FY26 Growth Planning Issue
Context
As we kickoff FY26, we want to:
- Ensure we staff appropriately the right projects across Growth
- Map the various initiatives to overarching themes representing value to GitLab and our customers
Please review and provide any and all feedback. The output of this will help influence our future Growth Direction, roadmap, quarterly commits, etc.
Growth is aligned to top business priorities and is highly cross-functional. As such transparency around the business priorities we are aligned to and who we collaborate to is key. This planning issue is informed by the:
- FY26 Growth Strategy brief
- FY26 top-level GitLab company plan
- Accelerating PLG (FY26 H2) strategy brief
Objective 1: Support 2x FO Growth
Leveraging our trial experience to expand our monetizable audience and drive nARR and First Order growth
Context: To support the objective of driving first orders, we need to re-focus and re-invest in this important vector for nARR growth for our business as doing so will strengthen our ability to land new customers and grow them over time, yielding longer term value to the business and our shareholders. Our focus in FY26, will be on:
- Maturing of our marketing practices and functionality (e.g. paid attribution capabilities, data enrichment, retargeting via product usage data, etc) that enables a true PLG and PLS motion.
- Prioritization of reverse-trial at registration for all deployment offerings and collection of registration data for Self-managed.
- Strengthening our self-service capabilities to enable customers to trial, purchase, and manage their needs independently. This is inclusive of paths and mechanisms to securing Sales and Support help when needed.
| Initiative Name | Priority Notes | Groups | Customer or Business Goal | Target Quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Use CustomersDot as the trial eligibility Single Source of Truth(SSOT) |
I want to be able to trial products I am eligible to trial. | |||
| Deprioritized |
Product Data Insights |
I want to understand early product usage and behavioral signals that are indicative of buying intent, so that I can nurture and service these leads and increase their likelihood of paid conversion. |
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Simplify Gitlab.com trial registration flow for Premium relaunch (2025-05-15) |
I want to complete signup as quickly as possible so I can begin to explore the Product | |||
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Modify Gitlab.com trial upsells and primary CTAs for Premium relaunch |
I want to understand what trial I am on and the value it provides so I can make an informed purchasing decision I want to complete signup as quickly as possible so I can begin to explore the Product |
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| I want to complete signup as quickly as possible so I can begin to explore the Product | ||||
| Most of our FO closes are Premium. We want to test the impact of providing a Premium trial instead of an Ultimate + Duo Enterprise trial | ||||
| I want to be able to be able to purchase a plan or add-on myself when I am ready with little to no friction | ||||
| Increase Sales' First Order velocity by decreasing Gitlab.com Ultimate + Duo Enterprise trial period to 30 days | ||||
|
Partner with groupprovision to introduce self-serve trial path for SM Premium customers to trial Duo Enterprise |
Reduce friction for customers and Sales by enabling self-serve trial path for Duo Enterprise for Premium customers | |||
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Partner with groupsubscription management to support self-service purchase entry points for multi-use promo code |
Create entry point(s) for multi-use promo code for FO customers | |||
| I want to understand what trial I am on and the value it provides so I can make an informed purchasing decision | ||||
| Remove friction for prospective Self-managed customers by moving trial registration experience into the instance. |
FY27
| Initiative Name | Priority Notes | Groups | Customer or Business Goal | Target Quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| User Acquisition: Add registration capabilities to Self-Managed EE | priority1 | groupacquisition | We want to collect information about those who sign up for SM so we can monetize this user base | FY27-Q1 |
Objective 2: Accelerate Customer Value
Driving adoption through new user activation and feature retention
Context: To support the objective of driving first orders and increasing bookings, we will improve time to value for new customers by investing in the first product experiences using GitLab. We will focus on our onboarding experiences to help users easily navigate our complex platform after signup and help teams get started with SCM, CI, and GitLab Duo so their organizations recognize the value that GitLab provides. As customers activate, we want to ensure their users retain and continue using GitLab for their SCM and CI needs while working efficiently through the help of GitLab Duo.
- Provide a consistent trial experience across all of our deployments. The current trial and getting started experience on Gitlab.com is ineffective and has low engagement. We should reconsider this experience and ensure it's effective in getting customers to value.
- Improve the experience for new users onboarding to existing groups, enabling them to contribute more quickly and require less help from their teammates and GitLab administrators.
| Initiative Name | Priority Notes | Groups | Customer or Business Goal | Target Quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Product Data Insights |
I want to understand what early actions related to SCM, CI, and GitLab Duo correlate with paid conversion and long term feature retention. We will use this new metric to gauge new user activation success. |
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Learn GitLab UI Improvements (2025-05-15) |
I want to get started with GitLab as quickly as possible so I can realize it's full value. I want help/guidance to understand what I should do next | |||
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Reduce the banners/modals/alerts during the first run experience |
I do not want to be distracted during my first experiences with GitLab | |||
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GitLab Duo Repackaging Adoption (existing paid customers, new paid customers, new trials) |
I want to understand what GitLab Duo feature access I have available to me after repackaging efforts | |||
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New User Onboarding (Get Started/Learn GitLab) Iterations
|
I want to get started with GitLab as quickly as possible so I can realize it's full value. I want help/guidance to understand what I should do next We want to ensure all new signups are activating on GitLab's core value props |
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| I want to be aware of new and relevant product announcements and updates | ||||
| I want to get started with GitLab as quickly as possible so I can realize it's full value. I want help/guidance to understand what I should do next |
Objective 3: Enable Customer-Focused Innovation
Driving adoption through expansion of feature usage
Context: To support the objective of strong upsell paths to Ultimate, Duo Enterprise, and Duo Workflow we will help customers deepen their usage of GitLab by ensuring users are discovering and adopting more use cases when they need them. As their needs change and grow within their organization, GitLab should provide solutions and grow with them. As they decide to consolidate tools, GitLab should provide the right solution for them to do so. To achieve this we leverage tools that make personalized and intelligent recommendations for next best actions and show expanded use cases with GitLab when the customer needs it.
- Investment in automated experiences that allows usage of GitLab to expand as customer needs grow. When customers are ready to deepen their usage of GitLab, the product supports them through that next step.
| Initiative Name | Priority Notes | Groups | Customer or Business Goal | Target Quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I want to understand baseline engagement of GitLab Duo features | ||||
| I want to discover how I can add efficiencies to my workflow with GitLab Duo | ||||
| I want to discover what GitLab Duo Chat can do while I'm on trial | ||||
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Investment in our in-app What's New functionality to support in-product communication asks |
I want to be made aware when there are important product updates and releases | |||
| We want to enable existing paid customers (Premium & Ultimate) to access DAP features in 18.4 ahead of GA | ||||
| I want to discover how I can add efficiencies to my workflow with GitLab Duo | No longer planned for now | |||
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Small UX changes to drive adoption of AI features (in GitLab) |
I want to discover how I can add efficiencies to my workflow with GitLab Duo | No longer planned for now | ||
| TBD Focus on expansion of usage of additional use cases such as Plan, Secure, GitLab Duo Pro/Enterprise | I want to discover what else I can do with GitLab |
Engineering
| Initiative Name | Priority Notes | Groups | Customer or Business Goal | Target Quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resolve problem of stacking alerts and banners across the Product | priority1 | groupacquisition groupactivation | I do not want to be distracted with too many alerts/banners while I use GitLab | FY26-Q2 |
| Take over ownership of Trials area of CDot | groupacquisition groupactivation | FY26-Q3 |
Personalization
Theme 1: Introduce the ability to target specific users with messaging
Context
| Initiative Name | Priority Notes | Groups | Customer or Business Goal | Target Quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
In-app targeting solution to drive adoption and GTM activities |
I want to be made aware of updates relevant to me or my account |
Re-prioritized/delivered: |
Theme 2: Provide personalized experiences and build a Personalization stack
Context
| Initiative Name | Priority Notes | Groups | Customer Goal | Target Quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
⚠️ 🗒️ Log of any in-quarter changes to prioritized initiatives
- (March 31, 2025) - Growth asked to support GitLab Duo Repackaging efforts specific to getting users to enable GitLab Duo Core
- (April 21, 2025) - Scope of GitLab Duo Repackaging initial release increased from existing customers to also including new trials. Growth was asked to prioritize changes to the registration flow, onboarding, and active trial experience https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/17578+. Many items prioritized for Q1 were deprioritized close to the end of the quarter including:
- (Q2) - we are not focused on improving/driving onboarding to GitLab Duo features in the short term. With the new direction of GitLab Duo Agent Platform we first need to understand that feature functionality and the impact to GitLab's overall AI strategy. Instead we are focused on driving first orders by focusing on Trial Onboarding on gitlab.com.
- (EOQ2) - Usage Product Qualified Lead (PQL) Refresh was a groupacquisition team priority for FY26-Q1 but deprioritized in favor of the 5-15 Onboarding sprint work. We did not have bandwidth to return to it in FY26-Q2 and with renewed focus/direction on PLG, will deprioritize for H2 FY26, with a potential revisit in FY27.
- (August 19, 2025) - groupactivation team will be prioritizing Duo Switch: In-Product Discovery & Activation Sprint ahead of other priorities as part of company-wide sprint to deliver in 18.4 (2025-09-18).