What Kajabi’s Move To Shape Up Really Signals About Its Future
Kajabi is entering a new chapter.
With Kenny Rueter and JCron back at the helm as Co-CEOs, the company has signalled a renewed focus on clarity, cadence, and craftsmanship. Their commitment to working in focused, six-week cycles is not just an operational tweak. It is a philosophical shift.
Each cycle will now be named intentionally, grounded in the people and stories that have shaped Kajabi. That matters. It suggests a leadership team that sees product development not as a mechanical process, but as a human one, shaped by the community, creators, and builders who make Kajabi what it is.
At the heart of this shift sits a bigger change: Kajabi has adopted Shape Up, the product development methodology created by 37signals (the team behind Basecamp and HEY).
Recently, Kajabi’s Chief of Staff shared candid reflections on LinkedIn about what it has been like to introduce Shape Up to a team of over 100 people. It is a window into how Kajabi thinks about change, scale, and innovation.
And it is revealing.
Change is not a rollout. It is a negotiation.
Kajabi did not “implement” Shape Up. They negotiated it.
That is a subtle but important distinction.
When you move a large organisation to a new way of working, you are not just changing tools or workflows. You are shifting habits, mindsets, and muscle memory. That creates friction.
But not all friction is bad.
In Kajabi’s first week with Shape Up, friction showed up as curiosity rather than resistance:
Teams asked tough questions with no easy answers.
Product managers probed edge cases that had not yet been encountered.
Designers wondered how their creative process would evolve.
Engineers surfaced dependencies that had not been fully mapped.
Rather than seeing this as a problem, Kajabi treated it as a feature of the process. Every question exposed a gap. Every gap made the system stronger.
That is a very Kajabi way of thinking: progress through iteration, not perfection.
The two kinds of friction
The Chief of Staff framed the decision beautifully.
When you change how you work, you always live with friction. The only choice is which kind.
Option 1: The friction of staying put.
Familiar problems. Slow progress. Quiet accumulation of technical and organisational debt.
Option 2: The friction of moving forward.
Uncertainty. Discomfort. Short-term messiness that unlocks long-term momentum.
Kajabi chose Option 2.
That choice aligns perfectly with what many creators expect from Kajabi: a platform that evolves, adapts, and ships.
The real unlock was not Shape Up. It was mindset.
Perhaps the most interesting insight from Kajabi’s experience is this: the success of Shape Up did not come from the framework itself.
It came from the team’s willingness to lean in before everything was clear.
Buy-in did not emerge from perfect documentation or a flawless rollout plan. It came from people believing that the discomfort was worth it.
That is leadership, not just process.
Early signs of momentum
Only three weeks into Shape Up, Kajabi is already seeing tangible results:
Projects are shipping faster than before.
Teams are making decisions with greater confidence.
Meetings are becoming fewer and more focused.
More time is being spent building, less time debating.
It is still messy. It is still evolving. And that is exactly the point.
What this means for Kajabi creators
For creators, course builders, and businesses who rely on Kajabi, this shift is significant.
A company that prioritises faster shipping, clearer cycles, and stronger momentum is a company that will likely:
Release features more consistently.
Be more transparent about what they are building.
Move with greater speed and intention.
Stay closer to the needs of their community.
Kajabi has always positioned itself as more than just software. It is a home for creators who value simplicity, craftsmanship, and thoughtful growth.
Shape Up fits that identity perfectly.
A question worth asking
For anyone leading change, whether in SaaS, education, or small business, Kajabi’s experience raises an important question:
What is harder in your organisation? The rollout of a new process, the buy-in from your team, or something else entirely?
If Kajabi’s journey tells us anything, it is this: the best processes are not adopted. They are shaped, tested, and earned through real conversations and real work.
And that is exactly what Kajabi seems to be doing next.
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