How focusing on the customer (not the competition) brought us over 1 million new signups in a year

Last February, we launched a new product version.

We had spent nearly all of 2016 revamping a core feature and we were excited about what we’d built.

But shortly after the release, our design director found a discussion thread on Designer News.

The top commenter quoted the first two lines of our About page (which says the company was founded in 2006), then wrote:

“So how come [this particular competitor] is more popular?

I never heard of you guys.”