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Tailscale
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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 39 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
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How Tailscale Grew

Identity-based secure networking solution for remote teams

How did Tailscale grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Tailscale grew primarily through word of mouth, with engineers adopting the product and spreading it to their colleagues and employers in a bottom-up viral growth pattern. The company also benefited from viral growth that increased as the product improved, and from inbound interest where most deals came from people who heard about Tailscale and wanted to use it.

Channels

5 channels · grouped by how Tailscale grows

  • Word of mouth

    · 4 mentions · 4 sources
    “Tailscale spreads primarily through “word of mouth,” which is a technical term for the thing where you end up on our website after searching for the word “Tailscale” because your friend absolutely insisted, at dinner last night, that you please just finally try it or they will never speak to you ...”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “It was quickly adopted by engineers who spread the word to their colleagues, and eventually their employers, after a “bottom-up” viral growth pattern that helped Slack and 1Password win over corporate IT departments.”
    medium
    “And that was the number one way tailscale spread is just through word of mouth.”
    high
    “It was quickly adopted by engineers who spread the word to their colleagues, and eventually their employers, a “bottom-up” viral growth pattern that similarly helped Slack and 1Password win over corporate IT departments.”
    medium

  • Inbound

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “We still, even to this day, almost exclusively pursue like deals that are like incoming. So people who wanted to use TailScale because they heard about TailScale. It's really inbound interest.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “It was quickly adopted by engineers who spread the word to their colleagues, and eventually their employers, after a “bottom-up” viral growth pattern that helped Slack and 1Password win over corporate IT departments.”
    medium

  • SEO

    · 1 mention
    “For most of the people visiting our website, they show up because they googled the word tailscale. I mean, our blog posts count as SEO, documentation counts as SEO.”
    high

  • Press

    · 1 mention
    “We kept on writing blog posts. We would write something. It would often get to the front page of Hacker News. That helps a lot because Hacker News is like a lot of people who have a lot of friends.”
    high

  • Viral growth

    · 1 mention
    ““There is a lot of viral growth and as the product gets better the virality increases,” he said.”
    high

How 2,670 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — Tailscale’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    68% ◀
  • Social media
    58%
  • Search/SEO
    57% ◀
  • Email
    47%
  • Community
    33%
  • Content/Inbound
    31% ◀
  • Partnerships
    30%
  • Paid ads
    24%
  • Events
    24%
  • Press/PR
    18% ◀
  • Outbound/Sales
    16%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    8%
  • Brand Authenticity
    2%
  • Product expansion
    2%
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