As we gear up for another exciting year here at Directus, it’s a great time for a little thoughtful introspection about how we got here and where we’re headed next.
Although we’re a company that’s two decades in the making, we suddenly find ourselves in hypergrowth mode.
So, can we really still call ourselves a startup?
Well, yes. While some early-stage companies scramble to get to market first or capitalize on a trend before they even really understand what their audience wants or needs, there’s value in taking a more considered route.
Rather than being reactive, a prudent approach to building your product often pays off in the long run, not just for the company, but for your community as well.
The idea for Directus was born from a desire to optimize and simplify how we problem-solve for customers through a flexible, scalable, and configurable platform that could power a wide variety of digital projects.
At the time, I was running an agency, and every time we got a new client, our engineers would have to build a new backend from scratch.
I was frustrated with the inefficiency of building slightly different flavors of the same admin backend every time we started a new project.
My first concepts for a solution were akin to what is now known as a Headless CMS — though, keep in mind this term didn’t even exist yet (remember, it’s 2004… years before the iPhone was even released).
However, I realized this approach wouldn’t meet all the project requirements of our agency’s customers.
We needed a platform that would work for a wide range of data-driven projects — not just websites and blogs, but apps, digital kiosks, internal tools, and more. It needed to be completely unopinionated and able to leverage our customer’s existing database and tech stack. And it had to equally empower both technical and non-technical users.
Other platforms available off-the-shelf had taken an opposite approach, each purpose-built for a single, very specific problem. They got to market quickly because they only solved for that one current use case. But over time, as technology advanced and project needs expanded, those tools were equally quick to become outdated.
Building an agnostic, flexible, and resilient platform meant putting off the rewards of being first to market.
It meant delaying revenue and, instead, focusing on the product.
An idea takes flight
I met Rijk van Zanten, now our CTO and Co-founder, about 7 years ago, sponsoring his Visa so we could work on Directus together here in the U.S.
We weren’t in it for the “quick buck.” We wanted to build a premium product, without technical debt, that would stand the test of time. One that could power a future landscape of unknown technologies and readily embrace new and evolving trends.
The difficult question was, “How do we ensure the platform will work for any digital project, both now and 10+ years from now?”
The answer was to take our time distilling all the specific features and requirements we’d seen over decades of building one-off projects, abstracting everything into an agnostic solution.
We spent years refactoring and iterating on Directus, never even thinking of monetization, since its efficiency was saving our agency so much money during client builds. Instead, we focused on making Directus a collaborative project, embracing new engineers from around the world, all joining us as contributors to our open source project.
Friends and family still didn’t understand why we were giving it all away for free, but we were in it for the long game. We had faith that as adoption spread, we’d find the right path forward.
We’ve come a long way since then, with over 28 million downloads and a lengthy list of enterprise customers finding value in Directus.
About a year ago, we worked with our community to ensure our software license fit a sustainable model — above all else, staying true to our open source roots.
A rising tide lifts all ships
Directus has been entirely open source from the beginning.
We've had two decades' worth of input from our vast and growing community of developers and users. That’s a whole lot of value added to the platform.
As a result, we now have a platform that aligns with what organizations actually need — a composable CMS that can consume data from any source and be configured to power nearly any digital project.
At 200% growth YoY, we’re now outperforming the leaders in SaaS — and that’s all happened with our lean team of about 30 people over just a few short years.
But building a company the right way isn’t just about product — minimizing organizational debt is just as crucial.
Every stage of growth feels chaotic, but you can’t just follow a template, hire from recruiters, and expect to end up with the ideal team.
You need to take time to find the right people with the right mindset and skills — people with as much passion and dedication as the founders — and that’s what we have at Directus.
Sometimes it takes years or, well, decades to find the right core team. It wasn't until just recently that Directus built out its Sales and Marketing professionals to get the word out about our platform.
And we’re still scrappy.
Word of mouth among our developer community is still the primary way we attract new users. We don’t have the budget to spend tens of thousands on event booths and presentations at developer conferences. We rely on organic traffic to raise awareness and gain exposure to the audiences we hope to attract.
And it’s working. Why? Because the product has immense value — and that’s because we took the time to build it the right way, with the support of our hundreds of thousands of users who understand what we want to accomplish.
If you know me, you know I love using metaphors.
One that applies here is the idea of a “grassroots” effort. You plant the seeds naturally — thousands and thousands of them — and over time they grow into a healthy, thick, vibrant lawn that can weather the hot sun, cloudy stretches of shade, or torrential rain.
You’ll see faster results if you just lay down sod, but it’s not as hearty or diverse, and it won’t last as long. Deep roots stand the test of time.
A look ahead
In the coming years, there's so much opportunity for Directus to win new logos as well as expand within our existing enterprise base.
Today’s investors are looking for capital efficiency. They want to partner with companies that are smart about how they spend their money. And that’s good news for Directus, because we've got a prudent business plan that accounts for every dollar we earn.
That’s how it has to be when you run an open source organization, whether you’re bootstrapping it with two founding members, or supporting 30 employees whose families rely on the success of your organization.
Directus continues to be the leading composable CMS on the market, from Fortune 500s to thousands of other organizations, agencies, developers, and digital enthusiasts worldwide.
We have one of the best workflows in software development — a real-world feedback loop. Two decades' worth of iterative development based on user feedback has resulted in a solid, robust, composable platform that our customers tell us they can’t live without.
We respond to feedback from our community of users and contributors, as well as what’s going on in the digital world, and we make adjustments. That’s how we continue to grow and adapt our platform to meet the current and future needs of our user base. And we don’t plan to stop any time soon.
I founded Directus well before I became a father — and this project is older than both of my kids combined. It’s very precious to me: I care deeply about the people, the software, and the community.
In the early days, I kept a dedicated counter on my desk to track our Github stars. In 2017, we had roughly 1,400 stars; that number has grown to 25,000, and I still get excited by every single new star I see come in (now tracked as a counter in my menu bar).
That’s what drives the team here at Directus: successfully meeting the dynamic needs of our growing community, and exceeding their expectations with a platform that fuels their creativity and powers their innovations.
So, whether you’re a past, present, or future user: Thank you for helping us write another chapter in our Directus story. Here’s to the next decade. 🥂