Writing for a Rising Tide
There’s something I’ve always respected about Webflow: the vision to build not just a tool but a movement. I remember hearing Vlad describe Webflow as “a rising tide that lifts all ships” – a platform designed to unlock human potential by putting powerful, accessible tools in the hands of more people. And since the beginning, we’ve seen that potential grow every day.But while the possibility of Webflow as a product is clear and exciting, there’s another, just as important side to the story: the business side. Building a better web doesn’t just happen with an amazing set of tools; it takes businesses using them to create their own success stories that truly changes things.
Today I'm thrilled to announce our first book, How to Grow & Scale Your Business With Webflow.
It's a compilation of things we have learned over the last 10 years of building our services and team - an EA playbook of sorts. And the best part? We got to write it with our friends at Webflow as part of the effort to create materials for their Partner Program.
We cover a variety of topics in this hefty tome, starting with sales for creative types and thoughts on pricing, moving into project planning and execution with chapters on how to craft a great proposal and estimate well, then get into things like understanding SOWs and working with NDAs (and a lot more). It's over 300 pages with illustrations and step by step insight and methodoloy we have learned the hard way...so you don’t have to!
Reserve your copy now, or keep reading for more about the book.
Writing for a Rising Tide
There’s something I’ve always respected about Webflow: the vision to build not just a tool but a movement. I remember hearing Vlad describe Webflow as “a rising tide that lifts all ships” – a platform designed to unlock human potential by putting powerful, accessible tools in the hands of more people. And since the beginning, we’ve seen that potential grow every day.
But while the possibility of Webflow as a product is clear and exciting, there’s another, just as important side to the story: the business side. Building a better web doesn’t just happen with an amazing set of tools; it takes businesses using them to create their own success stories that truly changes things.
Addressing the Opportunity Gap
This book was born from a conversation I had with Emily Lonetto just after WebflowConf 2023. I was pumped about the product’s direction and the new brand, but I couldn’t shake the sense that a growing gap was forming, especially for service providers. Webflow and tools like it are evolving at an exponential rate, but the business skills to fully leverage them? Those grow in smaller steps, often through trial and error.
That gap between what’s possible and what most of us know how to deliver is a gap of missed opportunity. And as Webflow expands from a visual HTML builder to a full-fledged Web Experience Platform (WXP), that gap is only getting wider.
When I mentioned this to Emily, she posed a great question: “What would have helped Edgar Allan grow faster ten years ago?” We talked about how small shops can sometimes outmaneuver big agencies technically, but success isn’t built on tech skill alone. Projects live or die by the execution of soft skills—how well you navigate change, how you sell a vision, and how successfully you handle the relationships and business details that are a part of every project.
Growing Edgar Allan taught me a lot, and none of the toughest lessons were about design or tooling. The hardest things have always been the intangibles: scoping, estimating, managing expectations, and navigating team dynamics. Good project management and account strategy are things you don’t just pick up in a product demo. You could be the most skilled Webflow user out there, but running a business is an entirely different set of competencies.
So, we proposed to help Webflow offer Partners resources to help them on their side-quest of building a business around the tool. We started with things we wish someone had told us at the beginning of Edgar Allan’s journey, and went from there. The result is a kind of Webflow MBA education: Minimum Business Acumen for individuals, pro-lancers, and small agencies working in Webflow.
From Conversations to Pages
To determine the right topics, the EA team dug into our memories to dredge up old questions and curiosities from when we were evolving from a three-person Atlanta-bound team building websites feet from an active freight train line to the 50+ member, global agency we are today.
Then, we asked around, conducing interviews with other mid-sized Webflow Partners and established freelancers, mapped out hundreds of potential topics, and distilled them down to what we see as the essentials. Then came drafts, edits, more edits, OMG more edits, and a couple hundred pages of insights. Finally, we had our “resources” – but in PDFs they felt distant and ephemeral. Building a business is a weighty thing, and PDFs don’t have any mass. They don’t sit nobly on a desk. And when you close your laptop, they disappear.
We decided we wanted something tangible. Something that represented the scale and heft of what we’d learned and synthesized. So, we worked with a human print liaison here in Atlanta, who helped us get it to press on real, physical paper.
Building Better, Together
This book is just the first exchange in a much larger conversation. The whole exercise is about helping this community – and Webflow itself – rise to the challenge of what’s possible so that anyone can build the business they’ve been dreaming of. We’re offering How to Grow & Scale Your Business With Webflow for the cost of publishing, with Edgar Allan covering the shipping. If we get enough orders, we’ll be able to scale that savings and pass them on to the community.
The book is 300 pages – a whole textbook’s-worth of information – and to support it, Edgar Allan’s Leadership are offering office hours to dive into any of these topics in depth. That time and effort, all of it, comes with my undying gratitude for anyone ready to build better together.
Reserve your copy now and join us in rising with the tide.