Airtable’s Journey to ProductCentral and How a Slow Build Became a Breakthrough

In 2012, Airtable’s founders, Andrew Ofstad, Howie Liu, and Emmett Nicholas, set out to create something audacious—a product that could serve multiple industries, solve a variety of problems, and do it all with the flexibility of a low-code platform. It was a daunting vision, building a horizontal product capable of handling everything from tracking bugs and marketing campaigns to managing cattle ranching and even finding baby formula. But, as with all great startups, the early days were filled with struggles, from prototyping to finding their ideal customer profile.

Over the years, Airtable’s vision began to take shape. The slow build paid off. Today, the company boasts a customer base of over 300,000 organizations, including industry giants like Amazon, Netflix, and Nike. Their platform now serves 80% of the Fortune 100, raised $1.36 billion in funding, and reached an $11 billion valuation. With the low-code movement firmly established, Airtable has gone global, opening its first international headquarters in London. Yet, amidst these achievements, Airtable continues to push boundaries, and its latest product launch—ProductCentral—marks the next chapter in their story.

Introducing ProductCentral

Launched today, ProductCentral represents Airtable’s first dedicated solution, crafted from the years of experience powering product organizations across industries. From AI-driven companies to centicorns and Fortune 500s, Airtable has been at the core of countless product operations, and now, with ProductCentral, they’re taking this expertise to the next level.

ProductCentral is designed to unify the entire product development process, offering AI-powered insights and seamless integrations that provide a 360-degree view across every stage. Howie Liu, Airtable’s CEO, shared his excitement about the launch: “This reflects the best practices we’ve learned from working with leading product organizations. It’s a solution that enables product leaders to not only see the big picture but also zoom in on the details that matter.”

Solving Modern Product Challenges

In the post-ZIRP/AI era, companies are mobilizing their product teams to drive better-aligned execution, and ProductCentral is the solution for the growing complexity product leaders face today. By offering a comprehensive view that spans from high-level strategy down to execution, ProductCentral ensures teams can roll up strategic priorities while drilling down to individual team and task levels.

But what truly sets ProductCentral apart is its seamless integration with other systems. It links feature requests to customer records in Salesforce, extracts AI insights from customer calls and support tickets, tracks issues through JIRA, connects with Workday for resource management, and integrates operational metrics from Snowflake and Databricks. This creates a unified, real-time view of product development, enabling organizations to make data-driven decisions at every turn.

Built for the Future of Product Leadership

As the need for aligned product execution becomes critical, ProductCentral offers essential tools for product leaders to manage their portfolios, track investments, and harness the voice of the customer. From portfolio management to AI-driven customer insights, Airtable is helping organizations across industries find their next competitive edge.

With ProductCentral, Airtable is not only unifying the product development process but also continuing to push the boundaries of what their platform can achieve. After more than a decade of growth, innovation, and countless iterations, Airtable is still just getting started—and ProductCentral is proof of that.