over 5 years ago. He took this as a sign to keep going. How he went viral on Hacker News. In less than 24 hours it was the number 1 post and went viral on Twitter. Vlad shares the posting on hacker news drove over 20,000 sign ups. When Webflow launched only 30 people out of the 20,000 paid to use the software. Vlad shares that with those first 30 customers they started a group chat, to hear direct complaints, suggestions and requests they were making. How they think Webflow hasn't even scratched the surface yet of what's to come for the website and with their Series B round completed they are on to developing Webflow. Resources from this episode Join Grindology: https://grindology.com/ ExpressVPN: Get 3 Months Free → https://www.expressvpn.com/startupstory Get Emails: https://app.getemails.com/referrals/newaccount?ref=R18HWW5 The Startup Story Inner Circle: https://www.thestartupstory.co/vip The Startup Story on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thestartupstory The Startup Story is now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/jamesmckinney The Startup Story on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestartupstory Webflow Website: https://webflow.com/ Webflow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/webflow/ Webflow Twitter: https://twitter.com/webflow Webflow Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/webflow/ Bret Victor, Investing On Principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII Share the podcast The Startup Story community has been so incredible in sharing our podcast with others, and we thank you! We do have more stories to tell and more people to reach. So please keep sharing!
Vlad Magdalin is the Founder & CEO at Webflow. the startup that allows you to build better business websites, faster, without coding. To date, Vlad has raised over $73m with Webflow from some dear friends of the show including Accel, Ron @ Rainfall, Brianne @ Work Life, Benjamin Ling and Y Combinator to name a few. Prior to founding Webflow, Vlad was a Senior Software Engineer @ Intuit. Before Intuit, Vlad co-founded Chatterfox, a web application allowing people to stay in touch with groups offriends, family, or co-workers. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).
Vlad's bio, courtesy of MakerPad: Vlad Magdalin is the founder and CEO of Webflow, a company that is working on empowering designers and entrepreneurs to design, build, and launch websites and applications without having to learn how to code. Webflow has grown to be the platform at the very heart of the no-code movement. You can start building on Webflow at https://webflow.com/ —— Links Reddit SaaS: https://www.reddit.com/r/saas My Twitter: https://twitter.com/chddaniel My product: https://Simple.ink/
"Most people underestimate what you can do in 10 years". In this episode we give examples of great startups that took longer than you thought to build. Then, we give tactics on how to overcome this...how to keep going through years of hard work. This is a very special episode. Tweet Sam (@thesamparr) if you want to see more of them. --------- * Want to be featured in a future episode? Drop your question/comment/criticism/love here: https://www.mfmpod.com/p/hotline/ * Support the pod by spreading the word, become a referrer here: https://refer.fm/million * Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas. --------- Show notes: * (1:02) Intro to episode * (5:56) Tim Westergren on Pandora's origins * (7:56) Sam's commentary * (10:48) Vlad Magdalin on Webflow's struggles * (12:44) Sam's commentary * (13:45) Steve Jobs on Passion * (14:27) Sam's commentary * (18:46) Tim Westergren's speech * (19:54) Sam's commentary * (20:52) What drove Vlad to keep trying * (22:13) Sam's commentary * (24:04) Chris Sacca on Travis Kalanick's competitiveness * (25:09) Sam's commentary * (26:43) A story about Travis' first business * (27:13) Sam's commentary * (29:19) Marc Cuban on focusing * (29:53) Sam's commentary * (34:21) What drives Chamath * (36:12) Episode close
Today Webflow is valued at 2 billion, profitable, and is a leader of the No Code movement.Share this on Twitter Vlad's Webflow Journey: https://twitter.com/callmevlad/status/1095333269946621958Audio source: https://saastr.libsyn.com/saastr-438-webflow-ceo-vlad-magdalin-on-building-an-enduring-company-one-hard-lesson-at-a-timeswyx: [00:00:00] Vlad Magdalin started Webflow and his story , starting it several times over 16 years is when it's super inspiring and also just jaw dropping. He told a little bit of it in the SaaStr podcast, and I encourage you to listen to the whole story, but here's a clip where it really got to the wire. Vlad Magdalin: [00:00:16] I sold all the stock that I could, that I had at Intuit had basically my entire life savings, which total about 20 grand with the stock sales and poured it all into the company and got my wife on board. Got her convinced that, we were going to raise a ton of funding and a couple months, and it was off to the races.My brother Sergey moved into our tiny little condo where we had our kids' room that we cleaned out that he crashed on the floor. We somehow had this kind of perception that we had to do all of this stuff to run a startup. Like we spent half a day in a park taking professional headshots, even though we didn't have a product, we didn't have a website.We didn't have anybody who cared about like what we were building, but we just like somehow had this checkbook, like. List of things in our minds around like what real startups do. But in retrospect it was silly. And then we thought that, Hey, we have almost unlimited money.That's what it felt like at the time we have 20 grand that's in this business account. And what do you do with that first by brand new Mac books, which is exactly what we did. And here's my wife, the voice of reason saying is that the. The best idea and me rationalizing.Yeah. Like you need to have the best equipment to, to make the house, but don't worry. We're going to do this Kickstarter and we're going to raise 300 grand and everyone's going to love this product and it's going to buy into it. So, of course we pour in something like $12,000 into this Kickstarter video.We have to rent like this massive flat that looks like modern. We record this entire video around the idea of what flow, the product we're going to build. And of course it's like a plea to the Kickstarter users from other videos that we've seen that were successful. So at this point, most of our money is gone.We even had like this, the guy convinced us to do a little bit keyboard, cat impression that surgery almost. Made on the internet, but I'm glad we spared the world from that happening. And then reality started to hit at this point. We're almost out of money, but we still have all this optimism that we're going to post a Kickstarter.It's going to go bonkers. We're going to get all this money and we're going to build the product, et cetera. And on that emotional high, we decided to apply to YC thinking that, Hey, we have this great idea. We have this Kickstarter video that we're about to put up. And in the matter of two days, we got both a rejection from my saying that, they're not open to interviewing us in that round.And the Kickstarter telling us. Hey, actually, we don't support SAS software. It either has to be downloadable or it has to be something that you physically shipped to people. And of course our entire videos, like, Hey Kickstarter, Hey kicks like you can't just like ad-lib or Madlib Indiegogo in or something like that through post-production.It was essentially a completely shot project that we had to throw away. So we went into like just deep work mode, two, we moved to this place called the hacker dojo, which is. Completely free, but also pretty, you had to fight for space and had to be there like super early in the day to get a table to work on.And then. We're at the precipice of like nothing's working, we got rejected from ICU. This Kickstarter doesn't work. And right at the end of the year of 2012, my daughter gets really sick and with a life-threatening condition. And of course, when we started the company in September I had personally made the calculation of like, Hey families, healthy kids are young.If something happens, like, all we really need is catastrophic health insurance. So our health insurance was of the variety where it's like a. 10 $15,000 deductible where just the tests alone to figure out what kind of surgery she'll need came to like $12,000 or whatever. And because it's close to the end of the year before the surgery actually happens, it rolls over to January 1st and the deductible resets and all of a sudden, like we're completely out of money.I'm borrowing money on credit cards. Things are really tense at home. Thankfully, we're able to borrow enough to like pay for the surgery. And she's perfectly fine now. But things are getting so, so tense that we're just like scraping together money. We sold the family car that we had a little bit of equity and converted it to a really cheap lease and then surgery.And I figured out. Just to survive on the company front. We found this restaurant called OODA Moss, where four for $8 and 30 cents. You could order one fajita plate that came with two sort of like fajitas, but enough raw materials to make two burritos. So that was our daily sustenance. We were just like go to this place once a day have those have an $8 and 30 cents.Meals expense per day. And that was keeping us going. And the thing that really brought it home, like the one gift my wife gave me that Christmas. Cause that's how things felt at home was this placard, like this thing where this frame $20 bill that said in case of emergency break glass, and we were such a like hanging on by a thread where we started talking about.Like Sergey, my brother, and moving back to San Diego, getting his job back. I was already talking to, into a colleagues to figure out if there's a place back for me at Intuit so that we can Moonlight on the side. So big, huge lesson there. Even though we didn't have that much cash, it felt like, we had enough that it didn't give us this sense of.Frugality and sense of scarcity that we just in retrospect wasted it on these large projects, not really thinking carefully. So I would encourage every startup, like whatever cash you have, cash is King. Like it's something that gives you not just a lifeline but also the ability to To make core decisions on things that you truly need, and also read the freaking terms of service, cause that is something I still regret not doing to this day.
Webflow, a no-code website builder, doubled its customer base last year, pushing the company's valuation to $2.1 billion. Webflow CEO Vlad Magdalin openly shares the struggles and triumphs they endured along the way to their success.
In episode #10, Vlad Magdalin shares a template to run effective and inclusive company-wide meetings - as well as some great tips to make the hybrid remote model work for your company. We also discuss Webflow’s dual mission - and the biggest dilemma that Vlad faced as he scaled the team. Vlad is the CEO of Webflow, a software company empowering people to create websites without the need to code. Tune in to hear all about Vlad’s leadership journey and the lessons learned along the way!
Conscious Creators Show — Make A Life Through Your Art Without Selling Your Soul
“A lot of human fulfillment comes from belonging and purpose and connection, and things that can’t be quantified or bought with money.” –Vlad Magdalin Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience. Vlad Magdalin is the founder and CEO of Webflow, a company that is working on empowering designers and entrepreneurs to design, build, and launch websites and applications without having to learn how to code. In a past life, he studied to become a 3D animator with dreams of working at Pixar, but happened to fall in love with the power of programming for the web midway through art school. Most days, you can find him on Twitter yelling into the cloud about how NoCode is going to change the world. At home, he’s outnumbered by two unstoppable daughters and an amazing wife, who constantly remind him that there's so much more to life than growing the business bottom line. In today’s episode of the Conscious Creator podcast, Vlad Magdalin, co-founder and CEO of Webflow, speaks with host Sachit Gupta about his experience slowly building Webflow over more than a decade. Listen to find out what was driving Vlad to stay dedicated to his idea while overcoming obstacle after obstacle. Learn how Vlad’s experience as an immigrant has impacted his worldview, how he has evolved through the long journey of launching Webflow, and more. Episode Highlights: Vlad immigrated to the US from Russia with his family when he was 9 years old. Vlad began learning simple graphic design techniques while helping his dad with a Russian Yellowpages business that began for the Russian immigrant community in Sacramento. He learned self-reliance during his teenage years, helping his parents with odd jobs. Vlad was never interested in the tedious, science and math driven aspects of computer science, but loved the creativity and possibilities of what you could create. Vlad had the idea for Webflow when he was in college, bought the domain with his father’s help, and began furiously coding. Webflow fell to the wayside when he got married, but after a while working at Intuit, Vlad picked the project back up. While at Intuit, Vlad developed an application called Brainstorm that was used internally within the company, and an executive at the company wanted him to develop it and work on it full-time as his job. Vlad tried a third time to develop and launch Webflow, but then his wife got pregnant. Very suddenly and unexpectedly, Vlad received an envelope approving his trademark for Webflow, five years after his application had been rejected, presumably because the previous trademark holder had let it expire. Creating more complex applications that don’t require code to build won’t work others out of a job, it will just free them up to be able to work on more interesting problems. The user experience is more interesting and complex than the architecture of application programming, and it is that complex problem that will probably always require human work. Vlad doesn’t recommend taking the risks he took because just because it worked out for him, it doesn’t work out for most of the people who try what he tried. It wasn’t until the first month where Webflow’s income equalled its expenses that Vlad felt they were here to stay. They pursued profitability earlier than most VC startups because they had such a hard time getting funding. Vlad hopes to always focus on the people and the team at Webflow rather than giving into purely capitalistic impulses. Just because someone finds value through using Webflow does not mean that anyone else who might have built an application is losing out on anything. 3 Key Takeaways: Having autonomy and support at his job with Intuit helped propel Vlad towards making Webflow successful. Making technology more accessible does not put anyone out of a job, but actually creates more opportunity for more people. The human impact of your work and the team you work with is the most important thing. Tweetable Quotes: “Seeing something that can be better and realizing that it’s possible, just having that unlock in your mind, just makes it so obvious that it should be a thing.” –Vlad Magdalin “Knowing how I’m doing this work and charting a path in my head for how I would create a more visual, a more natural abstraction for that same work, it just made me believe that it had to become real.” –Vlad Magdalin “There was an assumption that empowering more people to create software visually will work programmers out of a job. That’s not true at all. It’s the same assumption that was made when spreadsheets were becoming a thing.” –Vlad Magdalin “I was starting to see that every milestone feels less and less certain.” –Vlad Magdalin “To attract the best people, to make sure that they do their best work, you have to give them autonomy, you have to give them a chance to master their crafts, and there has to be a shared sense of purpose about why that work is important.” –Vlad Magdalin “A lot of human fulfillment comes from belonging and purpose and connection, and things that can’t be quantified or bought with money.” –Vlad Magdalin Resources Mentioned: Webflow Vlad Magdalin Twitter Bret Victor’s Worrydream Vlad on the Twenty Minute VC with Harry Stebbings Actions: Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — send Jane a message on Instagram! 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Vlad Magdalin is the founder and CEO of Webflow, a company that is working on empowering designers and entrepreneurs to design, build, and launch websites and applications without having to learn how to code. Webflow has grown to be the platform at the very heart of the no-code movement and in this conversation, Ben and Vlad talk about the marketplace, the potential and about all things building and creating online. You can find all the details and links mentioned in this interview at Makerpad.co/podcast and you can start building on Webflow at webflow.com
ConvertKit is one of the biggest success stories of the 2010s online business world. Today we are joined by their founder and CEO Nathan Barry! Nathan started ConvertKit after realizing the value of email marketing and the ways in which companies were missing important parts of the service he envisaged. We get to hear about this part of the story, leading up to the beginnings of the company and then the early successes that they experienced after launching. A completely transparent company, Nathan shares a lot of vital and interesting statistics from ConvertKit before we get into Nathan's strategy for targeting new customers that has served them so well. He also emphasizes the importance of storytelling at ConvertKit, believing that customers do not only buy into the service but also the story. We discuss product-led growth, ConvertKit's recent adoption of the freemium model and public appearances that Nathan makes at the moment, so do not miss it! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:21] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast! [00:44] The full range of services offered by ConvertKit and their company mission. [01:08] Nathan's background in design, blogging, and writing, and how this led to ConvertKit. [02:59] Early days at ConvertKit and the success they experienced from the get-go. [04:02] Nathan's approach to entrepreneurship and why he chooses to focus on one company. [07:29] Growth phases for the company and how long it took to get up to 100k MRR. [10:17] The pricing model at ConvertKit and how they charge. [10:57] Important numbers from the business and their choice to be transparent. [11:53] Smart targeting and the lessons that Nathan learned about zeroing in. [15:01] Nathan's social media strategy and becoming visible to new prospects. [15:57] ConvertKit's choice to make the shift to a freemium model recently. [19:56] Benefits of a great free and product-led growth. [21:10] The role of webinars and podcasts in the trajectory of ConvertKit. [24:50] How many podcast appearances Nathan makes at the moment. [25:53] Nathan's must-read book recommendation! [26:21] A great tool for business growth according to Nathan. [27:32] The founder and company that Nathan is currently following. Resources From The Interview: ConvertKit Nathan Barry Nathan Barry on Twitter Tim Ferriss App Design Handbook MailChimp Pat Flynn Why I Switched from AWeber to Infusionsoft to ConvertKit Gretchen Rubin ConvertKit Baremetrics HubSpot Chris Guillebeau Figma Vlad Magdalin Webflow Must read book: Anything You Want Leave Some Feedback: What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed Connect with Eric Siu: Growth Everywhere Single Grain Eric Siu on Twitter
No code is a trend that has powered much of the internet since the days of Dreamweaver. However, in 2020, "no code" is making a come back at a stronger pace than ever before. The world operates on code, but only every 1 in 400 understand it; imagine if only every 1 in 400 people could write - the world would be an incredibly different place. This week we were joined by Vlad Magdalin, Founder and CEO of Webflow - one of the pioneers of the "no code" movement. Vlad recently raised $72M from Accel Partners to scale his vision into reality. We touched on a number of topics in this conversation - dealing with rejection in the early days, the irrationality to keep going when things looked bleak, how he grew to $20M ARR with limited outside financing, why he raised a monster round from Accel and why he believes this is the inflection point for "no code." At the end of the discussion, we finished out by talking about gratitude - Vlad came to the US as a refugee from Russia at 9; gratitude has shaped his outlook on privilege and the real priorities in life. This conversation was a ton of fun - a lot of the folks we have on the podcast are winning in an objectively massive way. Vlad is a genuinely good guy and it's awesome to see him specifically win.
"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author Today’s episode is with Vlad Magdalin, co-founder and CEO of Webflow. We sat down and chatted about his insane story of failure that spanned for 15 years before getting it right, his early experiences that shaped him as a founder, and what he thinks about that he rarely gets a chance to talk about. Webflow raised $75 million from investors a few months ago and was one of the largest Series A's of the last few years. We talked about the debt he went into financially and personally, including with the most important of co-founders, his spouse, almost ten years before this milestone. He shared with us what he thinks about today as a leader, and we also talked about the r-word (religion!) openly and publicly! It's an in-depth conversation, and it is one of my favorites to date. I think you're going to enjoy this very different kind of conversation and founder story. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC
Vlad Magdalin (@callmevlad), co-founder and CEO of Webflow, and Yasmin Razavi (@YasminRazavi), partner at Spark Capital, join Erik on this episode.They discuss:- The history of the no-code space and the evolution of Webflow.- Whether it was obvious that no-code would take off when Vlad was working on the company in the mid-2000s.- How Webflow is giving the people closest to the users the power to work on solutions for the users.- Why to Vlad it feels like 1999 on the internet again.- Vlad’s requests for startups and where he would be investing if he was running a no-code fund.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Patrick Blumenthal is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.
Vlad Magdalin (@callmevlad), co-founder and CEO of Webflow, and Yasmin Razavi (@YasminRazavi), partner at Spark Capital, join Erik on this episode.They discuss:- The history of the no-code space and the evolution of Webflow.- Whether it was obvious that no-code would take off when Vlad was working on the company in the mid-2000s.- How Webflow is giving the people closest to the users the power to work on solutions for the users.- Why to Vlad it feels like 1999 on the internet again.- Vlad’s requests for startups and where he would be investing if he was running a no-code fund.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Patrick Blumenthal is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.
Vlad Magdalin (@callmevlad) might just be the most principled founder I've had on the podcast. "When it came to making hard decisions, I've leaned more on my morality rather than my business sense. That's what I regret the least." Sticking to his heart has paid off. Not only has he built a company that's changing and improving lives by the millions, but he's also grown it to millions in revenue and 155 employees. In this episode Vlad and I talk about the ups and downs of raising money from investors, the impact of building something that empowers your customers to create, and the compounding benefits of focusing on people and relationships over profit and product.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/144-vlad-magdalin-of-webflow
We're back with Season 3, brought you by Microsoft: The latest episode of My First Million, Shaan sits down with Vlad Magdalin (@callmevlad), Co-Founder & CEO of Webflow: a visual tool to build web apps. Vlad shares the several attempts in 6 years to get his no-code brainchild going. Persistence paid off as it quickly got to $20MM in revenue and raised a monster $72M Series A round led by Accel. He talks about the emotional rollercoaster of getting into Y-Combinator, the video that made him quit his high paying job immediately, kickstarter kicking him off their platform and the trick to get investors interested without changing anything. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Join the Acquired Limited Partner program! https://glow.fm/acquired/ (works best on mobile) You can hear a preview of our most recent LP show, an interview with Webflow cofounder and CEO Vlad Magdalin, at the end of this episode. To get access to the rest of that conversation and many more with top founders, operators and investors, click the link to subscribe and become an Acquired LP. Season 5, Episode 10: The Lean Startup and the Long-Term Stock Exchange (with Eric Ries) Acquired closes out Season 5 and 2019 with a radical look into both the past and future decades of startup company building, investing and - yes, exiting - in conversation with legendary Lean Startup author Eric Ries. Nine years on from pioneering the now-canonical concepts of product-market fit, minimum viable products, and pivots during the aftermath of the financial crisis, Eric’s new venture at the Long-Term Stock Exchange represents an equally ambitious attempt to rewrite the orthodoxy of how companies and their investors manage liquidity, governance and alignment around longterm value creation. Like Lean Startup a decade before it, can LTSE help address some of the endemic problems in this generation’s startup ecosystem — excessive capital raising, stay-private-longer, dual-class founder hegemony, extreme illiquidity and quarterly earnings myopia? Tune in to find out! Sponsor: Thanks to Silicon Valley Bank for sponsoring all of Acquired Season 5. You can get in touch with Lewis Hower, who you heard at the beginning of this podcast, here: http://bit.ly/2SCsbbs
In this episode, Vlad and I go deep down the Webflow and No Code rabbit hole. Vlad is a pioneer in this budding indsutry and this episode is worth a listen by anyone in technology. I hope you enjoy!
We're joined by Webflow's Co-Founder and CEO, Vlad Magdalin, talking about how he started the company (over a decade, trying three times), how to nail the timing of your startup, and the future of the "no-code movement." Vlad took his company through YCombinator in 2013, and raised only $3m in the following six years, before closing a $72m Series A from Accel earlier this year. He gives his perspective on why now is the only time Webflow could have worked (not in 2009, the last time he tried to start it), what's changed in browser technology, and how he was inspired by one of the original designers of the iPhone software. Vlad also shares his wisdom for other founders and opportunities he thinks will be available for entrepreneurs in the next five years when robust "no-code" infrastructure is built out. ----- “The differentiator between No-Code and Low-Code is that Low-Code makes this implicit admission that in order to really finish a project, I'm going to need a developer. Or I am going to need to know how to take it across that last mile. In No-Code, the aspiration is that for the vast majority of cases, you will not that. Or, if you do, that one or a few developers that can create the No-Code version that abstracts away the Low-Code version and put it into the hands of millions.” -Vlad Magdalin, @callmevlad Be sure to follow the Acquired Podcast: Acquired.fm @AcquiredFM Let People Know You're An LP on Twitter! Show Links: Bret Victor – The Future of Programming (youtube) Bret Victor – Inventing on Principle (vimeo) Paul Graham – Default Alive or Default Dead Essay Show Bookmarks: [00:00] – Meet Vlad and Webflow [04:25] – The first and second evolution of Webflow [10:30] – The third attempt at starting Webflow [19:26] – Serendipity and the last iteration of Webflow [25:50] – Webflow's Product Market Fit [30:00] – Webflow Today [35:53] – Segmentation and the Ideal Customer Profile [38:52] – The No-Code Movement [46:52] – How Webflow can change how problems are solved [48:10] – The rise of Productivity and Creativity Software [54:50] – How Webflow got to Profitability and Investment Strategy People Worth Knowing: Scott Cook Bill Campbell John Donahoe Scott Adams Bret Victor Brian Chou Paul Graham Arun Mathew Companies Mentioned in Episode: Dreamweaver Intuit Stripe Y Combinator Corel Draw Shopify Apple HP Tennis Channel Quiksilver Wall Street Journal Weebly Square Space TurboTax eBay Photoshop Wordpress Google Superhuman Notion Airtable Sketch Figma Atlassian Qualtrics Episode Specific Terms: WYSIWYG No-Code Movement CMS Scaffolding Product-Market Fit Domain Battles Web 2.0 Responsive Design Direct Manipulation Web Browser as Application Platform Landing Page OAUTH User Authentication Web Site vs Web Application Full Stack Node CDN JavaScript No-Code vs Low-Code Ben and David's Affiliations: Wave Capital, @WaveCapitalVC Pioneer Square Labs, @psl Follow Acquired: @AcquiredFM, acquired.fm Let People Know You're an LP on Twitter! Suggestions and Feedback: acquiredfm@gmail.com
This episode features Vlad Magdalin, Co-founder & CEO of Webflow, a business that took four tries to get off the ground. Find out how they think about creating a product that's applicable to as many people as possible and why adding incremental value is more important than shipping a perfect product.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Vlad Magdalin is the Founder & CEO @ Webflow, the startup that allows you to build better business websites, faster, without coding. To date, Vlad has raised over $73m with Webflow from some dear friends of the show including Accel, Ron @ Rainfall, Brianne @ Work Life, Benjamin Ling and Y Combinator to name a few. Prior to founding Webflow, Vlad was a Senior Software Engineer @ Intuit. Before Intuit, Vlad co-founded Chatterfox, a web application allowing people to stay in touch with groups of friends, family, or co-workers. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Vlad made his way into the world of startups? How did the original idea to democratise the world of design and site creation with Webflow come about? 2.) Webflow has had an unorthodox funding path with their recent $73m Series A, how was it for Vlad raising the seed round with Webflow? What lessons did he learn from that raise? Why did they drive to be breakeven so much earlier than others might? Why did Vlad believe now was the right time to go big and raise the Series A? 3.) Vlad chose to partner with Accel, what advice does Vlad give to founders in determining which funding partner to choose? What makes for the best VC founder relationships? What is the optimal way to build those relationships? Where does Vlad believe that VCs can strategically move the needle? Where do many think VCs can really help but they most often cannot? 4.) What have been Vlads biggest lessons when it comes to successful board management? What advice would Vlad give Harry when it comes to joining boards as new board member? What does Vlad mean when he says, the best board members come to the board with the mindset of "servant leadership"? How do they show that in their actions? How can investors create an environment of trust at the board? 5.) Vlad AMA: Why does Vlad believe that it is a distraction for founders to be angel investing alongside their role as a founder? How does he believe this creates a wedge between them and the team? How has having kids impacted how he thinks about operating today? What have been the big takeaways from fatherhood? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Vlad’s Fave Book: Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Vlad on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Webflow is a platform for building applications without programming. Software engineering has barely been around for 30 years. Over that period of time, there have been many attempts to create a platform that allows for the creation of software without writing a line of code. Most of these systems have not been able to fulfill The post Webflow: No-Code with Vlad Magdalin appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
The post E973: Webflow CEO & Co-founder Vlad Magdalin shares insights on growing his no-code startup to $20M in revenue, securing recent $72M round, maintaining profitability while scaling, & pioneering the “Pegasus” movement of startups that skip funding rounds thanks to massive growth appeared first on This Week In Startups.
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In this episode we talk about the visual development tool Webflow with co-founder Vlad Magdalin. Webflow is a visual website builder targeted at developers rather than end users.
Vlad Magdalin is the CEO & co-founder of Webflow, a WYSIWYG website builder and CMS that's a thin layer of abstratction over HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In this conversation we discussed Vlad's Bret Victor origin story, the differences between live programming and direct manipulation, and why web design has resisted direct manipulation pro tools for so long. You can find the transcript for this epsisode at futureofcoding.org/episodes/035#transcript
Today we caught up with Vlad Magdalin, co-founder and CEO of Webflow. In this episode we dig into Vlad's history, moving from Russia to the US, his journey to Webflow, the challenges of starting up, raising money, and so much more.
Vlad Magdalin is the CEO and founder of Webflow, an all-in-one web design tool that allows you to design, build, and launch responsive websites visually. In this episode, we talk to Vlad about his early career in animation, the origin of Webflow, it's unique position in the market of web design tools, the current state of web design tooling, why democratization of web design is a good thing, and more. Links Mentioned in Overtime: Vlad Magdalin on Twitter Webflow Flexbox Game A (Cheeky) Guide to Creative Tools IDEO U Design Thinking Course
Vlad Magdalin is the CEO and founder of Webflow, an all-in-one web design tool that allows you to design, build, and launch responsive websites visually. In this episode, we talk to Vlad about his early career in animation, the origin of Webflow, it's unique position in the market of web design tools, the current state of web design tooling, why democratization of web design is a good thing, and more. Links Mentioned in Overtime: Vlad Magdalin on Twitter Webflow Flexbox Game A (Cheeky) Guide to Creative Tools IDEO U Design Thinking Course