Webflow Desktop Appand What Comes Next

0:00Janne Parri: This one is a banger. So, we talked about desktop app, Webflow Conf, code as the source of truth, all of that stuff, but I did not have time to do a proper teaser for you guys. Instead of that, you get a friendly reminder that if this is not the first episode you're watching, if you enjoy this stuff, maybe consider subscribing, following on whichever platform you are on. That would mean the world to me. Yeah, but that's all. Here's the episode.

0:31Janne Parri: Okay, Nathan. So, a Webflow desktop app. What can you tell us? What do you know?

0:38Nathan Huening: Well, so I can say that the teaser URL, which I think a lot of people have seen, shows like a screen like a Mac desktop and there's a little disk image and you know, a little doc and everything. So, so it sort of spilled the beans as it were as far as like one of the upcoming things. I think if you go to the Webflow wish list, you can sort by like most requested, you know, like most voted thing. And I'm pretty sure like a desktop app has been the number one most voted thing for like 15 years or whatever it is.

1:11Nathan Huening: And so, I don't know, you know, why now. I can say or at least I can link two things together is number one a lot of apps that otherwise would have been too difficult to develop are easier now with electrons. So like the slacks of the world you know the Asanas of the world like you can take a website and make it an app much more easily than you could in years past. But more importantly, the article about code is the source of truth where instead of having this abstraction layer, yeah, we'll talk more about that article and that initiative like if you're talking code, well then I need access to your file system.

1:51Nathan Huening: So in the same way that in Claude you have like regular Claude and then you have Claude Code, like Claude Code only works in the Claude app. Like you can't just go to Claude.ai and use Claude Code because the browser doesn't have access to your file system. So in a similar way, if we're talking about I now have code as a source of truth and code that's truly portable and code that the agents can write or that I can write or the code that I can import long and short of it as I need access to your file system. So it's sort of like an obvious direction.

2:24Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. And I was wondering what can we do with a dedicated like desktop app? The file system. Yeah, that's that's one thing probably the biggest thing. But are there any any other benefits that the desktop app may bring or could bring in theory if we played rather like that right now?

2:46Nathan Huening: Well, I'll just I'll say this one. Are you familiar with the idea of malleable software or malleable depending on how you say it?

2:53Janne Parri: No, not really. Please explain.

2:55Nathan Huening: Yeah. Well, just like really configurable, right? Like so. So it's like it's not just I've locked in the UX and you have to use it this way. It's that I can I can sort of rearrange it to sort my needs, you know. So it's and you can kind of Google it or read more about it, but it's it's a trend I've seen the last like maybe year or two and sort of accelerated by AI and agents where I can take some software and I can sort of like let's just say for example I'm using Microsoft Word or you know it's like I wish I had this feature that it doesn't have.

3:30Nathan Huening: Well, you could set up that tool in a way that I could like v code my own feature like in only for me, right? Like I it's not like I'm going to change the codebase, but like it's a new direction that a number of apps are going in. And we could list some examples of ones that are kind of doing this really well. But I think to your question, to your point, that this is sort of the new frontier where users can be more particular about configuring an app in a way that saves state for other users.

4:01Nathan Huening: And the most obvious example for web developers is there's always two pieces to this process. Take Webflow as it is now, right? Like there's a process Y where you and I like set up the design system and the variables and the components whatever and then like we turn the whole thing over to our less technical clients to use in build mode or edit mode or whatever, right? So there's like a way that we use the software and a way that our clients use the software and right now Webflow has those two modes, right? Like there's build mode and there's edit mode. And they're they're great.

4:32Nathan Huening: Like it they're you know when we finally launched build mode and you know page builder four years ago five whatever it was three years ago it was like way overdue right so it's like I can just open up a page from a template I can just drag some components I can edit the props on those click man like the vision of that is phenomenal right like if it works like if you can get it to work right so like fully realizing that vision y where like right now when you switch from like designer mode to build mode or you know marketer mode I forget exactly how they call it right but like you can see all those icons a bunch of them vanish in Webflow right now like you don't have access to like the apps you don't have access to the navigator even maybe or maybe I forget which one you know and then if you go to edit mode even even fewer still like in edit mode it's it's just like pages assets CMS I think like just those three or whatever but what if you could make that mode be anything that you wanted and you could choose which of the Webflow icons in that left-hand panel were the ones that your clients got to use in the order that you wanted them.

5:40Nathan Huening: And even further, what if instead of only being limited to the ones that Webflow ships with, which right now are pages, components, variable, whatever, what if you could add your own new ones? So this is like malleable software where it's like hey y not only can you make Webflow work the way you want it to work as the builder but when you turn it over to your client who candidly will be using the site a lot more than like we think of the life cycle of a website your work might only be the first 3 months and then that website now lives for 5 years right and then like you may not even touch it again if you do your work right so like most of the life cycle of that website comes not in your interface with Webflow but with your client's interface.

6:27Nathan Huening: And if you think that Webflow has historically indexed very heavily on the build side for you and me and maybe has like historically underinvested in that handoff piece because for builders, but like it turns out that like actually most of the life of that website comes after your and my work is done. So how do we really serve that need? And a lot of the confusion and concern and tumult about Webflow's direction is not like we're abandoning builders when we talk about agentic web for the agentic nonsense like just web marketing.

7:06Nathan Huening: It's just because most of the life of that website is after launch. It is the mark. It's like you're now you're using it for whatever purpose you made it for. And so what if we could now invest e equally in that which is not only about the tools that your client has but the tools we give you to get to set up the right like more control over components more control like and further let's blue sky this what if not even that you could create a mode you know like the UX of Webflow for a user group like three people what if on an individual user level you could say you see these icons and you see these icons like you could c like your clients would be over the moon.

7:55Nathan Huening: Yeah. Yeah. So all that said, this idea of malleable software to make both your work better and your clients happier, that's really hard to do in a SAS app, but in a desktop app, it creates lots of possibilities for success that would be much harder to do in a pure kind of and I don't think I've revealed too much because that's all just true, right? Like you can just do more and it does come out. and so these are some of the I think key opportunities that a desktop and plus you can do it offline, right?

8:27Nathan Huening: So you're on an airplane or what you know that's fine. You don't you can commit to get on your local machine without any internet connection and then just deploy when you're ready when you have a signal again. So yeah, you could keep working in like as though it were like a local thing and then just deploy when you're ready kind of thing. So

8:44Janne Parri: Beautiful, beautiful. It's all coming together. And I believe there was this article from Webflow made to measure about just this like malleable software thing. Yeah. And I was like trying to read into it and thinking like what could this mean? But yeah, your explanation brought it brought it together nicely. So it's all

9:04Nathan Huening: Well, you even said at the top of the call like what is about software that like we don't mold to it, but it molds to us. like that. That's that's sort of at the heart of what we're talking about.

9:17Janne Parri: Okay, I'm I'm getting excited. Before we forget, we have to do little intros. So, my name is Janne Parri and you are listening to Webflow and Friends podcast and my guest today is Nathan Huening. So, Nathan is a returning guest. The first episode got a great response and now we're continuing our conversation from that. little recap if you didn't catch the last talk we did. Nathan is on Webflow's enterprise team as a lead solutions engineer.

9:48Janne Parri: He has worked with some of the biggest clients Webflow has. Last time we talked about AI and Webflow Enterprise. Those topics will definitely be present in this conversation too. But before we go to those and Webflow Conf and source of truth and so on. Nathan, how are you doing and are there any updates personal or work related since we last talked that we should know about?

10:16Nathan Huening: I did get a promotion. So not a lead solutions engineer. now a principal which is you know it's it's all just fun and games right. I never really cared about any of that. I joke with, you know, like I did a podcast with Mason Poe from Edgar Allen and he was kind of like we're talking about, you know, like these future goals and I was like, "Mason, I don't have anything to sell. I have no community to influence. I had no career ambitions. Like it's all it's all just easy, you know, when you don't really have a, you know, it's it's I kind of find myself stumbling into opportunities, which I'm eternally grateful for.

10:56Nathan Huening: Like being at Webflow and working with this team and this company and this product has been one of the like great pleasures and blessings of my life. And so it's amazing to be like, you know, you've heard the expression where it's like if you're the smartest person in the room, find another room. like Webflow is the first place where I'm like the dumbest person in every meeting like my colleagues come from you know like Apple and Dropbox and Slack and you know like they just super achievers and it's just like really really a treat to get to work with like smart talented creative driven people who are really really trying hard and you know and that's that's part of the I think with like Ben Ben Hayel is our new our new CPO terrific by the way really glad to see him take the reigns like when he sort of I don't want to say like admitted but like acknowledged that the technology decisions from 15 years ago that were a net benefit to Webflow have now become a liability.

11:55Nathan Huening: This translation layer of like the Webflow you talked about in the article right which is which is which has I think historically made it hard to update the product as fast as we would like but also now in the like a gentic world is really slowing us down. I think like it's you know you see how hard people work and how personally they take the you know the feedback from the community and things like this. And so it's like I'm I'm really grateful to see some new commitment internally to like we're really going to hit the gas as much as we can.

12:26Nathan Huening: So, you know, there's going to be a whole, I think, review, you know, of just like let's let's look at the last 18 months of like what we shipped and kind of like some major things, some minor kind of quality of life updates, but I think I think there's even a sense that like okay, like you might have seen some of the most recent updates like you can now like the attributes like pasting attributes now like we'll split it up and like you can rearrange really really small things even like grouping CMS fields which I think the last time we spoke hadn't hadn't been released yet.

12:57Nathan Huening: It's like I've been waiting seven years for this or whatever, you know. So, so any all that said, there's I think like a new a new life, you know, in the company and it's it's hard for everybody right now, right? Like a lot of just uncertainty and chaos and things, but it's a it's just it's been fun to work in a in a in a context like because this is this is when a person's work can really make the biggest impact. when like everything is just in total chaos, that's when you can kind of like really make a difference.

13:27Nathan Huening: And so that's it's been a real a real joy. Yeah.

13:31Janne Parri: Yeah. Let's let's like hone in on this subject like getting to the source. There's the article. People have reacted to it. I talked with Dan Foster about that. But I want to know like the insider view. What do you think of the article and the declaration of direction if you may like what do you think of all that and is there a big buzz within Webflow?

13:57Nathan Huening: What do you think about it? And let me hear that first and then I'll I'll I'll chime in. Yeah. What's your impression overall? Yeah,

14:05Janne Parri: I'm like cautiously excited about this. Like it's great that Webflow has noticed this and obviously it's a it has to be like a big lift but towards the better and it's a big move that I believe has to be done. So that's great. I'm just like waiting what will that look like physically? Well physically the UI in my workflow and so on. So, I'm I'm waiting for the conf and something concrete to see, but I'm like cautiously optimistic, excited, and also wishing it would be here sooner than later.

14:48Nathan Huening: Yeah, it's going to it's going to take a while to get right. So, yeah, it'll it'll be no reduction or diminution in of investment, you know, in the you know, core core Webflow. Like I again some of some of these updates that we're seeing we're going to continue to see these and so I think it'll be it'll be interesting to see the I am also cautiously optimistic. I think there's an opportunity to really stick the land in here. and in our last call I gave the example of like the Doctor Strange like the one out of 50 million, you know, like I there's there is there is a future where we thread this needle and produce something really extraordinary.

15:29Nathan Huening: And I you know I we've got really smart people working on it all like as fast as they can right to try and get this out and some of this new this new direction. But what it seems to me like for the viewers or you know or developers who remember the early days of Webflow. So like Webflow officially founded in like 2013 and then CMS came in 2015 and you know but I remember those days and I remember how laborious it was to code by hand and how much it seemed like Webflow itself was a revelation.

16:04Nathan Huening: It was just like oh my god can like so much faster. and whatever Vlad's original vision of superpowers for everyone where it's like hey you want to make a website now you can make it. It's it learning Webflow is still a lift. Let's just be candid like if you commit to this one-to-one abstraction of core web primitive then you still got to learn Flexbox you still have to understand media queries and the inheritance and you know so either you are someone who wants to learn web development and use Webflow to get you there and a lot of people did that especially with web university or you're an existing developer who has now candidly I've been ruined forever like I even before AI I was not writing code by hand anymore I'm just going to use Webflow But at the time there's a lot of people like a lot of tools like Webflow was not the only no-code builder.

16:52Nathan Huening: There's an explosion of these tools like there's lots of them. I used Macaw. Macaw at the time was the like the largest Kickstarter funded project in the history of Kickstarter. was subsequently acquired by Envision and I think was incorporated in another product and you know Sunset or whatever. But like Squarespace MR says no code web settings. different approach than Webflow, but it's the same idea of like you don't need to do this. So like whatever Vlad's original vision, what Webflow became was a tool for professionals. Again, like we talked about, not a tool for making websites, but a tool for people who make websites for other people.

17:25Nathan Huening: And so I think what we'll see though is in the same way that there was like an explosion of tools to kind of meet this market need. And a lot of them you won't even remember their names anymore. And Webflow emerged. And we can talk about why Webflow did more than some of these others. like it seems like it could have been any of them. I have my own theories on that, but like it feels the same way right now like 2026 and 2013. So it's like there's like an explosion of these tools and I have a list in Slack like in our company Slack of like 35 like you know shift studio and noon design and like I mean just all these like agentic building tools some of which are exceptional.

18:06Nathan Huening: Opacity is coming out and that's you know more like Figma adjacent but like so you know Lovable bolt Replit I mean we can go on and on about all these you know v0, Nordcraft even but I think that in a similar way the dust will settle and like a couple of these will emerge in a very similar way for again maybe whatever historical reasons and I feel like it's a it's like Webflow gets to be the upstart again right like it's it's not just like an incumbent And it's like, oh, we have to compete to be the best tool, not just the tool that everyone uses or always has used.

18:42Nathan Huening: And our new VP of engineering, Utkarsh, which you might have seen him, he's really active on like Twitter and you know, and socials and stuff. He used this phrase on a call the other day where it's like, we want to be a magnet, not a moat. So it's like you we want you to use Webflow and Webflow's tooling because you love it and it's the best one, not because you're like locked in to our hosting or CMS or whatever. like it should and you know the only way to really do that is to let you choose your own like if you can choose Webflow among like what if there were a world and you know it's just like well okay I have my Webflow thing and it's like now I need to use a CMS or use a hosting what if I want to use Webflow or what if I want to use Vercel like at that point now you're competing on are you the better host and then you get those done and you know so it's like there's a world where we sort of are like h how do we really be the best and what does the best mean now that people have whatever.

19:38Nathan Huening: I think I think this core thing too is that because the build process which was so difficult before Webflow in 2013 again I was coding by hand for 15 years before web you know and now that like and what flow made it easier but still hard right like still a lift now that with AI and agents has dropped to zero to nothing like the value in the build is nothing but like when you launch and you go like still the deployment.

20:09Nathan Huening: You can't just like hand like we talked about that handoff. You can't just hand your client, okay, open up Claude and just like vibe some new components like it's it will be disaster. Like they're going to completely destroy the whole set. Like they you still need some harness, some framework. To do their work that isn't being provided by anyone. And so it's like can Webflow employ or the same quality of tooling that historically has marked its build, maintain that, improve on it, and then also provide sort of like a best-in-class client experience because that's how you're going to keep your business YA is like that handoff, right?

20:52Nathan Huening: Like you get to really dial in exactly their workflow that's unique to that website and those tasks. So, so for our in my view and I would say the part of the company's view is in a world where the build which has historically been Webflow's core value proposition drops to almost zero then where does the value shift to and so I think that's like a new opportunity

21:20Janne Parri: And it was the kind of like second article the one after getting to the source I didn't remember the title it was something we heard you had

21:32Nathan Huening: Measure something was it

21:33Janne Parri: No that's the third but the one before that was just about like what comes after the build part like

21:41Nathan Huening: Yeah right building for what's next value is there yeah

21:44Janne Parri: So yeah that was all about it I find that I have never be reading those Webflow articles like this thoroughly trying to you said that expression read the tea leaves of what is like coming so that basic

22:00Nathan Huening: What one little phrase means, you know.

22:03Janne Parri: Yeah, there were multiple things, but one little tea le in the getting to the source article said something about like openness and portability regards to like code. So could we get like more open environments in a sense that it would be easier to export code out of Webflow and into Webflow and it would be easier to switch platforms if one of wish is I would imagine if the code is the source of truth that would be so but what do you read on that?

22:39Nathan Huening: Yeah. Well, tell me what would be if you could if you could wave a magic wand and just make a Webflow workflow however you'd want it to be, how would you want it to be and why?

22:52Janne Parri: Yeah, it's it's difficult. Like I can wave all sorts of theoretical wants, but I haven't test this. So I would imagine there would be one where the like the build process would be like super open like if in the middle of a build I would like to change a platform I could do that and all the all the like whatever files my build like comes easily with that and then at some point I could like attach whatever hosting whatever like apps or features if you may to that.

23:28Janne Parri: So that would be that would be cool, but that would also mean that there's not a lot of like business case within that build part if it was so open. I guess it comes down to like the agents and like the build UI, a little bit of like CMS. If those I can just choose whatever I want to use with those, that would be that would be awesome.

23:57Nathan Huening: Yeah, I think there's a world where like right now we have optimize Webflow optimize which which again I stand by my view that of all the testing and personalization tools in the world I think it's the best and there's a number of reasons why I think that like if you've used Optimizely if you've used VWO if you've used Mutiny or AB Tasty or any you know there's dozens of these right when Webflow acquired Intellimize you know sort of had our pick right of any of these right and picked what I in I view was the best one.

24:28Nathan Huening: Right now it still remains a standalone tool like you can still use it with any with WordPress with Adobe with Sitecore whatever if you if you use it in the Webflow context like the integrated version offers some cool advantages that the standalone doesn't. And part of my work as a solutions engineer is to talk about like well yeah like if you switch to Webflow and want to do this like the these are the advantages that you get. I mean just working with components for example or you know like you can run a test on a component like an AB test and if this were any other tool it would only be that one element on that one page which is fine but now you're just limited to the traffic of that one page but like the integrated version if I run the test on the component now anywhere that component appears saves navigation across 50,000 pages means I'm now running that test on all 50,000.

25:24Nathan Huening: Well, I can get to statistical significance in a fraction of the time because now I've got so much more traffic to those pages. And so again, I only I only do the test in one place. I don't have to do it 50,000. Any other tool, you'd have to run that test 50,000 on each of those different, you know, right? So again, this is my job, right? Is like what is what does this advantage entail. So if you want it to be in the Webflow ecosystem like in the Webflow, then pay for it. But if you don't want it, you should still be able to use it.

25:57Nathan Huening: So like you don't need to replatform to use Webflow Optimize. You can still just use it right now on your other site. And when I'm talking with people who are like, I love this. You're saying, I have to I have to switch over my CI/CD pipeline. I have to switch over my hosting. I have to switch over my I don't have. You know, it's like it's a it's a big ask to be like, I need you to completely change everything and replatform to Webflow to get access to our localization, our whatever. But what if like optimize our localization tool which again I think is like among the best in the world.

26:28Nathan Huening: What if you didn't have to right now you have to switch to Webflow if you want to use our localization and it was just because it was is built it was built to be integrated from the very beginning but what if you could just use localization what if you could just use our analyze tool what if you could just use our hosting or not what if you could just use our CMS or not. So the idea that now you can assemble the right workflow from the core technologies and the reason why you would choose Webflow is because you don't have to but they're the best.

27:02Nathan Huening: So this is the world that like we're and take Lovable for example. I'm a huge fan of Lovable the company Lovable the product. I think talking about this explosion of this you know C cambrian explosion of I don't know how much you know about you know ancient history but like you know periodically in earth's history animals try out all different kinds of body types and most of them fail like a few of them natural selection it's like oh yeah four four feet you know instead of six legs four legs is better or what you know so there's like an explosion of these and I think Lovable is going to emerge for specific predictable reasons and I think Webflow is going to emerge and for specific predictable reasons and like Lovable is taking a different approach.

27:43Nathan Huening: But to your point about portability, I have I don't know a half dozen apps that I'm working on in Lovable. I it's a pleasure to use and believe me a lot of Webflow people use all the tools because we like what's out there? What are they doing well? What can we learn? But me personally, I everything that I do it just writes to GitHub. It's just React. Like if I decided tomorrow I don't want to use Level anymore, I just connect that repo to a different to something else. and it can just read that code and act on it. So, so why should Webflow be any different?

28:14Nathan Huening: Like if that's what's an option for you, Webflow goes extinct. So the idea that code as the source of truth means that you should be able to ingest code and act on it and write it. You should be able to export it and act on it and write it. And candidly, you have to because if you were going to use a Webflow agent that's built in, again, use Webflow's agent if it's better or if it's cheaper. And if it's not, then bring your own. But that agent needs to be able to act on that code, which means nobody can own that.

28:46Nathan Huening: Like it has to just be React or Next or Astro or HTML or whatever it is, you know? So, so it's like if you want to really win then you commit to being the best not because you know you have to be locked in or whatever. So I see an inversion of there is a world potentially where you choose Webflow be and you can choose it piecemeal with your project and then if you want it all great well then you can you can pay for it.

29:17Janne Parri: Yeah that is that is exciting. That kind of blew my mind like instead of starting with the build like mandatory step and opening all these like other features, you could go totally different route like pick up everything but the build and do the build part somewhere else if you wish and just choose like as you said localize, optimize, whatever other things because they are the ones you want to pick. And as again as you said like that would mean that all of those things you pick probably because they are the best or best fit for your workflow. So

29:54Nathan Huening: Which also means think about it too like as it is right now think of all of the people who might otherwise be choosing our analyze tool or our localization tool or our CMS that can't or don't because it's like locked into Webflow. So, and you know, theoretically you can like again like the fact that I can sell optimize to non webflow customers is amazing. We do great business selling because for them it's just like well I don't need to replatform. I just need a testing and personalization tool I can run on top of right and so it's like what if you could unlock more of that value makes my job a lot harder but it's good for the bottom line.

30:36Janne Parri: Yeah. What was that? You need some more enablements. plus that

30:40Nathan Huening: Good what a great memory you have. Yeah, I mean it's and we are going to launch so I obviously can't tell you but like this is going to be a comp for the ages. there's there's some real I got I just saw earlier today some of the preview like the you know the keynote preview and stuff. I'm like holy smokes this is going to be a real big one. So oh

30:58Janne Parri: Man I'm getting I'm getting FOMO says I'm I cannot be there in person. I will I will be online obviously but yeah so many people have passed.

31:09Nathan Huening: We'll miss you. Yeah. Yeah.

31:11Janne Parri: You can have a silent moment for me or some something like that.

31:15Nathan Huening: We'll dial we'll dial you in at some point just so we can you know like

31:20Janne Parri: Yeah. Did you see that? But about Webflow kind of like are you excited? Are people excited? Is there like I feel like as many have said that there's kind of like pressure to deliver in this kind of more than there has been. So, do people like inside Webflow feel that same thing? And what do you think? 100%.

31:42Nathan Huening: Yes. The does everyone knows the stakes? Yeah. Yeah. And even like so I don't even know Ollie McMillan. I don't know if you've had him on one of your calls. He's a top designer and an ace and just a lovely lovely fellow. He mentioned that it was he was like sort of on the fence, wasn't going to go and then read the getting to the source article and then booked his ticket. She was like, "Okay, all right. I'm gonna I'm gonna see see where this takes me." So, I feel like that's sort of the vibe, you know, right now. So, we'll see. I'll be there.

32:13Nathan Huening: I'm glad you not everybody in the company gets to go because there's only so many seats and every seat that a like a Webflower takes is one less that like a you like a community member or client or customer or whatever can do or partner or something. So, I'm pretty to get a chance to go.

32:29Janne Parri: Yeah. And since you have seen the keynote or at least drafts like I obviously have to ask well what is on that? You might not be able to say that but

32:39Nathan Huening: Of course you have to ask and of course I can answer but I'll just say like there's so you'll you'll learn you'll learn about I have to really be careful. Yeah. I think I think you'll you'll see what we've been up to, you know, in terms of the way that we're thinking about the product, the way that we're thinking about the future some of the new capabilities that we see. I will I will say that like there's going to be like a lot of like long-standing frustrations, complaints, that will be directly addressed.

33:18Nathan Huening: Which I you know is not over overstepping I think but and I think more than you know the specific you know updates or features it is sort of like we want to you know build confidence in our partners in our community and our you know like regain some of the trust it's it's hard to build and easy to squander and so sort of like a signal that like we are you know recommitting doubling down to try and make the best product that we can and I think there's There's like I was thinking about this actually today or earlier just as far as like what you know what we might talk about and I think that there's there's I'll I'll if you'll indulge me for a moment on a brief tour why talking about that explosion of tools in 2013 and then explosion of tools this year and how the dust settles and winners emerge and I was thinking about Webflow and I mentioned this on the last call but I'm going to go a step further and I said that like I think that you know Vlad Vlad's own decency and humanity, like his fundamental goodness.

34:20Nathan Huening: It's not like I'm here to like make money or what. Like I'm I'm trying to like put a dent in the universe to use Steve Jobs phrase. And so I think that there's something like I believe in like the metaphysical, right? Like to quote Morpheus from the Matrix is like is something real just because you can smell and taste and touch it. I think there's things that are real beyond just the physical senses. And again, and why I say that is like Webflow always like smelled a little different to me in terms of just like, you know, the company and the you know, I don't know that I can put like my finger on exactly what that is.

34:53Nathan Huening: And you can believe in that or not believe in it. Maybe I don't entirely either, but like I just feel like you sort of get a feel for a company, a product that's sort of ineffable, like a little a little hard to put your finger on. And the reason I say this is like the early in my career, I was really trying to understand the difference between art and design. Like are they the same thing? Are they separate things? Like trying to get a sense of do I want to be an artist? Do I want to be a graphic designer? Like you know, technologist or whatever.

35:24Nathan Huening: And I finally about a decade in I finally realized that like art exists to like to challenge you to get you to think about the world in a new way to grow in awareness like you've had some experience or insight or enlightenment or trauma and you want to express that like it could be an insight or it could be like you know Taylor Swift just broke up with a boy and she's going to make a great album out of it. Like it's art's a great way to process your emotions, right? So art is about disrupting things and design is about is entirely different.

35:58Nathan Huening: It's about efficiency and optimization and like how do we move 50,000 people from point A to point B during rush hour in this one city or like urban design, right? Like so they handle very different things and the most succinct way that I think about the difference between art and design is that the purpose of art is to ask questions and the purpose of design is to answer them. So they operate in two fundamentally different spheres. Yeah. But when you think about answering questions like what is the most efficient or effective way to something like design is about the fewest number of brush strokes to achieve something whereas art is like use as many brush strokes as you want it doesn't matter you know whatever whatever it is.

36:40Nathan Huening: So if you're trying to solve problems with design that's one level of it but there's more to it. And this I promise I'm getting somewhere with this that my favorite my favorite one of my favorite designers was a lawyer by training and left his legal practice to become a typographer. His name is Matthew Butterick. He was so frustrated with the fonts that lawyers would use in their documents. He was like I'm going to make a better font. He has three or four of them. He sells tight foundry. But I saw him give a talk one time and something he said really stuck with me.

37:12Nathan Huening: This was 10 years ago maybe. said the lowest form of design is solving problems. So like solving problems is the lowest form of design, but investing your humanity is the highest. And I think about that too because like a lot of the things we're talking about is like what is the point of all this? And I think there's a certain kind of like keep your eye on the ball where it's not just like I want to give you tools to do something effectively. It's like I want to I want your humanity to find its expression.

37:44Nathan Huening: I want this product to reflect the humanity of the people that created it. and I feel this anytime I drive like a German car, right? Like I love Volkswagen. I love Audi's. Like I look I look at the symmetry of it. I look at like I was like how would I do this? And I'll flip that. Oh, there were like some human anticipated my need a decade earlier when they designed this vehicle and thought that if I would reach for this sun visor, it would just be right there and would work, you know, and so like in that moment, I felt that person like I communed with them across time and space, you know, like somebody considered me in product design.

38:19Nathan Huening: And so I think the opportunity here is like again why Webflow emerged then is I think of all the tools that are emerging. I think like this is an opportunity for us to like invest our humanity like what does it mean to meet the moment in a real way and to bend the technology opportunities of the moment to creating something really extraordinary. So, but I think I think that's why I feel like Webflow will again emerge in the way that it did, you know, more than a decade ago is because it's it's like that the conditions are the same.

38:51Nathan Huening: Like history may not repeat, but it rhymes. And that's to answer your question about how I feel about these articles and this direction. Like that's that's sort of the way I feel.

39:03Janne Parri: Yeah, that's beautiful and that's like reassuring and all the things about the openness and like the all the features being like open to other other platforms. That's also like reassuring. But that's the thing. I always come come here and talk talk with like community members and I get a lift up and then I go to social media and there's some dude again saying that he's no longer using Webflow and that gets me down and I'm like in constant like switch.

39:36Nathan Huening: Yeah, it's it's fine. If Webflow is not meeting your needs and you find a tool that you like using better and that meets your needs better, then you should go use that tool. like that's the market speaking, right? So, it's like to me it's and again like the whole like you know break up with Webflow post is profoundly irritating and self- serving like it's like dude if you don't like it just go use something else. It's like nobody needs to like it's like it's you know some products are for you and some products aren't for you and that's fine. Like be like oh let me tell you about how I hate my BMW and I bought a Mercedes. It's like dude BMW buy the Mercedes.

40:09Nathan Huening: Up. Nobody's nobody cares. Nobody needs to hear about it. But it is it's it's again it's like it's is it is it the best tool? Is it solving the right problems? And you know it's it's I don't think it's right or wrong. I think it's just Webflow is you know is a like a I say consequence but like a is subject to the time in which it emerged and is sort of bound by the technology considerations of the time. And so I think it's sort of like because of how much all there's like new products and new kinds of tools and things.

40:41Nathan Huening: It's sort of like okay cool let's put our hat in the ring. Let's let's see how you know how what would our v what would a Webflow flavor or like a Webflow version of this look like and maybe it'll look a lot like some other tools or maybe it'll look completely different or I don't know maybe it'll just be one among many. We'll you know we'll see we'll we'll know about this time next year like how it all plays out. But I'm excited about it. Like I when I see it, I'm like this is a tool that I would that I would wake up early on a Saturday morning and use to make something fun. Like that's that's that's the my metric anyway.

41:12Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. I have so much like mixed feelings about these things as do probably all, but like I'm not against like progress and trying out all of the new tools, but at times I feel like I feel like AI push us towards just speed. Like everything is about speed. Like speed of building is a big thing. And maybe to the point that even clients just want like somewhat speedy experimentation and not like thinking thinking of the craft in itself.

41:46Janne Parri: They want to try out new stuff and not be left behind whatever that means. And that might come with the risk of one speedy experiment experimentation just being left as a company front on whatever page or whatever app and so on. So I'm not I'm not sure the speed is obviously good thing as long that as the quality is there too but I'm not sure if like people are bringing up the quality with the speed at this point.

42:19Janne Parri: Do you get what I'm saying?

42:21Nathan Huening: I do and it's tricky because I feel like everything you just said I could have heard someone say on a podcast in 2009, you know, it's just like, yes, of course, all they care about is speed. And like it's just like, you know, most of your clients are not going to care about quality. Like there's a reason why more people eat at McDonald's than any other restaurant in the world. Like it's because they don't care about quality. They just care, you know? But there's still plenty of good burger restaurants in my town and so you're not going to achieve a certain level of scale and like you're you're going to appeal to the people that you appeal to.

42:56Nathan Huening: And so the goal is to like find the people who care about what you care about. And that's hard, but that maybe is more of the work itself than your work. and you know the idea that like I remember in 2009 2010 you know the iPhone had been out like 3 years and I was I was working as a front end developer then and I'm just like wait now I have to make two websites I have to do the desktop one and I have to but you're only paying me for one I was like no you're going to pay twice you know whatever and you think you think that went very far so it's just like you know people are they're always going to be asking you for like more things like more less less less whatever and so but you know I'm reminded of this old TV commercial of this Italian company Pirelli tires.

43:40Nathan Huening: I don't know if you know Pirelli tires. They're like They're like famous for like high performance, you know, like Porsche and Ferrari, whatever. And like I remember their tagline on the commercial was because they had like their commercial was like, you know, Ferraris zipping around a track or whatever. And it was like power is nothing without control. I was like, I don't care how fast your Ferrari is if it if it slides off the road, you know? So, so that's where sort of like, okay, I don't care how fast it is, if you don't have control, if you don't have, you know, brand consistency, if you, you know, brand drift is a real deal.

44:15Nathan Huening: But it also it's it's it's hard. It's like you pick your clients as much as they pick you. And we talked last time about like, you know, brochure sites versus revenue generating sites. And you know, you can sort of draw a real clear line between fundamentally like, you know, a law firm or a restaurant or a whatever that is well served by Webflow in its retail version, but then you have these revenue generating websites where we talked about like if that's down for an hour, you lose a million dollars. Like so, so there, you know, it's like this is what Enterprise is for.

44:46Nathan Huening: And the kinds of customer and then we talked about like again this customer that's like we're going to spend $10 million on billboards, radio spots, LinkedIn ads, whatever. You can't under you can't you can't you clearly understand the value of your demand gen investment. You can't underinvest on the place they go once you know get an ad a click-through or whatever. So, so you just have to find the right clients. And my a good friend of mine who is a photographer for years told me he said that the difference between an amateur photographer and a professional photographer is much thinner than you realize.

45:25Nathan Huening: He said the only difference is that a professional photographer shoots more and shows less. So, the idea that like on their website on their I see these like beginning people, they're like, "Oh, we'll do we'll do marketing and we'll do logo design and we'll do this and we'll do this and we'll do this." I was like, "Let me show you all these different things." And I fell into that trap. Yay. I fell into that same trap as an early agency where it's like to get the business. You're working in Adobe. I'll I'll work on that or I'll I'll you I'll do the brochure too. I'll do you know because you're like you're desperate for cash flow. I had employees I had to pay.

45:55Nathan Huening: You know, but that's like saying, "Hey y like come to our pizza store. we also do oil changes for your car." It's like or like No, no. It's like I take the Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares approach, you know, like for 20 seasons, he does the exact every single failing restaurant is failing in exactly the same ways. And he goes in and they have a menu that's 30 pages long and they try to do everything. Oh, we do Italian and we do Chinese and we do steak. So, it's just like it's really simple.

46:26Nathan Huening: Three starters, three mains, three desserts. That's it. just make the best meatballs in town and make it so that people come from other cities to eat your meatballs. And if you don't want meatballs, then go somewhere else. Like I'm not going to make a chicken curry. Like I just do meatballs. But it's the best meatballs you're ever going to have. So the same idea of like shoot more, show less. Like just be very narrow and specific. And again, some of the best advice I ever got as an early design like one of my clients for whom I did a lot of work. I did video work for him.

46:58Nathan Huening: I did branding work. I did product design for his his this his labels. I did three of his websites. I mean all the stuff, right? He said, "Nathan, you know what your problem is? Is that you are broad professionally and narrow personally." And what he meant by that was you have so many interests that you try to bring them at like, oh, you're interested in product design, you're interested in video work, you know, like so you try to bring them as like professional services, but as a result, you're working 16our days and you fall asleep, you wake up and like you have no personal time for anything. He says what you need to be is the reverse.

47:30Nathan Huening: You need to be narrow professionally so that you can be broad personally. And so the idea is that I just do this one thing, I do it fast and I do it better than anyone. And so the idea that you come to me, you want if you want something else, I don't do those things. Like in the US, I don't know how it was in Finland, but in the US it's like there's a shops where like we just do brakes, we just do transmissions. Like you want to do fix, we don't we just do transmissions. So, and they do great business. And so, it's like the idea they can in and out, you know. So, it's like there's a real value in finding a special niche.

48:04Nathan Huening: And people get really anxious as as professional creatives. It's like I want to do all these things, but like trust me, the no more narrowly you focus, the better you will get at your craft, the more word will spread and your business will grow in a meaningful way. So, I think the same could also maybe be true for Webflow, could be true for our practitioners and things. Right. If there's any advice I could give or any guidance, like some of the best professional guidance I ever gave was be narrow professionally. Find a niche and in so doing maybe your niche to your point is the people who do care about quality and craft and not speak and maybe that's your niche.

48:38Janne Parri: Totally. Totally. The niching topic. It's been a while since I've talked talked about it with anybody on the pod, but it is one of my favorite topics, but I have to do the one push back niching always gets. It's it's like scary to declare that you do just one thing. Obviously, you are scared of losing clients and so on.

49:04Nathan Huening: It is terrifying. If someone

49:06Janne Parri: Has gone Yeah. If someone has gone through that, they are on the other side. They have seen the light and it's it's beautiful. They get to do less stuff, do better, solve the same problem again and again and probably get more money out of that. But to that point, there's a road.

49:23Nathan Huening: I will tell you two two concrete examples of this working very successfully. I'll give you the first one is some of my agency experience before coming to Webflow and then I'll give you an example from tennis professional tennis and I promise this will make sense. The first example is the company that I worked for that they did political campaign websites. So like you're running for mayor, you're running for congress, you're running for county commissioner, you're running for school board. I mean, in the US, I'm sure in Finland, like every 2 years, every 6 months, like there's always somebody running for something and they're basically all the same, right?

50:01Nathan Huening: Like it's like, here's a smiling picture of my family. Here's the issues I care about. Here's a link to donate. Here's some photos, whatever. And it's that they just did campaign websites. Like, that was their niche. But here's the thing is that like, guess what? I ran for mayor. I won. I have a re-election campaign. I come back to you again. And so they found this niche where they were printing money because it was all sort of they made the same thing so many times.

50:32Nathan Huening: They had perfected it and you could come to them and in days you'd have like a fully and they had like really good design like and if you looked at like their 500 websites that they done in the last two years, they had done it. So they had so many at bats like that's a baseball term, right? had so many chances to swing at the ball that they were doing like animation and background video and like all these things you wouldn't like think to do or would include. They were hiring custom illustrators and they were hiring custom photographer like because they were focused in this lane.

51:05Nathan Huening: It freed them up to do this like really exceptional work. And from there this really profitable they were printing money. Yummy. They were hiring new people. They're like, "Oh, let's now let's now go an adjacent let's do law firms because all law firms are sort of the same. Let's do nonprofits because nonprofits are all about here's our annual report. Click here to donate. Hey, guess what? Click here to donate the same thing as click here to donate my political." Like, so they could start and now now they have like, you know, a dozen specialties that all came from that like one profitable place, but each time they expanded, it was with less and less risk.

51:45Nathan Huening: And they've been really profitable the whole time. And so the example that I give is Rafael Nadal who is the best player on red clay that the world has ever seen and will ever see. So if you're not familiar with tennis, there's three main surfaces. There's a hardcore like concrete, there's grass like Wimbledon, and then there's red clay, a little bit of green clay here, but mostly red clay. Three completely different surfaces. And for years, decades, if you were good on clay, the things that you needed to be good did not translate to grass and vice versa.

52:15Nathan Huening: So you have clay core specialists and you have grass course specialists. And then came Roger Federer and he was as good as everything else. But you can't you can't be Roger Federer. You can't be good on hard and clay and grass. So Nadal was not doing well on those other surfaces, but he won every single clay court tournament like over and abrupt shattered all the records. And guess what? From that narrow position of strength, do you know what he started doing? Tinkering his game a little bit. Getting a little better on grass here, a little better on grass there, until he won Wimbledon three times, beating Roger Federer, one of them.

52:52Nathan Huening: So I would suggest to you it is terrifying. It is It is like I'm throwing caution to the wind, but I suggest to you that there are niches that are sufficiently broad that you're still able to do a lot of interesting things. And once you've got this like repeatable motion where again some of these oil change places I pull in and in 10 minutes I pull out and they're just you know and it's great. Now I know an oil change is not a website but granted but the idea that it's just like get really really good at a handful of things and the better you are at that more profitable you'll be promise.

53:26Nathan Huening: And then from there you can begin to choose more carefully and more strategically which other kinds of services and areas you want to go into. And I'm telling you, every company that's successful, they all follow that same playbook.

53:38Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I'm not thinking that are there those oil change places here in Finland.

53:45Nathan Huening: Do they have those in Finland?

53:47Janne Parri: I believe there is at least a one chain that does like only battery swaps for cars, but there might be one for all oil changes, too. Yeah. Yeah, that's a little detour. But

54:01Nathan Huening: I'm I'm telling you, it's the same like find find your niche that's underserved. It could be an industry like we talked about, you know, campaign websites. It could be a technique like I just do animation like you already have your website done. I'm just going to do or just illustration. Like I promise there's something that you are drawn to that you're really good at that you can shoot more and show less on your website such that like I come to your website and it's like I just Janne is the best meatballs in town. You want meatballs, you go to Janne. And if you want, you know, you want a pizza, go, you know, you want Chinese, go somewhere else, right?

54:36Janne Parri: Yeah, that is true. And that is that has been like age-old like advice for business. I'm I'm

54:42Nathan Huening: Feel we've gone really far a field here from Webflow, but hopefully something that your listeners find interesting, right?

54:50Janne Parri: Before we get back, I'm thinking that maybe I should title this episode like I promise this will make sense. This

54:59Nathan Huening: Yeah. Right. I love it. That's perfect. Right. Yeah. Or like you want meatballs, talk to Janne. Right. Like Yan is the best meatballs in town. Yeah. Call call the episode the best meatballs in town.

55:13Janne Parri: I wonder what people would think. Oh yeah. Let's Let's take this back. There's at least one Enterprise thing I want to talk about and then we could end up with some like crystal ball gazing. what the future brings like highly theoretical stuff but about the enterprise I saw that in one of those articles that was mentioned that 30% of enterprise clients already use some sort of agents with their production sites so I'm curious like what do they do with those agents what sort of jobs and what are they asking more features and what sort of features are they asking

55:51Nathan Huening: Yeah excellent question I'm not necessarily the best one to answer but I can tell do the little that I know like there's all kinds I mean think of first of all what is an agent right it's it's a chat prompt with some instructions you know I mean so just kind of making it really simple so like what are the instructions like what do you want it to do I'll give you a good example let's say I have like an AEO agent and periodically it takes 50 prompts 50 questions that I think people are asking about either directly about my company like is Webflow good for design you know or like what are the five best no code website builder, you know, whatever.

56:26Nathan Huening: And it just goes ahead and asks ChatGPT and asks Anthropic and asks Perplexity or whatever and like gets a response back and then sees that like, oh, my website's being cited for these questions. Like when someone asks a question, my page comes up. It's it's referenced, you know, but maybe my competitors are actually being referred to instead. What are they doing differently? Well, so then the agent will then in turn maybe examine that page and examine my page and be like what you really should be like give me like here's some things you could do differently to increase your citation rate and then next week it tells me I made that change maybe it even does the change for me like writes the content or whatever and then the next week it's like oh yeah our citation rate went up or you know so that's like a real good concrete example of like an AEO agent that like can you know like prof if you pay for profound or I just I just had a class on this internally.

57:19Nathan Huening: Like here here's like the top 10. you know, Semrush offers it, Ahrefs offers it, and there's a bunch of these like AEO kinds of things in the wild that you can do like one-off agents, but that's like a really good example or like an agent that like scans for accessibility like issues, you know, like we accessibility or I think provides an audit or even or maybe writes the alt tag for you if it's missing or, you know, so there's all kinds of ways that we can automate some of this very difficult and historically underinvested in work.

57:52Nathan Huening: And so you can write bots that'll do this stuff for you. And then and you can say let's have a dashboard where it just shows me all the different or content freshness like here's articles that like you know have historically had high traffic and then took a nosedive or here's a page that here's a top 10 pages whose lighthouse scores dropped below 90 and it just surfaces it auto and then you know it gives you recommendations for oh your time to first contentful paint or your whatever time to buy it in content you know whatever and like actually tells you and maybe even fixes them maybe it's like Oh, this image was too big.

58:26Nathan Huening: I can compress it for you, you know. So, so there's lots of fun interesting ways that you can kind of approach the maintenance and again, candidly, everything that I just mentioned, Yan, guess what? That's not at the build phase. That's the post-launch market. So that this is what I'm show like the business of the website so often is after launch and Webflow again historically has not provided a lot of good tools for that like the investments in optimize the investments in analyze the investments in localization you might be thinking like I'm never going to use any of those things whatever I just I just want the best website builder but I'm telling you your clients do or the right clients do as far as like how do I get I just paid you $10,000 for this website.

59:13Nathan Huening: How do I get the most out of it? I'm gonna have it. I'm not going to redo it again for five years or 10 years. Like, how do I make sure my investment is, you know, so it's like and maybe I need to invest some more, whatever. So, but the point is that like I want to see a world crystal ball of like where Webflow is as good I don't know what you call it like as a tool for builders as it is for let's just say marketers, forgive me, like a tool as good historically as good for them as it is for them. And you maybe don't care about that. If you're using if you're doing like law firm websites or restaurant like these brochure sites, yeah, probably it doesn't really matter like what happens after launch.

59:48Nathan Huening: But for a lot of websites, the higher like if you're a practitioner like you make websites for a living, you use Webflow, you want to start making money, you need to be making these websites. You need to be making the websites that are revenue generated like the pro websites because they matter so much more to the client. They're willing to invest more in them, which means they'll pay more. or some like we said last time Janne like work that you've done for whatever dollar amount you paid for I could probably guarantee there's a world where you do the exact same thing and get paid 5x just because the outcome of it matters that much more to that person even if your work is excellent like you're it's you know there's an expression in English pearls before swine where it's like I it means like I'm I'm I'm casting beauty in front of people who don't care about it.

1:00:38Nathan Huening: So, it's like you maybe are doing excellent work for people who don't care, but you can do excellent work for people who do care and they'll pay you for it. So, that's where Webflow wants to give you tools to move your business up market so that you can continue doing the good work that you're doing that you enjoy doing and make a lot more money doing it. So, that's where a lot of these investments are coming from. Even if they don't seem like they matter to you now, they'll matter to you later.

1:01:00Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. And even even for the prochure sites, it would be good. it would be helpful and probably revenue generating if they would do some updates after the launch. So, it's not like either or everybody should take care of their sites. But I'm like curious or wondering how if we are on board with that later part what comes after the launch and that's important too. How can we like in a way balance those?

1:01:30Janne Parri: Because at this point everything goes through the build phase. If there would be if there is a open future where you can like pick and choose that's well and good but right now it kind of goes through that build phase and obviously the guys and girls who are building I care more about that build phase. the I don't know is the is the answer to that just like make it open so people can pick whichever well it's both they want

1:01:59Nathan Huening: Right it's not it's not either or it's both and so there's always going to be a world where like the existing current Webflow approach of like a forgive me like a like a like a like a locked down kind of like you kind of have to do it the Webflow way there's a lot of people who that's going to be completely fine from it's from the builder perspective you the practitioner to the client who's using it, like that's not going anywhere and it's only going to improve. So, so I think again part of what we'll see is that a lot of the investments that we're making in that process of building kind of in this manual way will continue to accelerate and there's a lot of like under the hood investments that the teams have been making to accelerate the work of product teams so they can work faster and better.

1:02:43Nathan Huening: I'll give you a really good example that there was some update I saw internally where some engineering leader was like, "Hey, one of the frustrating things for people who work on the Webflow core project is like you'd click a button to like ship your feature and you'd have to wait like 30 minutes for it to like fit or whatever." He's like, "We got that down to like 13." So, so even just like the frustration of like, you know, shipping things. So like so like th those things you're never going to see or hear about or whatever but like those kinds of things matter internally because like okay now like me as the person of making or shipping the web to the future if it's frustrating for that person then it's all just going to be drag you know air drag you know to keep you from really moving fast.

1:03:25Nathan Huening: I think that there's a world I if I understood your question, forgive me, I may not have, but like there's a world where this like you still go through the build phase like I think that's going to continue getting better and better and better and better in the ways that you'd expect it to and that it always should have been which doesn't take away from what other kinds of cool opportunities can we explore. So like I think you're going to have it both ways is sort of what I'm saying.

1:03:49Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

1:03:50Nathan Huening: I may not have gotten your question. I'm not I'm not

1:03:53Janne Parri: I'm not sure if there was a question, but

1:03:55Nathan Huening: Well, good. Then I then I then there's no way to get it wrong.

1:03:59Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. It was just some thoughts about like this balance of those those things. Obviously, we need both, but I get the reason why the build phase in history has been like the one to focus on because it has been the one that everybody goes through. Yeah.

1:04:18Nathan Huening: Yeah. No, I don't think it's going to be the hardest anymore. And so that's that's where it's like okay what does that mean? It doesn't mean that we have ended it. It just means what other opportunities does it create I guess is the answer. Yeah.

1:04:31Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. Now now towards more hypothetical things if we well we should do this again like within a year as you said then we will know. But what do you think like how has the field progressed? And I'm I'm actually a bit curious about like specific part of the field which are those like simpler build tools like Squarespace, Wix. I hear that Wix has some financial troubles right now. So what do you think is the future of those and maybe the field in general?

1:05:06Nathan Huening: It's it's I think it's bleak if you feel badly. Wix is a is a public company. So we all of their financials are laid bare and you know they think they laid off like a thousand people which you know is I don't I don't know I think that the they're going to have to really go back to the drawing board in some ways. I haven't heard much from Squarespace. I think was Squarespace bought like a private equity company. I forget what their what their you know like status is or whatever. But I you know I don't know. I always thought of Squarespace as like a template thing where I can just like pick a template and then just make some basic content modifications.

1:05:41Nathan Huening: I never thought of it as like a website builder. It's more like a website chooser. that might maybe that's wrong. You know, I know you can do some kind of basic things or whatever, but I don't think that was ever like the core reason that people like my buddy who like has a band. He like has a square like he's he's just picking a template and he's like here's our tour dates. Like he doesn't care about any of the modifications he can do or whatever. But Wix Wix I think you know Wix had the studio ahead of things. I guess if the question is like what happens to them? I mean we like probably the same thing happens to Webflow's core retail business and it should not come as any surprise that like more people are turning toward I can just sort of like vibe code something.

1:06:17Nathan Huening: So what do I need Webflow for? And you know depending on the use case that's fine like if you're just do like again if you're just like a band website or something like yeah you can just vibe code it deploy to versel. You don't need Squarespace or Webflow or anything because like the stakes just don't matter. Like if it goes down, who cares? It's like there's no personal information that can be hacked. Like I just think there's like a where does the value lie? I think and this happens so much with any kind of technology shift or is just like it used to be that I like cars or whatever like the value used to be that like you knew how to drive a stick shift or you know cars were cars are just like appliances now you just get in and push a button and it goes you know so it's like the value is not in the value just shifts right so it's like if there's no longer a need to hire Janne to like design a site or whatever ethical quandries aside about like whose work was consumed and scraped and trained on to do that like again just put put a that's a whole different conversation but just put a pin in that for the moment environmental concerns likewise but just assuming that open AI exists in 12 months which I don't think it will but you know maybe we have some cheap local Chinese models that we run on device whatever just the point is assume that things continue as they are then it's like well what can't people do for themselves that a human being is required to do and so it just those things just become more valuable So, I think we can have a conversation of like, well, what would you maybe you need help getting people to your site, you know, now that you have a website, you still only have 10 visitors a month.

1:07:52Nathan Huening: So, maybe the value is in how do I drive traffic or how do I write content or it's like I'm not like necessarily suggesting like, oh, these are all the things it shifts to, but just it just the value shifts to a different domain and you can just be very successful over here. So, I don't know where the value will shift to. I have a feeling, well, I have a feeling that the direction Webflow is headed is where the value will shift to, but you know, we'll see after after comp, but yeah, I don't I don't know how they're going to adapt. I think it's I think it's going to be real tricky real rocky road for the Squarespace and Wixes of the world for the next 6 or 12 months. Yeah.

1:08:26Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm kind of like on board with that prediction. I know that there are there might be still like people who want to do little little sites without AI or they do not want to try out some white coded tools and for example Squarespace as you said it's kind of like a template chooser you can track and drop like sections and so on and edit or you have to edit like the contents and that might be like a best case scenario

1:08:56Nathan Huening: It'll shrink. Yeah, I agree. I don't think it's ever going to go away. I've own personal thoughts, you know, on like a agents and AI just, you know, separately from my professional work, but I think there's always going to be an appetite for people who like go out of their way to avoid AI completely entirely. So the businesses will contract. they'll maybe maybe they'll grow slower or maybe they'll actually shrink and they'll be like a new a new normal in terms of like the limits of what they can expect to like the size of the market that they can expect to hit because if 60% of the market goes to AI or is comfortable with it then the 40% who remains are going to remain loyal but now it's 40% of what it what it would have been you know so I don't I don't really know those are some blanks that I really have no insight into or like but Again, we just the same thing we talked about last time where regardless of technology, regardless of like what are the fundamentals, like what are the things that matter across time and space and it's just like again saying 10 years from now people are going to want a smaller selection.

1:10:01Nathan Huening: 10 years from now people are going to want slower delivery. So it's like HTML, CSS, JavaScript are going to be here in 10 years still and people are still going to be able to like deploy to a server somewhere with a bunch of static files that are basically just rendered HTML. JavaScript. So how we get there is going to change the mechanism changes. But like also the question is like what's the point, right? Like we're so much talking about like the tooling and the means and the workflows and the ch like you know the build processes, but it's like what's the point?

1:10:32Nathan Huening: The point is that I want to I want people to see me. I want to be seen. I want to see others. I want to connect with other people. I want to connect with their humanity. I want to connect with their work, their words, their music, their products, their vision, their inspiration. Like, fundamentally, it's also just a medium for human connection. If I'm going to a restaurant website, it's because I want to have an experience of a candle at dinner with an excellent meal. My wife took me out to dinner. I went to my first Michelin star restaurant in Chicago. It was eight courses and I was two and a half hours.

1:11:03Nathan Huening: My butt was numb, but it was the best meal I ever had. Like, like, do you think I care about the website? No. It's just like what it like what's the point of the website? It's to connect with people. And if I'm selling you something, it's because again like I'm I'm offering something in the world that you care about or need or want or inspired by or are fulfilled by or whatever. And I mean, you can talk about it in like a crassly, you know, commercial motive. But I still think the foundation of the web is like human connection and that's going to become more important than ever. I think communities become more important than ever.

1:11:35Nathan Huening: Conversations become more important than ever. patience and understanding become more important than it's education. There's so much misinformation, disinformation that the people who can become like reputable, trustworthy, you know, credible become more important as leaders, as as guides and things. So, I don't know again like I'm I have an education in the humanities, so it's like this is where my mind always goes back to. It's like we can talk about technology all day, but it just comes down to people, you know?

1:12:02Janne Parri: Yeah, that is a beautiful closing thought. Yeah, that's that's great. And again, I'm totally with you. Like what is this? What is this all for? It's good to ponder about that from time to time. Okay, as you know, there's one more thing, but before that, Nathan, where can people find you? I know that since the last time you are more active. I did social media.

1:12:28Nathan Huening: I did create or I don't know unddelete my LinkedIn but I do not recommend

1:12:34Janne Parri: I'm sorry I feel responsible for that.

1:12:36Nathan Huening: Yeah I you know again I just I do not recommend following it's just a bunch of really terrible snarky jokes. I sort of treat LinkedIn as like an open mic night where I try out new material and see what lands. I can't take any of it seriously and it's just a lot of you know my it's it's sort of like coming let's come back to the Matrix because I mentioned that already earlier once the call is like in the Matrix when Neo first is getting a tour from Morpheus they get in their hovercraft and they like have to go up high enough in the sewers to where they can hack into the Matrix like they can broadcast this because they're like deep in the earth and there's there's too far away.

1:13:16Nathan Huening: So it's like they surface a little bit so that they can broadcast their signal to hack into the matrix. I feel a little bit like LinkedIn is that for me where it's like I'm surfacing a little bit to like hack into the matrix where I can sort of like you know throw anti- capitalist bombs and stupid jokes or whatever. I'll give you a good example. So like I you know I understand all of the hand ringing and concern about data centers but honestly I take a lot of inspiration from them because I too like data centers and trying to consume as much water and literature as possible and frustrate my local planning council with my unconventional land use.

1:13:51Nathan Huening: So you know I feel like there's there's hope for all of us. Yeah.

1:13:56Janne Parri: Yeah. That is that is beautiful. Again please

1:13:59Nathan Huening: Don't follow me on LinkedIn. Yeah.

1:14:01Janne Parri: Okay. to the last last section which is obviously the weird Finnish section. So if there's someone in this deep end not familiar with this thing. what follows is that I will give Nathan a Finnish saying and he has to like come up with the meaning like guess what that saying means. So Nathan, are you ready for your saying?

1:14:26Nathan Huening: I'm ready. I completely got it wrong last time. So let's hope I get it right this time.

1:14:30Janne Parri: Yeah. Okay. This is this is a funny one, but there's I feel like there's a logic behind this one, so there's a chance chance for you. So, in Finnish, it is and translated to English, it is forward said the granny in the snow. And it is usually used just like just like that with without any anything attached to it. So, what does it mean if I said forward said the granny in the snow?

1:14:59Nathan Huening: I feel like the reason people get these wrong so often is because you want to go to the obvious meaning, but there's usually like a subtext, right? Like a hidden implied meaning. So the explicit meaning would be for it says the grandest snow means like things are hard, but we have to keep on pushing forward. Like it's an encouraging statement like keep at it, you know, good job. But I feel like that's too easy. So, I'm gonna say forward, said the granny, in the snow means that you peed in your pants and you need to go inside and change.

1:15:35Janne Parri: Well, that's a guess. Yeah, I'll have to get them myself. But yeah, it was the first one. It was the easy answer.

1:15:44Nathan Huening: All right. Do I have Keep on going. Keep on going. So the I wanted to also point out to Yan that like it occurred to me that you do this little exercise at the end of the conversation and like in a race, you know, you get to the Finnish Line. So I thought you should say this is the Finnish Line. That's that's how you should call your segment.

1:16:10Janne Parri: That's clever. Totally. Totally. Finnish Line because

1:16:13Nathan Huening: It is a line that you have to Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:16:17Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. That's a clever little word word play. Oh yeah, I'm gonna use that. Okay. Yeah, but that covers it. Thank you, Nathan, so much for being a guest again and for all the listeners and watchers. We'll see you in the next one. Bye.

1:16:37Nathan Huening: Thank you.