From automation to enablement

When I joined Appvia, Wayfinder was positioned as a Kubernetes cloud management tool. It made sense internally, but it didn’t resonate. Trials stalled, usage was thin, and we realised we were solving the wrong problem.

Platform engineers told us they wanted to automate their workflows. But as we dug deeper, it became clear that what they really wanted was to better serve their developers. Productivity meant fewer tickets, faster delivery, and ultimately a clear return on investment.

To test this shift, we introduced a catalogue that surfaced everything platform teams had made available. It quickly gained traction. Discoverability mattered more than automation. Developers could browse, reuse, and deploy without opening a ticket, and platform teams finally saw their work being used. We tested the concept with a few early customers, and the feedback confirmed we were on the right path.

That small change reframed how we thought about value. We stopped adding new capabilities and focused on helping platform engineers understand how their developers engaged with the platform. With that visibility, they started seeing themselves as designers of their own internal platform, built around their developers’ needs.

When the new positioning went live, conversations that once went nowhere turned into real opportunities. The redesigned product and story underpinned Appvia’s strongest sales quarter to date.

In the end, the real pivot wasn’t about technology. It was about understanding value from the customer’s perspective — giving platform teams a sense of ownership and helping their developers move faster.