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How to Startup: Solving a Developer Pain Point, Scaling Globally

January 26, 2026

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Welcome to this edition of "How to Startup," where we dive into real founder stories that offer practical lessons for early-stage ventures. Today, we explore a company co-founded by Argentinian entrepreneurs that addressed a deeply technical, universal pain point for software developers. Their journey offers key insights into building a developer-first company, establishing trust in the critical area of security, and navigating the crucial transition from product-led growth to enterprise success.

Founder Spotlight: Eugenio Pace & Matías Woloski, Co-founders of Auth0

The Beginning

Every developer knows that building secure authentication and authorization ("Auth") into applications is essential, but also complex, time-consuming, and easy to get wrong. Eugenio Pace and Matías Woloski saw developers repeatedly reinventing this wheel. In 2013, they founded Auth0 with a clear mission: make identity simple and secure for developers.

From the start, Auth0 was built with a developer-first ethos and operated as a distributed, remote-friendly company. Their product, an Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) platform, aimed to abstract away the complexities of protocols like OAuth, SAML, and OpenID Connect, providing easy-to-use APIs and SDKs. Key early principles included flexibility (allowing customization through features like "Rules") and excellent documentation – resources developers highly value.

Early Challenges

Building a global business around outsourced identity management presented unique hurdles:

  • Market Education: Convincing developers and organizations accustomed to building auth systems in-house (or using basic libraries) that a specialized platform was necessary and beneficial.

  • Earning Trust: Asking companies to entrust something as critical as user identity and security to a third-party startup required demonstrating exceptional reliability and robust security practices from day one.

  • Standing Out: Competing in a space with identity features offered by tech giants (like Microsoft Azure AD B2C or Google Identity Platform) and other specialized identity startups.

  • Scaling Remotely: Effectively managing team growth, communication, and culture across different geographies and time zones as a distributed company.

  • Bridging the Go-to-Market Gap: While developers loved the product (driving initial product-led growth), translating that bottom-up adoption into large, complex enterprise contracts required developing new sales muscles.

Turning the Corner

Auth0 successfully navigated these challenges and scaled into a major player in the identity space:

  • Developer Devotion: Their relentless focus on developer experience (DX) – great APIs, clear documentation, quick start guides – created a loyal following and strong word-of-mouth growth within the developer community.

  • Product-Led Growth Engine: A generous free tier and easy self-service onboarding allowed developers to quickly try, adopt, and see the value of Auth0, fueling initial traction.

  • Enterprise Readiness: They systematically added features crucial for larger organizations, such as advanced security options (like MFA), compliance certifications (SOC 2, HIPAA), role-based access control, and enterprise federation.

  • Building a Sales Function: Recognizing the limits of pure PLG for large deals, they successfully built and scaled an enterprise sales team capable of navigating complex procurement processes and selling high-value solutions, complementing their PLG motion.

  • Market Validation & Exit: Achieving "unicorn" status (over $1B valuation) and ultimately being acquired by Okta, a leader in identity management, for approximately $6.5 billion in 2021, cemented Auth0's success and impact.

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Advice for New Founders from Auth0's Experience

  • Solve a Deep, Specific Pain: Identify a significant, recurring problem faced by a well-defined audience (like developers struggling with auth) and build a focused solution.

  • Obsess Over (Developer) Experience: If targeting technical users, invest heavily in clear documentation, intuitive APIs, and a smooth onboarding process. DX is paramount.

  • Prioritize Trust and Security: Especially in sensitive areas like identity or finance, build trust through transparency, robust security measures, and relevant certifications.

  • Leverage Product-Led Growth: Use free tiers, trials, and self-service onboarding to let users experience value quickly and drive initial adoption, particularly for technical products.

  • Plan Your Enterprise Strategy Early: Don't assume PLG will automatically scale to large enterprise deals. Proactively plan how you will address the needs and buying processes of bigger organizations.

Mistake to Avoid: Botching the Transition from Product-Led Growth to Enterprise Sales

Many successful developer-focused or SaaS companies start with Product-Led Growth (PLG), where the product itself drives acquisition and adoption. However, a common mistake is underestimating or mishandling the necessary shift to also incorporate a dedicated enterprise sales motion to capture larger, more complex deals. Auth0 navigated this, but many stumble here.

Why It Happens

  • Different Buyers: The individual developer or small team lead who adopts via PLG has different needs, motivations, and authority than the C-level executives, procurement departments, and security committees involved in large enterprise purchases.

  • Process & Product Gaps: Self-service funnels aren't designed for enterprise requirements like custom contracts, security reviews, complex integrations, dedicated support SLAs, and compliance needs. The product itself might lack necessary enterprise-grade features.

  • Skill Mismatch: The marketing and product skills that drive PLG success differ significantly from the relationship-building, solution-selling, and negotiation skills required for enterprise sales.

  • Reluctance to Invest in Sales: Founders may hesitate to build out a potentially expensive enterprise sales team, hoping that PLG adoption will somehow organically convert into large contracts without that dedicated effort.

Potential Consequences

  • Hitting a Revenue Ceiling: Growth stalls because the company can't effectively close the larger, more lucrative deals available in the enterprise market.

  • Inefficient Sales Process: Trying to force enterprise leads through a PLG-oriented funnel leads to frustration, lost deals, and wasted effort. Sales teams lack the right tools, processes, and product features.

  • Internal Friction: Tension arises between product teams focused on PLG metrics and sales teams needing enterprise features, or between marketing generating PLG leads and sales needing enterprise-qualified leads.

  • Losing Upmarket Deals: Competitors with effective enterprise sales motions capture the large contracts, even if their product isn't initially adopted as widely by individual developers.

  • Under-Monetization: Failing to capture the full value provided to large organizations that rely heavily on the product across many users or critical workflows.

How to Avoid This Mistake

  • Know Your Enterprise Customer: Deeply understand their buying process, stakeholders, security requirements, compliance needs, and key business drivers.

  • Build an Enterprise Roadmap: Identify and prioritize the features specifically needed by large organizations (e.g., advanced security, admin controls, audit logs, premium support).

  • Invest in a Dedicated Sales Team: Hire experienced enterprise account executives, sales engineers/solution architects, and customer success managers. Equip them with appropriate tools and processes.

  • Align Go-to-Market Functions: Ensure marketing, sales, product, and customer success are aligned on targeting, qualifying, and serving enterprise customers effectively. Use PLG data to inform sales outreach.

  • Develop Enterprise Pricing & Packaging: Create specific tiers and offerings tailored to the needs and value delivered to large organizations.

  • Plan the Transition Proactively: Start building enterprise capabilities and sales processes before PLG growth naturally plateaus. Don't wait until you hit a wall.

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Quick Tips

  • Product Development Tip: Use product analytics to identify signals of potential enterprise interest (e.g., multiple sign-ups from the same corporate domain, usage of specific advanced features) and feed this intelligence to your sales team.

  • Marketing Tip: Supplement developer-focused content with materials targeting enterprise stakeholders, focusing on themes like security, compliance, ROI, and scalability.

  • Finance Tip: Recognize that enterprise sales cycles are much longer and more expensive than PLG. Model your cash flow needs accordingly and ensure you have the runway to invest in building the sales function.

Conclusion

Auth0's success, born from Argentinian technical talent and solving a global developer need, demonstrates the power of a developer-first approach combined with strategic evolution. They masterfully used product-led growth to gain initial traction but crucially recognized the need to build dedicated enterprise capabilities and sales processes to capture larger market opportunities. Their journey highlights that scaling often requires adapting your go-to-market strategy just as much as your product, ensuring you can effectively serve customers of all sizes as your company grows.

Until next time, keep building, keep solving, and keep adapting your approach to reach new heights!