Product Growth Report

Bottom-Up Adoption: Individuals Adopt, Teams Follow

Bottom-up adoption is an expansion pattern where individual users adopt products before organizations do. One person signs up, gets value, invites teammates, and pulls the entire organization toward standardization. Figma designers, Notion power users, and Slack champions drove bottom-up adoption at scale.

Bottom-Up Adoption
  1. 1
    Individual adopts Gets value alone
  2. 2
    Individual succeeds Product works for their use case
  3. 3
    Individual needs collaboration Some tasks require others
  4. 4
    Individual invites team Natural expansion from use case
  5. 5
    Team adopts Value increases with collaboration
  6. 6
    Team spreads Other teams see success
  7. 7
    Organization standardizes IT/leadership formalize

The power of bottom-up adoption is that it doesn’t require executive buy-in to start. This go-to-market approach lets individual adoption create the proof that enables organizational adoption:

PLG PatternAdoption PathChampionSpeed
Bottom-Up AdoptionIndividual → Team → OrgEnd userFast start, organic spread
Top-DownOrg → Team → IndividualExecutiveSlow start, mandated spread

When bottom-up adoption works

ConditionWorksFails
Individual valueOne person can get valueMust have team to start
Collaboration valueMore value with othersNo team expansion path
Adoption frictionIndividual can start without approvalIT gating required
Success visibilityOthers can see resultsInvisible success
ExpansionUse case creates sharing needMandated tools already exist

Best Fit Products

CategoryExamples
DesignFigma, Webflow
ProductivityCoda, Linear
CommunicationDiscord, Front
Developer toolsPostman, Supabase
DocumentationGitBook, Slite

Bottom-Up Adoption Examples

Figma: Designer → Design Team → Company

4M users in 2019. 20M+ in 2024. Figma ($749M revenue, 48% YoY growth) grew through designer-led adoption, with Adobe trying to acquire it for $20B.1 Designers sign up without approval, share designs for feedback, and pull entire organizations into standardization.

How It Works

Figma Bottom-Up Adoption Flow
  1. 1
    Designer signs up (no download, browser-based)
  2. 2
    Designer creates designs, proves Figma works
  3. 3
    Designer needs feedback, shares design link
  4. 4
    Stakeholder needs account to comment
  5. 5
    Stakeholder sees value, starts using
  6. 6
    Team standardizes on Figma
  7. 7
    Company makes Figma official

Lessons

  1. Enable individual success first. Figma works for a single designer working alone, so adoption doesn’t require team buy-in to start.
  2. Build collaboration into the workflow. Designs naturally need feedback, creating an organic reason to invite stakeholders who then need accounts to comment.
  3. Remove IT friction entirely. Browser-based tools need no download, install, or approval, letting designers start immediately.
  4. Let quality speak for itself. Design output is visible to the organization, and successful work creates demand for the tool that produced it.
  5. Compound value through network effects. Each new user increases the value for existing users, accelerating adoption once it starts.

Notion: PM Builds Wiki → Team Joins → Company OS

A PM builds a personal wiki. Wants to share it with the team. Suddenly the whole organization runs on Notion ($10B valuation, 100M+ users). Their unlimited free tier for individuals is the entry point that pulls teams in.2

How It Works

Notion Bottom-Up Adoption Flow
  1. 1
    PM downloads Notion for personal notes
  2. 2
    PM builds personal wiki, project tracker
  3. 3
    PM wants to share with team
  4. 4
    Team members need accounts to collaborate
  5. 5
    Team uses Notion for shared documentation
  6. 6
    Company adopts for company wiki

Lessons

  1. Make personal productivity genuinely free. Notion’s unlimited personal free tier removes all barriers to individual adoption, letting PMs build wikis and trackers without budget approval.
  2. Create artifacts designed to spread. Documentation is inherently shareable, so every wiki and project tracker becomes a natural invitation for teammates to join.
  3. Tie payment to collaboration, not usage. Individuals adopt freely while team features trigger the upgrade conversation, aligning revenue with expansion.
  4. Multiply value through collaboration. A shared workspace is more valuable than a personal one, creating genuine incentive to pull in teammates.

Slack: One Team Adopts → Others Notice

One team ships faster. Adjacent teams notice and ask “what are you using?” That’s how Slack ($27.7B acquisition, 143% NRR) spreads through organizations. The pull is team-to-team, not individual-to-individual.3

How It Works

Slack Bottom-Up Adoption Flow
  1. 1
    One team starts using Slack
  2. 2
    Team communicates faster, ships faster
  3. 3
    Adjacent teams notice
  4. 4
    Adjacent teams ask "what are you using?"
  5. 5
    Adjacent teams adopt
  6. 6
    Department standardizes
  7. 7
    Company formalizes

Lessons

  1. Deliver immediate team value. Communication improves from day one, so the adopting team sees results fast enough to keep using it.
  2. Make success visible to adjacent teams. When one team ships faster, others notice and ask what tools they’re using.
  3. Enable organic word-of-mouth. “You should try Slack” spreads naturally when the improvement is obvious to everyone watching.
  4. Build cross-team network effects. Value compounds as more teams adopt, creating pull toward company-wide standardization.

Power Users Become Unpaid Sales Reps

What converts a company to your product? Not a sales pitch. A single power user who refuses to switch back. Bottom-up adoption works because successful individuals become internal advocates who drag their organizations toward adoption. They’re not just users. They’re unpaid sales reps.

One designer who loves Figma will fight for company-wide adoption harder than any enterprise rep ever could.

What People ThinkWhat Actually Works
”Let individuals try""Create individual success"
"Bottom-up adoption""Bottom-up advocacy"
"Users become customers""Users become champions”

Action Items

  1. Enable individual success: Can one person get full value alone? Sign up as a solo user. Complete a real task. If you need teammates to experience value, your “individual” might actually be a team. That’s fine. Know your entry point.
  2. Create collaboration expansion: At what moment do individuals naturally need teammates? Figma at “share for feedback.” Notion at “share with team.” Find that moment in your product and make inviting teammates one click.
  3. Remove adoption friction: Can individuals start without IT approval, credit card, or downloads? Browser-based, free tier, no install = bottom-up adoption. If IT must approve, you’re top-down whether you want to be or not.
  4. Track your champions: Who’s advocating for company-wide adoption? Pull users who’ve invited 5+ teammates. These are your internal sales reps. Interview them. Support them. Feature them.
  5. Measure expansion velocity: How long from individual signup to team adoption? How long from team to department? Track these transitions. If accounts aren’t expanding, your collaboration value isn’t strong enough.

Footnotes

  1. Figma S-1 Filing (2025). 4M to 20M+ user growth, $749M revenue, bottom-up adoption mechanics. ↩

  2. Notion company metrics, “100 Million of You” blog. $10B valuation, unlimited personal free tier. ↩

  3. Slack Technologies, S-1 Filing. $27.7B acquisition, 143% NRR, team-to-company expansion. ↩

Next: Two-Sided Referrals