Post by The Front Lines

Building Developer-First Identity Infrastructure: Lessons from ZITADEL's Global Expansion We recently spoke with Florian Forster, CEO of ZITADEL, about scaling their identity platform while relocating from Switzerland to the Bay Area. Here are the key go-to-market lessons from their journey: → Embrace "cash or code" economics. ZITADEL's dual licensing approach lets users either pay for features or contribute to open source - creating sustainable economics while building community. → Price for customer success, not seats. They're eliminating per-user pricing because "we are the system that makes users useful" - shifting to capability-based pricing removes growth friction. → Market to implementers first. An 80/20 split favoring developer marketing over buyer marketing gets you "in the debate when somebody procures a system like ours." → Adapt messaging across cultures. US buyers expect marketing inflation and discount accordingly, while European buyers take claims at face value - calibrate your positioning for each market. → Optimize team geography strategically. Core engineering in Europe, go-to-market in the US, and customer success in Argentina balances cost efficiency with timezone coverage. → Let customer needs reshape pricing models. Their upcoming shift from user-based to compliance-capability pricing emerged from deep customer conversations about what actually drives value. These insights from ZITADEL show how thoughtful global expansion and pricing evolution can accelerate growth in infrastructure markets. Listen to the full conversation with Florian Forster on Category Visionaries to learn more about their developer-first approach here: https://lnkd.in/ekggt4ss