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From Emergency Apps to Enterprise Solutions: How Glide is Redefining Software Development

When a sheriff in Marin County needed to distribute critical storm information to 45,000 residents, they didn’t call a development agency or wait weeks for approval. Instead, they built and deployed an emergency response app in two days – without writing a single line of code.

This unexpected use case exemplifies Glide’s mission to democratize software development. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Glide CEO David Siegel shared how his company is transforming the way organizations approach software creation, one spreadsheet at a time.

The Power of the Five-Minute Promise

Glide’s initial growth came from a radically simple premise. “The header of our website was build an app from a Google sheet in five minutes for free,” David recalls. “Just very clear telling people that they could start for free, that it wasn’t going to be a big investment of time, and then actually fulfilling that promise with that simple onboarding flow where they could see something quickly.”

This focus on immediate value creation proved transformative. When Glide launched in February 2019, the response was “explosive,” with hundreds of people daily creating and sharing apps.

Beyond Traditional Product-Led Growth

While Glide embraced product-led growth before it became an industry buzzword, they quickly realized the limitations of a pure PLG approach for complex B2B tools. David introduced the concept of “BYOPMF” – Bring Your Own Product Market Fit: “That’s what our customers need to find within their own companies is product market fit for the solutions they’re building on clients.”

This realization led to a hybrid go-to-market strategy. “We supplement that with sales assist,” David explains. “Our sales team assists are standing by when people inquire about our enterprise tier or we see a very special customer getting traction on our business tier.”

The PGA Story: From Deployment to Innovation

The effectiveness of this approach became evident during the Ryder Cup, where the PGA deployed multiple Glide apps for tournament operations. What makes this story particularly compelling is how it showcases the platform’s agility. When volunteers struggled with crowd counting, they didn’t file a ticket and wait for updates. “Right there on site,” David recalls, “they made an adjustment to the app, they added a new user interface element that connected to the data model. And then the next morning, they said, okay, we deployed an update to the application.”

Targeting the Right Use Cases

Rather than positioning Glide as a generic “no-code” platform, the company focuses on specific business problems. “We’re not focused on distributing to the App Store,” David emphasizes. “In fact, we don’t support that at all. We’re not interested in public facing consumer apps in the iOS App Store.”

Instead, Glide targets internal business applications – the kind traditionally built on spreadsheets or trapped in procurement queues. “Your developers shouldn’t work on it,” David argues about internal tools. “You should use Glide and let other people in your company express those skills.”

The Vision: Becoming the Default Choice

David’s vision extends beyond current success. “When you ask a random person in a company, what tool would you use to create a presentation? They can say PowerPoint or Google Slides… I want there to be a brand that everyone has in mind, and it’s Glide. When you need to create software, it’s Glide.”

This ambitious goal is grounded in practicality. Glide isn’t trying to replace all software development – David acknowledges that if you’re “creating some sort of autonomous drone swarm that’s going to build habitats on Mars, Glide is not going to have the patterns that express that use case.” Instead, they’re focused on democratizing the creation of business applications that drive day-to-day operations.

For founders building complex B2B tools, Glide’s journey offers valuable lessons in balancing ambitious vision with practical execution, evolving beyond pure PLG when necessary, and finding the right market position that enables broad adoption while maintaining focus on valuable use cases.