To survive in the environment, the soil-dwelling bacterium Bacillus subtilis must overcome several challenges, including flagellum-independent migration over solid surfaces. Kolter and colleagues show that B. subtilis forms multicellular structures that facilitate collective cell migration. The authors found that during colony expansion, cells at the leading edge are organized into bundles (termed van Gogh bundles) that consist of tightly aligned cell chains that form filamentous loops. Colony migration depended on the synergistic interaction between two specific cell types: surfactin-producing cells reduce the friction between cells and their substrate, enabling matrix-producing cells to form van Gogh bundles at the colony edge. Time-course microscopy studies revealed that van Gogh bundles push themselves away from the colony centre as the filamentous loops grow, thus driving migration.