Miro

$476M to build whiteboards

Author

Stan Rymkiewicz
July 27, 2023

Welcome to the Category Surfers where we break down go-to-market strategies so you can build the best SaaS growth engine.

How Miro grew to $17B with a GTM focus

Miro is a collaborative online whiteboard platform that helps teams brainstorm ideas and plan. They raised almost half a billion to move sticky notes online.

Here is Miro’s GTM strategy:

Miro’s GTM strategy

Product

It’s a whiteboard. You get to drop shapes on the canvas, add arrows, add comments, and call it work. What’s unique about them is a focus on product teams. Their positioning is strong for engineers, product managers, and designers. I think it’s smart as these roles and teams work together daily.

More collaboration = more users = faster growth.

Distribution

They grew to over 35M users primarily through network effects. Since the product is much more focused on product development use cases, they were able to quickly expand to all product departments (design, product, engineering).

The distribution loop focuses not on getting everyone to use their whiteboard but on growing within the segment where the network effects are the strongest (viral growth, willingness to pay).

Once one department is a customer they are able to focus on the expansion with all the other use cases for Miro.

Market

Miro is going after the overall productivity market worth about $47B and continues to grow at 13% annually. Miro now competes with:

Founding story

Andrey Khusid and Oleg Shardin founded Miro in 2011 (formerly known as RealtimeBoard). Before that, they ran a design agency called Vitamin Group for seven years, offering web, product development, and app design services.

Miro initially started as an in-house tool to improve idea communication within the agency and with clients. Recognizing its effectiveness, they decided to transform it into a company.

That’s it!