Miro's Journey to $17b+ Valuation

Welcome to the 15th edition of GrowthDeck! If you enjoy reading deep dives like this, please share it with your friends or colleagues who would appreciate it. Now, let's dive in!

Today, we're diving into the incredible journey of Miro (formerly Realtimeboards). We'll explore its beginnings, the hurdles it overcame, and the remarkable strategies that propelled it from a simple browser-based whiteboard to an international sensation. Brace yourself, because there are some invaluable insights and growth tactics from this journey that you as a founder can implement in your startup.

What is Miro and How it Started?

Miro is a browser-based collaborative whiteboarding platform that allows teams to collaborate and visualize ideas online.

It provides a virtual canvas for users to create, share, and collaborate on a variety of content types such as sticky notes, images, diagrams, and more. Just think of it as a whiteboard but on your computer.

Miro was founded by Oleg Shardin and Andrey Khusid in 2011. Prior to founding Miro, they were running a design agency called Vitamin Group for 7 years. While running the design agency, they realized that communicating and collaborating with remote clients was a nightmare hence they decided to build a product to solve this problem and named it Realtimeboards.

Realtimeboards, a digital collaboration tool, became really popular. Then, in 2019, they decided to change the name to Miro. The reason for this change is quite interesting.

• people were calling the product different names, which caused confusion.

• the original name was quite long, which made it hard for marketing, especially in places with limited space like tradeshows.

• Miro had expanded its services beyond just a real-time whiteboard.

Today, Miro has more than 50 million users and is valued at over $17.5b. Now Let’s find out what strategies helped Miro reach this height.

🌀 1 - Viral Loop expansion strategy - Miroverse

Utilizing strategic loops for gaining customers is not something new. Multiple startups have employed this technique to successfully convert free users into paying customers. Notion, for instance, leveraged a similar strategy by creating a marketplace for users to share templates. Through strategic promotion and word-of-mouth, they achieved substantial growth.

Miro, in a similar vein, harnessed the power of viral loops with the introduction of Miroverse. This innovative platform allows users to seamlessly share their templates with others, creating a dynamic ecosystem of collaborative resources.

Now that we understand what Miroverse is, let's delve into the intricacies of how Miro strategically employed it to fuel their growth.

Miro basically used 3 loops. Two micro loops the Social Viral Loop and the Content Loop working together with a bigger loop, the Cross Network Macro Loop. Let's take a closer look.

The Content Loop:

1. Someone new joins Miro.

2. They create their first board.

3. They start making their own templates or use Miroverse to get started.

4. They share their board with a new teammate.

5. This brings in another new user.

The Social Viral Loop:

1. A user or company adds a new board to Miroverse.

2. People check out the templates available.

3. They get inspired and share their own templates.

4. Miro picks the best ones for Miroverse.

5. The original user or company shares their new board.

The faster these loops run, the faster Miro grows. Miro has done a great job fine-tuning these loops, and that's a big part of why they've become so successful.

How you as a founder can implement it?

1. Identify Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP):

   • Understand what makes your product or service stand out from competitors. This will be crucial in creating content that users will want to share.

2. Incentivize Contribution:

   • Offer rewards, recognition, or exclusive access to certain features for users who actively contribute content.

3. Facilitate Social Sharing:

   • Integrate easy-to-use sharing features within your platform, allowing users to share their contributions with their networks.

4. Promote User-Generated Content:

   • Actively highlight and showcase high-quality user-generated content to inspire others and create a sense of community.

5. Encourage Referrals:

   • Implement a referral program where users are rewarded for inviting others to join and contribute to the platform.

⚙︎ 2 - Iterative and Phase-Specific Onboarding Process

Onboarding is a very crucial part of any SaaS. Especially if the software involves different groups of people and various ways it can be used. Miro understood this really well. They didn't just figure it out once and leave it. They kept making it better based on how big they were and other factors.

When Miro was just starting out, they knew that how they got people started was crucial for the rest of their journey. They had a clear plan, tailored for different kinds of users, and they guided them step by step.

When they tried to make it more interactive and visually interesting, they ran into some unexpected problems. Basically, all the animations and beautifications distracted users and all in all, it was inefficient. This taught them to talk to users after they tried things out to understand why they did what they did. It showed them how important it is to keep improving.

Then came the Covid situation, which brought a whole new challenge. Suddenly, they had more users who weren't as used to tech stuff. So, Miro had to make the starting process even simpler. They came up with a kind of "guided tour" experience, where a real person helps users understand how to work together. Even though it took a lot of effort, it taught them a lot about making things personal and local.

As Miro grew even bigger, they got more serious about trying new things. They really studied how people were using their software. They found two big groups of users, Creators and Joiners, and focused on making it even better for Joiners. They came up with a simple, friendly action - just saying "Hi" with reactions. The first try didn't do much, but they kept tweaking it based on what they learned. And it made a real difference in how people felt.

Here is the link to the original article which provides a detailed analysis of how Miro’s onboarding improved over time (link).

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