How a growth mindset fueled my startup's journey to 25M+ users

When I started building Jotform, all I had was a talent for solving problems with code and an unshakeable belief in my ability to grow and adapt.

I now know that this is something known as a “growth mindset," made popular by psychologist Carol Dweck. A growth mindset says that skills and intelligence can be improved through hard work and persistence.

I think Marcus Aurelius put it best: “...The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

But there’s a flip side, and that is focusing on your strengths. If I hadn’t focused on my product skills, I never would have grown my company to 25 million+ users.

It’s all about striking a balance between the two.

Leaning into your strengths

Here are some examples of how I focused on my strengths:

Building the product: For the first year, Jotform was just me — I was the entire company. My focus was on my core skill: coding.

Of course, being bootstrapped and solo, I eventually had to handle support, marketing, and everything else in between. But I never lost sight of the main thing: making the product better through continuous coding improvements.

Jotform is what it is today because I leaned heavily on my technical strength while also being enthusiastically open to learning and adapting, especially in those early days.

Self-service simplicity: Jotform didn’t have a salesperson for its first ten years. Instead, I created a product that people could find and use on their own. This wasn’t just practical — it played to my technical and product strengths. By focusing on building an intuitive product, I made sure users could get started without extensive support. This allowed me to perfect the product and build a loyal user base before expanding my team.

Automating processes: Not having a team at the start, I leveraged my technical skills to automate workflows. For example, I automated customer onboarding and support processes, which allowed me to grow Jotform without compromising user experience. This helped things run more smoothly and gave users faster, more reliable support.

Turning challenges into opportunities

So it’s important to do what you’re best at. But you can’t stop there. Embracing a growth mindset means viewing — and welcoming — every difficulty as a chance to grow and improve. Here are some examples of how this mindset reflected in my journey:

Marketing missteps: My first attempts at marketing didn’t go very well, but instead of being discouraged by this, I viewed it as an opportunity to learn. I dived into learning about digital marketing, including content creation and SEO. Over time, this effort paid off, and I was able to create a strong marketing plan that helped grow Jotform’s user base by a lot.

Managing support overload: For the first few years, I handled every single Jotform support ticket myself. It was exhausting. But instead of giving in to frustration, I saw each interaction as a chance to learn more about our users' needs and how to make the product better. This hands-on experience was instrumental in improving both the product and how I handled support.

Managing high-stakes crises: In 2012, I got a pretty scary email from the US Secret Service. They had shut down our website without notice over phishing concerns. This was an incredibly stressful situation, but I knew this was a learning moment for both me and the team.

We took swift action by sending emails to our users explaining the situation and providing instructions on how to continue operating their forms. Because of our transparency, a lot of users empathized with us, and we even made it to the top of hacker news.

This crisis taught me the importance of transparency. We also strengthened our security protocol following this.

Learning from team challenges: In 2012, I made a mistake that cost me two top developers. Facebook showed interest in acquiring us, and I let them interview my small team. Soon after, my best people were drawn to Silicon Valley. Losing them felt like a personal failure, but it taught me to be more strategic in how I lead and support my team. It was a painful lesson, but it made me a better leader.

Leveraging high-pressure situations for growth: In May 2011, when the Facebook marketing team asked if Jotform could handle a town-hall event with President Obama, the pressure was almost too much. But I rallied the team and we took the challenge head-on. We pushed our technical limits, thoroughly preparing our servers for the surge. When the event happened, everything ran smoothly. This experience wasn’t just a technical win — it boosted our team morale and reinforced our belief that we could learn and adapt to whatever is thrown at us.

In the end, it’s all about the ability to grow and adapt.

Takeaways for bootstrappers

Here are a few takeaways from my success with balancing a growth mindset with a focus on my strengths:

Identify and leverage your strengths: You can’t do everything yourself forever, and that’s okay. Focus on what you excel at. And use that expertise to benefit areas that you aren’t so good at. For example, if you’re good at coding, try “marketing” via product-led growth.

Embrace learning: Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow. Stay curious, treat failures as lessons, and be ready to pivot when necessary. This growth mindset will keep you adaptable and resilient.

Connect with your users: There is nothing more important than listening to your users. Their feedback gives you useful ideas that can lead to real improvements. They help guide you by showing where to focus — whether on what you're doing well or areas where you can grow.

Be resourceful and resilient: Use your creativity and resourcefulness to overcome constraints, be they financial or otherwise. This builds resilience and forces you to learn.

Bring on a team instead: There comes a point when you need to scale. And while that may seem like stepping back from a growth mindset to let other people handle your challenges, it’s the opposite. Hiring comes with a whole new set of challenges. And it helps you to focus on your strengths more.

Balancing deep involvement with strategic delegation helps create a robust and resilient business.

Strengths and challenges: You need both

To this day, I am focusing on my strengths and learning from my weaknesses. They may not be the same strengths that I focused on in the beginning. And they certainly aren’t the same weaknesses. But I can tell you that this balancing act never goes away.

And I’m glad of that. Because it feels good to do what you’re good at. To feel confident about your skills. And it feels good to grow and be challenged. As entrepreneurs, we need both.

If you’re starting your entrepreneurial journey, remember: Your strengths are your foundation, but your challenges are your path.