Explore every episode of the podcast ProductLed Podcast
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How monday.com's Customer Success and Product Teams Work Closely Together | 27 Aug 2024 | 00:23:03 | |
Tom Ronen is the head of customer success at monday.com. Monday.com is a global software company founded in 2014. Its product is a simple and super customizable Work Operating System (Work OS), a tool that powers teams to run projects and workflows with confidence. In this episode, Tom will talk about how product and customer success collaborate on monday.com. Show Notes [01:56] What monday.com is and its customers [03:05] The importance of customer success and product teams to work closely together for him [06:14] On finding the north star for both teams and KPIs to prioritize [08:00] Who are the ‘active customers’ for monday.com [10:13] Propagating the culture of transparency in all teams at monday.com [12:31] Strategies to encourage collaboration from the teams at monday.com [14:28] The evident effects of the system of doing things at monday.com [18:00] His advice for product-led leaders and growth people on setting priorities [20:25] His advice for customer success people in product-led organizations on getting their voices heard [22:08] How to connect with Tom About Tom Ronen Tom Ronen is an experienced Customer Team Lead working for various companies in the software industry. He possesses the following skills in sales, public speaking, management in a fast-paced startup environment. Aside fromHe was previously connected with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as a Commanding Officer - Combat Patrol Ship Unit for three years and two months. Profile | |||
| How to Build a Big SaaS with a Tiny Team. | 20 Aug 2024 | 00:44:51 | |
In this podcast, Wes Bush dives into the essential strategies for building a product-led business. Drawing from his experience of working with 408+ SaaS companies, Wes outlines the pitfalls of what he calls "surface-level PLG" and introduces a comprehensive approach that involves nine core components— the ProductLed System. When you implement the system into your business, you'll grow faster with less effort. Tune in to learn how. Key Highlights: 01:30: Introduction to the importance of standing out in a commoditized market. 3:08: The shift from sales-led to product-led growth. 5:14: Common mistakes in product-led growth. 10:02: Key outcomes of successful product-led businesses. 17:24: Scaling up with the ProductLed System. 33:07: Final thoughts and next steps for building a product-led organization. | |||
| How to Grow a 7-Figure SaaS Business With Product-Led Growth | 04 Jun 2024 | 00:33:31 | |
Alison Taylor and Trevor Johnston are the co-founders and co-CEOs of Jane, an online platform for health and wellness practitioners that makes it simple to book, chart, schedule, bill, and get paid. They join Ramli on the show to talk about product-market fit and how customer service is at the heart of a product-led business. They then go through the steps they have taken (and still take) to overcome growing pains. Show Notes [01:17] How the Jane app came to be and scaled with just one “customer support” team [05:34] The signup process is a way to get customers committed and to get them on the product journey [08:00] Why Alison and Trevor decided not to go with the freemium model [09:48] About Jane’s high-touch onboarding experience [12:26] Prioritize loyal customers over sales [15:23] The evolution of Jane’s signup process [19:30] About Jane’s org structure and support system [23:48] The challenge of hiring and helping people develop their careers [28:05] How marketing and engineering fit in Jane’s org structure [30:05] Alison and Trevor’s advice for product-led startups About Alison Taylor and Trevor Johnston Alison Taylor has been in the healthcare space as a business manager since 2008, and she believes in the integration of work into life and life into work. She hired Trevor’s creative agency to brand her clinic, Canopy Integrated Health, which she opened in 2011. Trevor Johnston loves doing creative things with technology to create enjoyable experiences and to solve people’s problems. He co-founded Thought Shop Creative Inc. and was its lead digital guy until 2016. Jane is his first app and his first foray into coding. Profile | |||
| How Snyk Implemented PLG at Unicorn Scale | 23 Aug 2022 | 00:47:27 | |
Ben Williams is the VP of Product (Developer Journeys, PLG) at Snyk. He joined Snyk over a year ago and spearheads the product management for Product-Led Growth and helps the company propel towards its growth trajectory. He’s on the show today to give us an idea of how they strategize their growth, identify growth loops, and maintain well-balanced communication at Snyk that made a big impact on their success. Show Notes [0:39] What got him into the world of PLG? [2:01] Talks about Snyk’s first premium model [4:35] Why is it that their first iteration wasn’t that successful? [6:31] Initial problems that they’ve had to address that contributed to their success [10:33] How do they try to centralize everything and tackle specific problems within their team? [18:08] Focusing on a user’s path to value rather than their path to revenue [19:13] How did they utilize their product to acquire more users? [26:47] It is critical to develop a high-level PLG strategy. [33:1] On team-based accountability for achieving outcomes [38:43] How aligned leadership is important About Ben Williams Ben is a highly motivated, enthusiastic and energetic product and growth executive with years of expertise across a wide range of industries. He specializes in product leadership and management. and is always passionate about excellence and doing better. Link Profile | |||
| Unlocking Enterprise Sales For PLG | 16 Aug 2022 | 00:27:10 | |
Francis Brero is the co-founder and CPO of MadKudu. A data scientist obsessed with leveraging science to improve efficiency and effectiveness, Francis converted to sales along the way. He shares how he helps B2B SaaS companies get the most out of their inbound pipelines by automating the high-cost, low-leverage work of researching, qualifying, and engaging leads. Show Notes [00:43] Rollout a PLG or enterprise motion [03:27] Misconceptions around enterprise sales and PLG [11:18] The difference in the level of understanding of the value proposition [17:36] User-centric versus holistic view in an enterprise potential deal [22:30] Compensation for high-touch and low-touch [24:40] Recommendations for implementing enterprise sales in a product-led business About Francis Brero Francis Brero is obsessed with leveraging science to improve efficiency and effectiveness. He is a data scientist converted to sales along the way. Currently, he helps B2B SaaS companies get the most out of their inbound pipelines by automating the high-cost, low-leverage work of researching, qualifying, and engaging leads. Links Top 10 Learnings About Free Trials From Open-Source to Enterprise Personalize Your Buyer Journeys Profile | |||
| Signing Up for 50 ProductLed Companies With Gina Allman | 09 Aug 2022 | 00:20:39 | |
Gina Allman is ProductLed’s content specialist. Her diverse background goes from finance to marketing. Despite the disparity, Gina can still draw the line from those various disciplines and apply it to marketing and product-led growth. She shares how she creates original content for the blog even when there is not much to find out there. Show Notes [00:58] Researching for content is not an easy task [03:58] The 50 best PLG examples and what stood out the most [08:37] A major principle of PLG is a great user experience [10:08] What made other companies stand out [14:28] Two key takeaways for freshly transitioning businesses About Gina Allman Gina Allman is a content specialist at ProductLed. She has held positions in a variety of disciplines, including finance, marketing, and content writing. Link Profile | |||
| 6 Steps To Launch A PLG Motion | 02 Aug 2022 | 00:54:31 | |
Hila Qu is the director of growth at GitLab, a developer platform. GitLab offers a powerful platform that enables developers, engineers, and teams to build, release, and deploy very efficiently. The company started as an open-source product, but it became a PLG business as it has the criteria to be one. Due to its large free user base, GitLab was able to launch a PLG motion. Data on how users utilize the platform also allowed them to understand which features they use and what behaviors indicate that they are likely to convert to potential PQ. Hila provides details on how she created all these from scratch to grow GitLab and gives the six steps to launch a PLG motion. Show Notes [00:47] What GitLab is and how they started the PLG motion [08:44] How existing sales motion works before getting into the PLG side of things [17:18] Aligning on the customer journey and funnel design [31:00] Organize the right teams the right way [36:07] Recommendations for infrastructure and tool stack dependent on company size [40:45] How to identify the highest ROI focus area for PLG efforts [46:28] Anticipating common challenges and building the PLG culture [49:56] Hila’s advice for starting a PLG motion About Hila Qu Hila is a uniquely talented growth leader. Prior to her current role at GitLab, Hila worked at Acorns, a financial technology, and services company that specializes in micro-investing and robo-investing. At Acorns, she founded and developed the growth team into a 20+ member team, drove the customer base from 1M to over 4M, and launched two new product lines. Now at GitLab, she leads their growth product team that has since generated over $1.5M incremental ARR from growth product initiatives & experiments in just the first six months. Needless to say, Hila lives every day in the world of growth, retention, analytics, and products (some nights too). Link Profile | |||
| How Rows Acquired 30,000 Users In Less Than 8 Months | 26 Jul 2022 | 00:43:06 | |
Torben Schulz is the founder and COO of Rows, a platform that allows users to create applications using only spreadsheet skills. Of course, not everyone can code, but everyone knows how to use a spreadsheet. From that idea, Rows was made. Its user-friendly interface as a web app makes it easier for people to automate data, create reports, enrich spreadsheets, and other functions. It is a server-based spreadsheet with integrations and web requests. Their mission at Rows is to make things efficient for the user to become more productive. Torben tells how this upgrade from existing spreadsheet software earned them 30,000 users in less than eight months. Show Notes [00:40] An upgraded spreadsheet for the business-minded [04:30] A horizontal productivity tool in contrast with its vertical counterpart [09:35] Use cases: should you tackle things one at a time or all at once? [15:33] Looking through the selection stage of the main use case and double down on reporting [21:02] Improving virality to ensure user retention by revolving user experience around sharing [27:46] The people behind Rows who make the decisions and what to do next [34:39] Looking at user growth instead of monetization to focus on the right initiatives [37:01] Keep the resilience and discipline until you hit gold About Torben Schulz Torben Schulz is the founder and COO of Rows, a platform that allows users to create applications using only spreadsheet skills. He is a former management consultant, and being a solid spreadsheet user led him to build Rows. Links Profile | |||
| PLP 124 – #HowIGotHere with Elena Verna | 19 Jul 2022 | 00:44:26 | |
Elena Verna is the interim head of growth at Amplitude. This digital optimization system enables organizations to see and predict which combination of features and actions translates to business outcomes. Amplitude is the brain behind more than 45,000 digital products at over 1,000 enterprise customers and 23 of the Fortune 100, helping them innovate faster and smarter by answering the strategic question: “How do our digital products drive our business?” Discover how to apply the product-led framework to your career growth with Elena’s unique perspectives and insights. Show Notes [01:09] A quest to make an impact and how to make linear growth into an exponential curve [08:08] How listeners can replicate the framework to grow their careers [11:37] Select the winners by experiencing a lot of failures [13:53] When is it time to change one’s career path? [16:47] Implementation of growth principles: how to acquire, retain, and monetize [24:29] Focus on creating frameworks to solve problems instead of coming up with pointed solutions [32:07] The problem is that we’re afraid to actually publish solutions [36:01] Relevant topics that are worth communicating about [39:09] Where does Elena get all her ideas, food for thought, and concepts? About Elena Verna Elena Verna is the interim head of growth at Amplitude. Elena is a well-known legend in growth communities. She has co-created some of the most successful growth stories in the last decade, including Miro, Mongo DB, and Survey Monkey, and helped dozens of companies as an advisor, interim CMO, and head of growth. Links Profile | |||
| How Userflow Bootstrapped to 7-Figure ARR With 3 People and a Product-Led Approach | 12 Jul 2022 | 01:02:01 | |
Esben Friis-Jensen is the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Userflow, a no-code builder for in-app onboarding and surveys that allows SaaS businesses to be more product-led. Userflow is 100% bootstrapped, and with just 3 people they have achieved 400+ customers and a 7-figure ARR (annual recurring revenue). Let's learn how they have been able to do this by having a product-led growth approach that focuses on the UI/UX of their product as well as building the strongest product possible. Show Notes [2:59] Do they just need a growth person, and how did the whole idea start? [5:35] Product-Led Growth facilitates the retention of direct customer feedback [8:13] What are the first big initial steps that he took to scale up his business? [11:43] You need to have a lot of integrity and certainty in what you’re doing.You need to believe in the product that you’re selling [14:15] How does he differentiate SEM from SEO? [17:12] What’s the next big step that he took to 5x the business? [21:12] Esben walks us through how he refines value propositions [33:26] The more open your messaging is, the more different kinds of users you will have [42:44] How does his company maintain customer focus? [50:12] Esben’s deliberate game plan for his business About Esben Friis-Jensen Esben Friis-Jensen is the co-founder of Userflow, a no-code platform for building onboarding guides and product tours.Before working on Userflow, he co-founded an application security platform called Cobalt. Additionally, he has a background as an Accenture consultant with more than three years of experience in test and deployment management of global IT implementations. Links Profile | |||
| How Gated Generated 30% MOM User Growth | 05 Jul 2022 | 00:41:53 | |
Andy Mowat, CEO of Gated, is an expert in building sales and marketing engines for world-beating companies. Gated works with existing email setups, making it fast, simple, and effective to use. It also reduces inbox volume by an average of 43%, making your inbox more productive and peaceful. What’s even more exciting is that their teams are rooted in wellness and clear communication, which promotes the company’s overall healthy growth and success. Gated recently experienced a 30% month over month user growth, and Andy will explain the steps that led to this success. Show Notes [1:32] His goal is to help reduce the noise of emails. [2:19] What are some of the first things that he did to build the user engine for his company? [5:19] Social proof becomes one of the easiest ways to short-circuit any mental barriers. [7:26] How does he monitor things in his business? [11:26] How did he build this 30% month over month user growth engine? [18:30] Start talking and listening to people. [32:58] Understanding users' criteria is beneficial. [34:00] Customize your charity by allowing domains and allowing donations. [36:41] A recap of the top 5 things that he did to achieve 30% MOM About Andy Mowat Outside of emails, user engines, and such, Andy Mowat is an advisor to growing SaaS companies. His collection of Keanu gifs will completely shock you, not to mention his love for the outdoors and adventures. Andy is not only a team player but also a family man. He is loved by many, especially by his colleagues, who can vouch for his outstanding performance in his areas of expertise. Link Profile | |||
| How OpenPhone Went From 0 to 1000 Customers | 28 Jun 2022 | 00:42:38 | |
Daryna Kulya, Co-founder of OpenPhone, is with us today. She enjoys serving consumers with the best customer experience by creating products that suit their needs. OpenPhone is an app built for teams and individuals so they can level up and use their phones for business anywhere. It’s everything that you and your team need in a phone system! Daryna gives us an overview of how they were able to come up with this unique vision and how they skyrocketed from 0 to 1000 customers. Are you on the lookout for a business phone? If so, then catch her on the show and stay tuned for more. Show Notes [4:47] They want to be a part of an environment that is a lot more inspiring and that allows them to make progress. [5:50] The reason why they joined Velocity [6:47] Why did they initially give their product for free? [9:42] People should be getting value out of the product, so see if that’s true [12:54] They always knew that OpenPhone would ultimately end up being a product that starts with one person in the company and then scales to the whole team [19:26] One of the most fundamental lessons learned was that a lot of times you overcomplicate things unnecessarily. [23:17] Daryna shares some of the biggest milestones that they have achieved throughout the years [27:08] How were they able to build a team and what did that journey look like? [34:27] Biggest leadership mistakes and lessons learned from the presence of scale [35:57 Daryna’s advice on delegation, building a business, and scaling it up About Daryna Kulya Daryna Kulya is the COO and co-founder of OpenPhone. She was previously a product manager at Vidyard, where she helped to establish and grow Vidyard GoVideo (ViewedIt). She also worked at Deloitte's Digital Innovation Lab, and helped them with their prototypes and innovations. Back in 2014, she established Product Hunt Toronto, one of the city's largest product events and the world's first Product Hunt community-run meeting. But what’s more interesting is Daryna is adventurous. She loves hiking trails in her free time.
Link Profile | |||
| How a $4B Business Made The Transition From Sales-Led to Product-Led | 21 Jun 2022 | 00:42:46 | |
Ian Robertson is an innovative thought leader with undeniable skills in business strategy, employee development, software management, and product-led growth. He is currently the head of Product-Led Growth at Boomi and has spearheaded its transition from Sales-Led to Product-Led. Ian has proven himself to be a highly skilled and dedicated leader who always strives to bring out the best in his colleagues and the company. Today he’ll be sharing the big steps that Boomi had to implement during their sprint to achieve product-led growth. You’ll learn so much as we talked about, pricing strategies, operational efficiencies and customer satisfaction. Catch him in this episode and stay tuned for more. Show Notes [1:18] What are the big steps that he had to take to be able to achieve product-led growth? [2:28] Boomi is the way to connect various endpoints in your digital ecosystem to create better business outcomes. [7:28] What did they cover during the two-week sprint? [16:12] When they started the sprint for PLG, was the pricing iteration in the works? [28:09] If you bother to sign up for a trial, you should have a good trial experience. [30:00] They can now use Boomi for all use cases, not just large use cases, and that allows them to win more deals to reduce the operational debt of having multiple integration platforms and sell more services. [31:34] We need to align the objectives of the team. About Ian Ian has directly led Boomi in terms of acquisition, operations, and automation of teams. He also established a global program management team to support the transition into the enterprise and other multi-organizational initiatives.Ian excels at all tasks and work assigned to him, and he strives to produce the highest quality work possible. He is not afraid of challenges and approaches each problem with new and creative solutions. Link Profile | |||
| The Power of a Unique Point of View in SaaS with the Founder of Basecamp | 28 May 2024 | 00:40:01 | |
In this episode of the ProductLed Podcast, Wes Bush chats with Basecamp co-founder Jason Fried about its distinct and challenging perspective that has set Basecamp up for success. Jason explains why every business should have a unique point of view and shares how his team thinks through them, as well as his philosophy around the process of finding one. He also details the role that books play in his overall business strategy. Key Moments:
About Jason Fried Jason Fried is the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp, a project management and team collaboration software company. He is the co-author of several bestselling books, including Rework, and It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work. Jason Fried | LinkedIn About Wes Bush: Wes Bush is the founder and CEO of ProductLed and the world’s leading expert on product-led growth. He is the bestselling author of Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself and the upcoming Product-Led: Your Go-To Manual for Scaling a Product-Led Business, due in August 2024 (Read the first three chapters for free). Wes Bush | LinkedIn | |||
| How Clearbit Operationalized Product-Led Sales to 5x Pipeline | 14 Jun 2022 | 00:41:27 | |
Kevin Tate is the Chief Revenue Officer at Clearbit. His expertise lies in strategic marketing, specifically in eCommerce, enterprise SaaS, social media, digital marketing and the like. He has over 24 years of experience in the field and has led several go-to-market software professional services and hardware-enabled SaaS companies. In this talk, he explains how Clearbit boosted their product-led to a 5x pipeline as well as how the company creates a seamless experience for their corresponding prospects. There's a lot to dig into this episode. Tune in to find out. Show Notes [0:36] What brought Kevin to Clearbit? [1:56] Some of the big steps that he took in order to get to where he’s at [4:12] Kevin talks about MEL’s (marketing engages leads). [8:24] Creating the weekly visitor report [11:06] What type of problem space do they want to help companies explore with these tools? [18:41] What metric do they use to reach out to people? [28:56]. How to further accelerate your pipeline growth? [31:19] Try to make your tools as accessible, available, and convenient as possible. [32:07] How can you identify the best person for your ICP and prioritize your best accounts better? [34:07] The importance of having a portable segmentation approach [36:28] Kevin’s recommendations in nailing the company’s segmentation process About Kevin Kevin Tate is a charismatic leader who likes to work swiftly to adhere to the vision, mission, and goals of his company. With over 24 years of experience, Kevin is well-seasoned to help people fully succeed when they deep dive into the market. He is currently the Chief Revenue Officer of Clearbit, an investor, mentor, and business tycoon at heart. Links Profile | |||
| Growth Loops with Ognjen Bošković | 07 Jun 2022 | 00:49:22 | |
Ognjen Bošković is Growth Lead at CXL, one of the strongest communities in the growth and marketing. He's also the founder of Executors, a community of growth experts driving real growth. In this interview, we will reveal why growth loops are the new funnels and how the CXL has become one of the strongest players in our field, relying on content marketing. Show Notes [2:45] How did your career lead you to CXL? [7:53] From his experience, how does he balance his time and resources between content creation and content distribution? [13:39] Experimentation is key in figuring out what type of content are you looking for [14:10] Consistent output is the secret to growth metric [17:48] Product-led companies sometimes hesitate to invest in investing a lot into content marketing due to the perception that the ROI is insecure and it takes a while [21:49] Focus on building the growth model and understanding how things will grow. [23:33] The effect of doing proper content marketing is building one of the most secure modes you can build. [27:20] Growth loops are what make the company grow fast [29:13] What are some of the super cases that excite him about growth loops? [33:13] Advice on how people who are new to growth loops should approach growth loops? How can product-led companies manifest growth loops into their daily lives? [34:15] Look for elements in your product that bring the most value to your users [38:51] How is the growth loop connected with the customer life cycle? About Ognjen Ognjen is the founder of Executors, a community for 5% of the growth experts that do the 95% of the work. He's obsessed with growth models and loops. He's been responsible for growth at agencies, SaaS and education businesses. The mantra he follows is to do good work, document it and then distribute lessons learned along the way. Links Profile | |||
| The Product-Led-Growth (PLG) Playbook for B2B Startups with Mark Roberge | 31 May 2022 | 00:24:39 | |
Mark Roberge is a leader in the sales world. He is currently co-founder of Stage 2 Capital, the first venture capital firm run and backed by over 300 GTM executives. He is also a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. Prior to these roles, Mark served as founding CRO at HubSpot from $0 to IPO. He is author of best seller “The Sales Acceleration Formula” which became a guideline for start-up companies in growing their revenue and building a winning sales team. He’s in the show to introduce to us his playbook which revolves around Product Led Growth for B2B startups. Get ready to learn some insightful lessons from this renowned industry expert. Show Notes [0:44] On creating a playbook for his PLG startup [3:32] The best of class teams have to set up a cross-functional team of marketing plus product and put it under the product [8:44] How category creation has become such an important part of entrepreneurship [12:27] PLG tends to focus the organization on usage first as opposed to revenues [14:03] The reason why free user attention is the hardest metric [14:49] Pro tip: Find a scalable, cost-effective way to generate users [16:35] Mark talks about the last part of the value metric, monetization [18:42] You don’t start there as a seek funding business doing growth. [19:42] What the best class engineerings do is specialize their engineering teams and product teams by roadmap to improve growth [21:22] Create your growth team to be cross-functional with both product engineering plus marketing capabilities [21:36] Set your company up to be data-driven rapid experimentation, an organization that focuses on the Northstar About Mark Roberge As the SVP of Worldwide Sales and Services for HubSpot, he has led hundreds of his employees on how to apply data technology and inbound selling to every aspect of accelerating sales, including hiring, training, managing, and generating demand. Mark understands the ins and outs of marketing which is also a skill that he loves to share with others. Links The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge Profile | |||
| Purpose-Driven SEO for SaaS: A Modern SEO Strategy That Any Brand Can Deploy with Dale Bertrand of Fire&Spark | 24 May 2022 | 00:24:06 | |
Dale Bertrand is an SEO Strategist, Keynote Speaker, and Business Coach. He has managed marketing programs for Fortune 500 companies and is currently running Fire&Spark. Dale mainly focuses on SEO, content marketing, web analytics, and applying AI strategies to marketing. With over 15 years of experience in developing strategic and tactical marketing campaigns, he’s always on the lookout to deliver quantifiable results to help brands maintain continuous growth in organic sales. Are you ready to start building a top-down SEO strategy? If you are, make sure to stay tuned to today’s episode. Show Notes [1:11] What are the current trends he sees in the SEO world this 2022? [3:10] Dale explains how google uses natural language processing and algorithms to understand our queries [6:06] What is purpose-driven SEO? [7:09] When we’re talking about SEO strategies, the goal at the end of the day is to rank better. [8:50] What purpose-driven SEO is all about is looking at your brand and its standing. [11:28] Google’s AI is tuned to find brands that are resonated with online consumers [14:28] What would he recommend would be the best steps for people to get started in purpose-driven SEO? [20:22] If you are like-minded and you find a purpose behind your SEO, companies will link to you and will be interested in doing a content partnership [21:01] Stop thinking about SEO from the bottom up; SEO is not a technical game anymore. You have to move towards targeting content and authority. About Dan Bertrand Dale began his career working as an engineer. Moving forward, he has developed search marketing strategies for Fortune 500 companies and startups. Throughout his career, Dale has become a great leader and one of the best SEO strategists in the field. Links Profile | |||
| Envoy’s Pandemic Pivot | 17 May 2022 | 00:25:08 | |
Alex Haefner is the Head of Product at Envoy, the workplace platform helping companies manage safe hybrid workplaces so employees can connect, collaborate, and thrive. Not long ago, before the pandemic drastically changed our lives, Alex Haefner decided to be a part of the Envoy family, not knowing that work-from-home setups would be the next big thing. In this episode, he shares his experience of running a business amidst all the shifts and changes brought by the pandemic. In today's interview, let's find out how he’s been able to re-align the company’s vision and mission, strengthen its pillars, and manage to shift its focus to the right path. You'll be amazed at how this showrunner handled it. So what are you waiting for? Let's hear his story by clicking on that play button! Show Notes [0:46] Alex’s experience of running a business in a pandemic [4:13] The story of how they built up a bunch of ideas that could potentially build customers and went through trial and error. [7:28] Time to market is one of the things that they prioritized. [8:25] When you’re trying to build a future for your company, you have to go out and talk to people. [12:56] How did the pandemic affect your whole team? [13:33] Aligning the entire company with their new vision and mission [14:17] How did he manage to not lose heart and shift the business focus? [18:55] They spent a lot of time training everyone internally and growing their confidence in moving forward in the right direction. [22:52] You must have grit and be at ease with challenges. Invest time in taking care of yourself and your mental health. About Alex Haefner Alex is a graduate of the University of Michigan. Before Envoy, Alex previously served as a product leader at Yelp, where he led a team of engineers and spearheaded its content teams. In his spare time, he likes to work on personal projects and is continuously seeking general self-improvement. Links Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction Profile | |||
| 5 Questions to Find Your Value Metrics with Mona Akmal of Falkon | 10 May 2022 | 00:26:46 | |
Mona Akmal is the CEO of Falkon AI. She is a product and engineering hotshot whose passion is building solutions to technically challenging problems. She’s in the show today to share data-driven methods such as identifying your product-qualified leads and figuring out what the value of your product is to your end users by using the concept of value metrics. Not sure what your value metrics are? Don’t worry because Mona has got you covered. So product-led folks, be sure to turn your volumes up because this will be a fun episode! Show Notes [1:08] The concept of value metrics which is generally not well understood [3:11] Three most common mistakes that she sees in value metric [6:12] A lot of times, value metrics are used to identify atypical behavior of a certain customer population [8:18] Define value metrics before you even start your user research so that you know which ones are you going to look put for [8:37] Three key parts of figuring out what the value of your product is to your end-users [10:43] What are the correct value metrics for a particular business? [17:55] When it comes to product-led growth for the growth part, how can you make money out of it? [21:29] Usage-based pricing goes hand in hand with a product-led growth [23:06] Accuracy and rigor in defining value metrics are key to all aspects of the business [23:32] Your intuition plus data analysis plus unbiased user research all of them have to play together in harmony to understand your value metrics [23:46] Coming up with value metrics and throwing them in a lockbox does not result in product-led growth. You have to operationalize these value metrics to see the benefits About Mona Akmal In her twenties, Mona decided to migrate to the United States with a degree in Computer Software. She also had her first job in one of the world’s famous software companies, Microsoft. Two decades later, she’s now spearheading Falkon AI with her undeniable wits and talent. Mona is, without a doubt, one of the best Product and Engineering people out there. Link Profile Mona’s Email Address: mona@falkon.ai | |||
| Optimizing your pricing and packaging for Product-led Growth with Dan Balcauski of Product Tranquility | 03 May 2022 | 00:25:51 | |
Dan Balcauski, our pricing master, is here to help us understand the value of pricing and compete in the market while generating over-the-top revenues. He delves into the ins and outs of how effective it is to maximize your price to have long-term profitability and move your business forward. So let’s hop on in, explore the depths of pricing models and learn a thing or two from this savvy expert. Show Notes [0:58] How to be competitive while still generating revenues? [2:57] On understanding customer value, psychology and finance aspects [3:13] What do people typically get wrong about pricing, especially in 2022? [4:17] How does he define an effective price? [5:48] How does the entire pricing process work? [8:49] Using the “jobs to be done” framework to understand customer value [12:01] What exactly is packaging from a perspective of a software product? [14:29] Make sure that your offering is clear and the customers understand what might be the best for them [17:00] Have a pricing committee and internal systems for your product [18:21] How often should companies change their pricing? About Dan Balcauski As the B2B SaaS Pricing continues to evolve, so does Dan. Dan is always passionate about helping businesses optimize their pricing models. He’s always a one-call away when you need help in your pricing endeavors. Link: Profile: | |||
| How To Go From 0 to 45K Users In Less Than 12 Months From the CEO of Softr.io | 26 Apr 2022 | 00:48:29 | |
Mariam Hakobyan is the Co-Founder and CEO at Softr. She’s an engineer turned entrepreneur and has a pang for technology, product, and design. At Softr, she pioneers in building the right product, listening to customers, and building ecosystems for software enthusiasts. She prioritizes the customer’s needs by simplifying software building so anyone can set up businesses without being intimidated by their tech skills. Today, let’s listen to Mariam as she tells how Softr went from zero to 45,000 users in just a year. Show Notes [0:57] What initially drove her to start Software.io? [1:56] How did she start exploring different ideas for the platform? [6:01] What did she do to get the product into people’s hands? [9:20] On pursuing user growth and monetizing your product [12:20] The passionate software community, the product’s simplicity, and virality got them from zero to 45,000 users [18:33] Mariam talks about empowering the community, creating ecosystems and a place for people to thrive [21:53] The importance of being mindful of anything that you add to the platform [29:04] Understanding what customers value and how much they want to customize? [29:59] Intuition and understanding of the customers on what types of things are they trying to build [38:55] Build a great product where people feel like a magician About Mariam Hakobyan Mariam is a graduate of Yerevan State University. Her colleagues highly respect her as she is passionate about her job and is always one step ahead in providing service to others. She started her engineering career in her early 20s and is now a force to be reckoned with in her field. But most importantly, Mariam is now a loving mother of two. Links Profile | |||
| SEO Optimization and How to Take Advantage of Someone Else’s R&D With Brandon Leibowitz of SEO Optimizers | 19 Apr 2022 | 00:26:22 | |
Brandon Leibowitz runs and operates SEO Optimizer, a digital company that helps small to medium-sized businesses in getting more online traffic and converting them into clients, sales, leads and more. He has the experience and knowledge to help people build their websites by performing SEO (search engine optimization). In today’s chat, Brandon will discuss how to take advantage of someone else’s R & D, optimizing your search engine and branding your company’s website to keep up with the trends. Show Notes [4:09] Think about branding yourself and building trust with people that are coming to your website [4:30] What are the business lessons that he’s learned throughout the years? [5:50] How exactly does he optimize his SEO? [9:32] The importance of text content [12:14] You have to optimize your website for Google, but you also have to optimize it for people [12:49] How does he exactly bump up his conversion rate? [18:49] Quality backlinks are from relevant websites [19:50] The more significant the website, the more values are they going to pass on [21:18] Key takeaways that he would like to give out to the listeners [21:27] On adding good content to your category pages and the importance of making a good site structure [23:15] To achieve optimization, fix your website and your conversion rates About Brandon Leibowitz After graduating from college with a degree in Business Marketing, he dove headfirst into the business world and landed his first job in Internet Marketing. Now, Brandon is a master in the internet marketing industry. Specifically SEO, Google Adwords, Social Media Marketing, Analytics, and more. His primary goal is to help others learn how to market themselves online and grow their web presence. Links Profile | |||
| How To Drive 10,000+ Signups In 2 Weeks w/ Co-Founder of Tango and Zach DeWitt From Wing VC | 12 Apr 2022 | 00:51:04 | |
Ken Babcock, Co-Founder of Tango and Zachary Dewitt of Wing Venture Capital, is in the show today to give us the nit and grit on how their company achieved 10,000 sign-ups in just less than two weeks. These business connoisseurs will also guide us through how we should target the right buyers and celebrate our end-users success—ensuring that there's connectivity between what you're building and what your customers need. They will also reveal the story behind Tango and how it evolved throughout its first initial launch. Grasp as much knowledge as you can by listening to these two geniuses. Show Notes [2:12] Tango helps create a flexible documentation tool that allows you to generate documentation for your workflow. And alleviate your maintenance burden. [7:13] On optimizing the right go-to-market [9:23] What other tools is Tango replacing, and what do you need to do for the documentation you are creating? [15:40] The importance of setting up suitable measurement gates and understanding when to know how things are successful [16:31] How does the operation cadence work? [18:18] Being data-driven is important and complementing that with a customer focus [23:00] Why is it essential to be time-bound? [23:47] Honing your most active users in the pilot is key [24:47]On Finding different company sizes and types to understand your customer and your persona [34:49] Sales vs. Product led is different in terms of messaging [36:12] There's a different approach to targeting buyers and users [39:27] What does it take to have your first successful launch? [45:55] Your end-users success will eventually become your success About Ken and Zach Ken is the CEO and Co-Founder of Tango. Before diving into the world of Tango, he spent more than four years at one of the world's famous platforms, Uber. After learning the depths of entrepreneurship at Atomic VC, he teamed up with his co-founders and founded Tango in 2020. Zachary "Zach" Dewitt is a partner at Wing Venture Capital. Wing Venture helps founders establish businesses around their ideas. In the company, Zach mainly focuses on enterprise application, technology and product-led growth to propel businesses forward. Links: Profiles: | |||
| Signing Up for 50 ProductLed Companies With Gina Allman | 21 May 2024 | 00:21:29 | |
Gina Allman is ProductLed’s content specialist. Her diverse background goes from finance to marketing. Despite the disparity, Gina can still draw the line from those various disciplines and apply it to marketing and product-led growth. She shares how she creates original content for the blog even when there is not much to find out there. Show Notes [00:58] Researching for content is not an easy task [03:58] The 50 best PLG examples and what stood out the most [08:37] A major principle of PLG is a great user experience [10:08] What made other companies stand out [14:28] Two key takeaways for freshly transitioning businesses About Gina Allman Gina Allman is a content specialist at ProductLed. She has held positions in a variety of disciplines, including finance, marketing, and content writing. Link Profile | |||
| How MongoDB Used PLG To Generate 500M ARR | 05 Apr 2022 | 00:43:40 | |
When you reach that prime of triumph, it’s so easy to count the wins, but what we don’t realize is that it takes years of reinvention to get there. Justin Dignelli and Peter Zawistowicz are the masterminds behind helping MongoDB drive from sales-led to product-led growth. To give you an overview, MongoDB is an open source database platform that is designed to unleash the power of software and data for developers and the applications they build. In this episode, we got a chance to chat with these two moguls as they look back on their years of helping MongoDB in fortifying its systems, building special product teams and achieving continued success. Show Notes [1:46] The genesis of Atlas: Why did MongoDB start incorporating Atlas? [2:49] What is the main focus of MongoDB? [6:11] What does their initial team look like? [13:03] The benefits of incentives and how it drives people’s behavior? [19:57] How did they come up with their initial wins? [27:20] What are some milestones that contributed to their success? [31:46] What are some of the biggest changes that their sales team has to make to reach their company goals? [33:46] Collaborations and being thoughtful when it comes to making broader changes [39:33] 5 useful steps in transitioning from Sales-Led to Product-Led About Justin Dignelli Justin is the former Senior Director at MongoDB. He helped in expanding and drove the company towards a cloud-first go-to-market. He also contributed to MongoDB’s transformation into a more product-led growth model plus enterprise sales. About Peter Zawistowicz The former Growth Marketing Manager at MongoDB. He pioneers in driving demand and growth at product-focused, enterprise software companies (with a specialty in SaaS/cloud). Moreover, Peter has experience with developer-focused programs, product-led development (PLG), digital acquisition, field marketing, and the like. Links: Profiles: | |||
| How to Straddle Product-Led and Sales-Led Motions to a $3.5 Billion Dollar Valuation with Krish Subramanian, CEO of Chargebee | 29 Mar 2022 | 00:47:18 | |
Krish Subramanian, CEO, and Co-founder of the leading subscription and billing software called Chargebee, will be sitting in today’s show to answer that question. Chargebee is a global subscription management platform that automates revenue operations of over 4,500 high-growth subscription-based businesses from startups to enterprises across verticals, including SaaS, eCommerce, e-learning, IoT, Publications, and more. Krish and his extremely dynamic mind will be sharing first-hand experiences on how they evolve their go-to-marketing strategy over the years and learn how to straddle sales-led and product-led motions together to drive fast growth. He also talks about the trials and setbacks that they’ve encountered and how they move past those obstacles to generate wins. Shownotes [0:59] Krish talks about their journey of reflecting on their mistakes and wins at Chargebee [1:56] What got them into solving this problem of helping subscription companies understand their business much better? [7:11] The relevance of understanding your subset of customers [8:42] How do they identify their best customers? [10:36] Getting that value metric and Northstar metric is the biggest revelation for them [15:33] On building more features for your most successful customers [{21:21 Why does he think the pricing is so important to be Product-Led as a business? [25:03] Your end user’s success will eventually become your success [30:00] Advantages of having both self-service and pre-sales [31:15] How did Chargebee evolve the way they structure their teams? About Krish Subramanian: Krish Subramanian is the co-founder and CEO of Chargebee, a global leader in subscription billing and revenue management solution for scaling businesses. He is an engineer by profession and a problem solver at heart with over 20 years of experience in the software field. As an ex-consultant, Krish strongly believes that business value is defined by service and experience to the customers and the people. He is referred to as the “nice guy” within the company, the tech community, the media, and his mom. Profile | |||
| Simon Belak - Metabase product leadership lessons | 22 Mar 2022 | 00:38:43 | |
Simon Belak is a visionary; he speaks with outstanding clarity and has a true leader's heart. Working with Metabase has sharpened his skill in product leadership, and today he’ll be sharing his line of work with us and walking us through how he can build high leverage teams for his former company, Metabase. Product leadership has become an increasingly important subject in our field. It focuses on specific challenges on those leading product teams and is accountable for product performance and customer satisfaction. Someone can do this by leading a team with a product-centric strategy. Product leaders progress through creating cross-functional influence, product work, and scale. Listen to this episode, and gain value on Simon’s insights about the topic. Show notes [3:29] The personal growth that he gets from such a different lifestyle is reflected in his leadership. [4:27] Simon’s definition of product leadership. [4:47] The fundamental difference between management and leadership. [7:10] Leadership should be fundamentally about enabling people. [8:35] To earn leadership, you have to show that you’re always trying to better your team. [9:57] Taking into account the long-term vision of Product-Led in their company. [11:17] The evolution of leadership at Metabase [15:23] Metabase created an environment where people can open up their thoughts and feelings without worrying about judgment. [18:39] How do you build a high leverage team? [21:36] How can a person adapt to Metawork? [23:54] The most value starts after you do Metawork in the long term. [26:26] The importance of acknowledging how fast the market is changing. [28:08] Actionable recommendations on developing and implementing new leadership strategies. [28:13] Interaction between company culture and leadership. [28:56] Implementing completely bottom-up and very concrete practices. [31:35] How does Simon get into this business meditative state? [34:50] Don’t think about solutions. Think about the problem harder. Create a hypothesis about the situation and provide solutions on how you can attest to the problem. [36:58] Start with introspection sessions. About Simon Belak During his time at Metabase, his time was split between data science, product leadership, and producing engineering work. Simon brings complex topics and simplifies them so people can understand them better. He is exceptionally customer-focused and helps you go beyond your boundaries by challenging your beliefs. Profile | |||
| How Amplitude Went From 1M to 200M ARR in 7 Years | 15 Mar 2022 | 00:46:08 | |
Justin Bauer is known for his expertise in product analytics. He is always one step ahead in helping companies build better products by amplifying their growth. His primary role as an SVP in Amplitude involves creating teams that establish a deep customer understanding and generate inspired visions to produce unique product experiences that users can enjoy. He’s on the show today to share his insights in building excellent product analytics so you can increase engagement, growth, and revenue for your growing company. Show Notes [0:44] Justin’s journey in the institute [1:47] The most significant milestones, experiences, and learnings along his company journey [3:59] How do we drive growth? [9:00] Shifting balance: How did they shift from product-led to an enterprise? [18:53] Changing the brand of the company as part of going enterprise [20:33] How has pricing changed for their business? [21:56] Focusing on the product analytics market by making sure to build the best product [28:25] How do they continue to build an excellent analytics product? [28:56] Make sure to understand your consumers because people want to buy from a company that understands them. [30:44] How investing in high-quality content can produce better results? [32:23] Always start with a strategy in mind [37:04] Understanding the Vision Strategy Roadmap About Justin Bauer Justin Bauer is the senior vice president of product at Amplitude. In his role at Amplitude, he leads product management, design, education, growth, and analytics for Amplitude's Digital Optimization System. Before he joined Amplitude, he was the CEO and co-founder of Rivalry Games, which was acquired by You42 in 2015. Profile | |||
| How Community Management Principles Can Support Product-Led Growth | 08 Mar 2022 | 00:29:33 | |
Jeff Coyle is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of MarketMuse, an industry-leading content planning technology. Today, he will explain how community management principles can support product-led growth. Jeff also discusses how community drives “sales-led growth” and the importance of employee advocacy in the success of a community. MarketMuse, his platform, identifies content quality issues and creates a channel for content optimization. Show Notes [1:10] Traditional product management and traditionally trained product managers do not typically come from the land of social media. [5:31] How has the community influenced overall product-led growth? [8:22] The importance of having thick skin is that you can experience what it’s like to have a negative emotion emerge and create more transparent communication. [15:54] Employee advocacy and its social impact [23:18] Key takeaways from this episode that listeners should consider. About Jeff Coyle Coyle is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of MarketMuse. This company assists content marketers in establishing topical authority, improving content quality, and transforming semantic research into actionable insights. Prior to joining MarketMuse, he previously operated his own marketing consultancy and managed the Traffic, Search, and Engagement team for TechTarget, a leader in B2B technology publishing and lead generation. Links Profile Email address: jeff@marketmuse.com | |||
| How Product Qualified Leads May not be the Next Big Thing in Product-Led Growth | 01 Mar 2022 | 00:16:20 | |
Chase Wilson is a PLG specialist who focuses on solving product led-growth issues. Chase has just launched his new company, Flywheel, a platform that helps hasten self-serve revenue by bridging in-product behaviour and marketing tactics. And today, he sits down with us and tackles areas such as improving your range of vision by making effective marketing strategies. He will also discuss the significance of user experience and pointers on structuring data. And how the company's perspective has become a game-changer in giving customer experience. Show Notes [1:10] Starting Flywheel to solve the product-led growth issue [2:24] His idea of Product Qualified Leads? [5:05] The concept of MQL and why is it problematic? [6:52] Product led growth is highly flexible, and every journey that the company goes down is pretty unique. [7:08] How does changing your perspective of PQL, MQL, and SQL affect the customer's experience? [8:41] You need to take the product usage data, the sales interaction data as well as the marketing interaction data and put it together as an overall timeline. [10:41] Why is it called team qualified leads? [13:30] Advice to listeners About Chase Wilson Chase Wilson is an alumnus of the University of Chicago and is now the Co-Founder and CEO of Flywheel. Chase is known for his determination, creativity, and resourcefulness when it comes to managing his team and marketing insights. Chase’s talent is his capacity to communicate his rare ideas in a way that inspires multitudes. Which makes him a force to be reckoned with in the industry. Links Profile Email Address: chase@theflywheel.app | |||
| The State of Product-Led Sales with Alexa Grabell of Pocus | 22 Feb 2022 | 00:13:11 | |
Alexa Grabell is the co-founder and CEO of Pocus. Pocus is the Product-Led Sales platform that helps sales teams turn their existing users into high-value customers. Pocus combines customer fit and product usage data into a single source of truth so that sales teams can prioritize the best opportunities and take the right action at the right time… all without relying on their engineering team. With Pocus, sales teams can convert more free trial / self-serve users, reach out to the right buyer at the right time, find 'needle in the haystack' opportunities, and save time sifting through data. Show Notes [0:20] Alexa introduces Pocus, her benchmark report on sales, and how it captures the findings to gain data. [1:39] She explains what product-led sales is and how it leverages growth. She talks about the AI of user interaction rather than just traditional sales. [2:46] On how the Product-led world makes the most out of platforms that generate more work efficiency [4:21] The takeaway on product-led growth shows that over 97 of respondents have a sales team or plan to have a sales team. [5:37] She gives us a perspective on what goes on within the sales organization among companies. She also talks about what sales assist is. [7:27] On the principle of show value instead of just selling on the value [8:26] Alexa predicts 2022’s take on PLS’s innovation stage at its infancy to accelerate revenue. [10:37] She emphasizes the importance of focusing on PLG motion rather than traditional sales. About Alexa Grabell
Links Profile | |||
| How Conversion Rate Optimization can give you your ROI in 90 days with Jeremy Epperson of ConversionAdvocates | 15 Feb 2022 | 00:29:15 | |
Jeremy's mission is to help startups with the relentless pursuit of exponential growth online. He has launched Conversion Rate Optimization programs for 155+ startups and translated that into a proven and repeatable process to drive growth in your business. This process has generated over $247 million in tracked revenue from winning onsite tests. As a professional speaker, he has presented over 175 times in 47 states and trained over 42,000 Execs, Marketers, and Growth Leaders. As an entrepreneur, he launched 4 different 7+ figure businesses from scratch. Show Notes [1:26] Jeremy introduces the 4-part extensive definition of a CRO that makes it a comprehensive growth process. He breaks the common knowledge about this system and reveals how it is just as important as any other sector of the business. [3:09] He cites some Product-Led success stories that prove anyone winning a test can change your numbers. [4:33] On CRO maturity assessments validating wins and transforming ROI’s which is made attainable by in-depth market and customer research. [5:53] He discusses the two (2) crucial aspects of optimization: research and testing. About 14 different specializations have come together to continually integrate these. [8:03] Jeremy also enumerates the misconceptions in test hypothesis formulation that hinder 360-degree understanding of customers [10:34] The efficiency and relativity of time, data, and probability of tests dictate the success of the process. Achieving this mitigates delays and setbacks along the way. [13:44] On the tech stack to be utilized according to the circumstances of the company. He considers the company’s assets and liabilities at hand. [15:52] Jeremy emphasizes the importance of compounding lead interest to produce better results. [18:19] In running a start-up, tracking unfeasible functions and decisions is crucial to know the optimum actions to be made for your business. [22:00] More leads do not equate to higher quality leads. In order to evaluate the success of tests, both must be present. [23:14] Jeremy explains the essence of team organization and scaling the business. [26:20] On the viability of displaying prices - he talks about whether informing the market of the rates is effective or not for most businesses. Links Profile | |||
| Lean Processes, Teams & Business Goals | 08 Feb 2022 | 00:26:33 | |
Erika Zeigyte is the founder of Prosana and a remote teams & operations expert. She is also a certified Asana partner. Asana is a project & workflow management tool that helps ensure lean work management across all team members. In this episode, Erika shares her expertise in building powerhouse operations inside digital agencies and eComs. She narrates her journey from being a neuroscientist to being a remote business owner and how that shift in her career led her to engage in apps that build work structures. She emphasizes the essence of making actionable plans and maintaining accountability in the workspace. Show Notes: [1:44] Erika's 3 milestones: leaving Lithuania to study; adapting back again after her 5-year stay abroad, and quitting a promising project management job to become a personal assistant. [3:54] A reminder to always work on building a structure & why it's important. [4:53] Accountability is a must to make sure people do what they should be doing. She proceeds on the process of goal-setting and dismantling it into smaller short-term and more attainable goals. [9:44] Improving the process first rather than considering replacing someone is what should be considered first. Erika stresses the importance of having regular performance evaluations and meetings with the team members. [13:14] A standard operating procedure can be refined through Asana to create actionable agendas and maintain accountability in executing these processes. [17:07] It takes only 3-6 months to fully get the hang of using Asana as the project management platform. With this, one can ask the right questions about getting the project done. [19:06] Erika started out with Asana as she needed a better way to manage her admin tasks & later on she found it could be used more extensively for her other tasks. Later on, she collaborated with Asana, and became a part of a strong and innovative Asana's community. [22:43] She talks about her services offered: a course on ultimate team growth, Asana templates, and consulting program. [24:38] Her Product-led advice is to always test, learn, adjust and repeat. There is no need to be afraid of failing because it only means you're gonna get better every day. About Erika Zeigyte Erika is a neuroscientist and remote business operations professional. She is the founder of Prosana. This company builds scalable teams and back-end operations. She provides services that include Business Operations Audits, Remote Recruitment, Asana & Processes Consulting as well as 360 Degrees Back-end Ops Consulting. She also shares advice on remote and international recruitment, streamlined process, communication, goal setting, and leadership. Links The Ultimate Team Growth Kit Course page: 25% discount code: TEAMSGROW25 Profile | |||
| Top-10 Most Downloaded ProductLed Podcast Episodes | 01 Feb 2022 | 00:24:20 | |
Product-Led Podcast has reached its 100th episode! Out of 99 insightful pieces, we countdown to the top 10 most downloaded episodes. Featuring an all-star line-up of guests, we will hear snippets of these throwbacks, and recall the different journeys that upheld the essence of being product-led. Show Notes: [00:45] #10: Episode 87 - User research and the importance of how users use their products with Allison Dickin of Sprig [1:58] #9: Episode 80 - CEO and founder of InnerTrends, Claudiu Murariu, on the selection of user activation KPI's to meet onboarding goals [2:59] #8: Episode 85 - Jon Butterfield of Speedinvest on fine-tuning your go-to-market strategy [4:34] #7: Episode 81 - DoWhatWorks' Andres Glusman gives advice on building growth in skillset [6:36] #6: Episode 70 - The secret to acquiring over 50 million users by Zach Sims of Codeacademy [8:59] #5: Episode 82 - What video games can teach you about user onboarding with Emily Lonetto of Voiceflow [11:00] #4: Episode 83 - Alison Taylor and Trevor Johnston of Jane discuss growing 7-figure SaaS business using Product-Led growth [13:02] #3: Episode 29 - How to acquire your first 100 customers by your Product-Led company according to Gen Furukawa of Pre-hook [14:07] #2: Episode 79 - The art of product positioning with the author, April Dunford [20:54] #1: Episode 28 - The original Product-Led podcast hosts, Wesh Bush, and Ramli John, explain why one should become Product-Led Growth Certified Profile Links: Allison Dickin website Emily Lonetto website | |||
| Why Features Speak Louder than Benefits on your Product-led Homepage | 12 May 2024 | 00:37:53 | |
In this episode, Wes Bush speaks with Fletch co-founder Anthony Pierri to discuss the nuances of crafting impactful homepages for B2B SaaS businesses. They discuss the pitfalls of generic messaging and how companies can deliver a more focused narrative by highlighting specific use cases. They also analyze the benefits of contextual positioning, which centers on the user’s immediate needs rather than relying solely on competitor comparisons. They dissect Zapier’s homepage and share how it demonstrates its core automation workflows without overwhelming users with too many options, allowing them to grasp the platform's value rapidly. Key Moments:
About Anthony Pierri Anthony Pierri is a seasoned product marketing expert and co-founder of FletchPMM. He specializes in helping horizontal product-led growth (PLG) startups optimize their website homepages to drive more sales and user acquisition. About Wes Bush Wes Bush is the founder and CEO of ProductLed and the world’s leading expert on product-led growth. He is the bestselling author of Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself and the upcoming Product-Led: Your Go-To Manual for Scaling a Product-Led Business, due in August 2024 (Read the first three chapters for free). | |||
| From Sales-Led to Product-Led: Seven Key Strategies to Lead the Transition | 25 Jan 2022 | 00:23:19 | |
Loren Elia is the Director of Product Marketing at Honeybook and an experienced marketer with over ten years of involvement in Product Marketing Management, E-commerce, and Digital Marketing. She is a creative problem solver, and her passion leads to product marketing management (PMM) in technology. Today we will be sitting down with her as she sends us seven helpful strategies that we can use to transition from sales-led to product-led marketing efficiently. She will also teach us to present facts and data while working with the right team. Join us as we give you a ton of golden nuggets to collect in this insightful episode. Show Notes [0:39] Transitioning from sales led and product led entails having to realign priorities on different teams and departments [1:33] Presenting facts , data and be mindful of the people that you are working with [2:47] Make sure you’re connecting with your teammates [4:35] PLG makes your company more attractive to investors [5:05] Difference between Product Marketing and Product Management [6:26] Strategies that helped her in transitioning and the 7 things that can help you make that transition [18:18] A quick summary of the 7 points [19:22] Make sure that your information is readily available for users to consume [20:46] Understanding your user’s journey About Loren Elia Loren's an experienced product marketer with 10 plus years in brand management, e-commerce, and digital marketing. She shows excellent leadership by helping prioritize her company’s business goal and leading an excellent marketing team. Her company Honey Book highlights task management that allows users to view and track various project stages and keeps other documents in one place. In break times, you can find her munching over chocolate-covered pretzels or mandarin oranges in her office. Links Profile | |||
| How to Add Sales To a Product-Led Sales Motion with Alexa Grabell, CEO at Pocus | 18 Jan 2022 | 00:23:24 | |
Alexa Grabell is the co-founder and CEO of Pocus, the first product-led sales platform. Pocus enables sales teams at PLG companies to identify, prioritize, and understand their self-serve users to convert them to high-value customers ultimately. In today’s episode, she will share her knowledge about empowering sales teams with data. She then gives her two cents on what are the common mistakes, essential qualifications, and red flags to avoid when you are looking out for the best salesperson to fit in your product-led company. Show Notes [00:31] Common mistakes that people should avoid when adding on product-led sales [02:48] Laying out important roles and characteristics before hiring a salesperson [06:39] What other things to look out for in the qualification process? [ 08:16] Red flags to look out for that might not fit in the product sales motion [13:12] Advice to companies that are switching from sales-led to product-led [16:39] Do a brainstorm session for all the things that you need in your business [19:45] Why is it important to shift your mindset? [20:50] Experimentation and keep learning from your users About Alexa Grabell Alexa started the company while getting her MBA at Stanford GSB based on her experience leading up sales strategy and operations at Dataminr. Her goal and passion is for product-led sales to turn their best users into high-value customers. And her company called Pocus, is the best platform to do that. Pocus brings together product usage, customer fit, and buying intent data into one view, with insights tailored to your business. Profile | |||
| 2022 PLG Predictions and 2021 in Review with Wes Bush and Ramli John | 11 Jan 2022 | 00:31:12 | |
A lot happened in 2021—both good and bad—but today’s episode is all about wins! ProductLed founder and CEO Wes Bush and managing director Ramli John wrap up the year by looking back on some of its highlights. They go through two of the ProductLed Podcast’s most episodes and weigh in on what’s next for the podcast. They also touch on some things from the ProductLed blog, give examples of products that have done well, and share their predictions for product-led growth in 2022. And because this is the season of giving, stick around until the end for a chance to win a special gift! Show Notes [01:15] The Product-Led Growth community’s “wins” in 2021 [04:02] About the most popular ProductLed Podcast episodes and how the podcast is planning to move forward [09:30] ProductLed’s most popular blog posts for 2021 [14:25] Tools that give sales team product engagement data will gain more traction [15:20] The days of the "free monopoly" are upon us [18:00] The point of value is moving earlier in the customer journey compared to before [20:45] Being "product-led" will be seen as more than a "product thing" [24:18] Product-led tools are going to explode and product-led companies (or product-led/sales-led hybrids) are going to take the mainstream [27:20] Leave a review for the ProductLed Podcast for a chance to win a vintage Product-Led Growth hat—and if you don’t want to do that, join the ProductLed cohort! [29:25] Ramli’s next steps Links Product-Led Growth Certificate How to Grow a 7-Figure SAAS Business Using Product-Led Growth (Episode 83) How Codecademy Acquired 50M+ Users According To The CEO (Episode 78) | |||
| Mastering Product Management Careers with Shobhit Chugh, CEO of Intentional Product Manager | 04 Jan 2022 | 00:24:12 | |
Shobhit Chugh is the founder and CEO of Intentional Product Manager, a platform that helps product managers and product leaders fast-track their careers to CPO status. In this episode, he weighs in on the challenges of being a product manager and building a coaching business. He then shares 3 ways to succeed in your career so that you can run the job instead of letting the job run you. He also offers some advice on becoming product-led. Show Notes [00:38] About Shobhit’s core mission [01:38] An overview of his journey to product management [02:48] The challenges of building your first product team [04:44] A common mistake that product managers make [08:22] Do your job right, be clear on what will demonstrate your contributions to your company, and have a purpose or a mission that’s bigger than yourself [12:12] Why Shobhit switched from being a product manager to coaching product managers [13:48] On building his company remotely and overcoming impostor syndrome [18:15] Figure out what your customers really need, focus on one thing at a time, and think about the emotional aspects of the product and product-led growth [21:22] Shobhit’s advice for people who want to get into product management About Shobhit Chugh Before becoming the Intentional Product Manager coach, Shobhit Chugh worked as a consultant at McKinsey. He also used to be a product manager for Google’s Crashlytics. Shobhit’s previous adventures include working at startups like Tamr, High Start Group (now WEVO), and Lattice Engines (acquired by D&B); co-founding Adaptly (acquired by Accenture), and getting an MBA and Masters in Engineering Management at Kellogg School of Management. Link Join Shobhit's Masterclass on 5 Steps Product Managers can take to have an Outstanding Career Profile | |||
| How to build and scale a Growth Team with Andy Boyd | 14 Dec 2021 | 00:24:25 | |
Andy Boyd is the SVP of Product Management and Growth at Appfire. In this episode, Andy talks about his experiences building successful growth teams. Andy also shares great insights that will help you make the switch to the product-led paradigm. Show Notes [01:00] Andy’s experiences with IBM and Appfire [04:00] The power of compounding growth [08:15] Building a transparent, open, data-driven culture [10:20] Comparing opportunities between companies [19:15] A sneak peek of Andy’s book on building Growth teams [21:12] Do things outside of your comfort zone About Andy Boyd Andy Boyd is the Senior Vice President of Product Management and Growth at Appfire, the leading provider of apps for the Atlassian ecosystem. Andy currently leads the product management and growth disciplines for Appfire’s full portfolio of software solutions with over 200,000 active installations worldwide. Prior to joining Appfire, Andy was part of the founding team that brought the IBM Watson (AI) platform to market, serving in various Product Management roles, including establishing the first Growth team for IBM Watson. Links “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries Profile | |||
| How to Layer Sales to a PLG Approach | 07 Dec 2021 | 00:21:20 | |
Nathan Wangliao is the Head of Business Operations at HeadsUp, a tool that helps product-led sales teams identify which customers to focus on, choose the best moments to reach out, and understand how each customer is using their product. In this episode, Nathan dives deep into the 5 key things product-led companies should consider before layering on sales. He also shares his recommendations for tools that can help product-led sales. Show Notes [03:08] The history of product-led [06:05] Nathan’s observations regarding typical PLG companies [07:05] Do you have product-market fit? Is there a drop in the customer journey that’s really hard to address without having some kind of sales or support function? [08:38] Has expansion reached the natural limits of your product? [09:25] Are you trying to sell to a target segment that might not be open to trying out new products even if the product is a great fit? [10:16] How do sales improve the user economics or the final metrics of your company? [11:48] The differences between traditional enterprise sales versus PLG sales [16:10] About front-end and back-end tools for product-led sales About Nathan Wangliao Nathan Wangliao is a graduate of Cambridge University where he founded Hack Cambridge (the university’s annual hackathon which is now in its sixth year). He currently works with Momo Ong, one of the co-founders of HeadsUp who has been a guest on the Product-Led Podcast. In his past life, Nathan was a law student, a consultant, and an army mechanic. He likes to climb in his free time. Links Product-Led Growth Certificate™ Course Profile | |||
| Improving Customer Experiences with Claudia Zúñiga, Customer Experience Manager at Jungle Scout | 29 Nov 2021 | 00:48:55 | |
Claudia Zúñiga is the manager of customer experience at Jungle Scout, the leading all-in-one platform that helps entrepreneurs sell on Amazon. In this episode, she shares the lessons the company learned during its transition from sales-led to product-led. She also answers questions from the audience, weighing in on different scenarios like what to do if you have a low acquisition-to-activation rate and how to get new users without paid ads. Show Notes [02:20] A little bit about Claudia and Jungle Scout [07:55] Put your product at the center of the customer experience, help your users help themselves, and be data-driven [12:52] On building bridges, cultivating relationships, and the importance of research [16:52] What Jungle Scout’s onboarding experience was like then versus now [20:08] How to activate free trial users [22:30] Some of the tools that Jungle Scout uses [26:38] Try to understand the different customer types [31:20] How Claudia and her team got the organization and stakeholders onboard with the product-led approach [35:18] On Jungle Scout’s plans to release a new freemium product [37:05] What you can do if you have a low acquisition-to-activation rate [42:35] How to get new users without paid ads About Claudia Zúñiga Claudia Zúñiga is used to working under pressure in the high-paced SaaS industry. She likes finding the best resolution by applying creative problem-solving based on data-driven insights with a customer-centric mindset and approach. Claudia is always interested in learning new things so she is constantly looking for new webinars and online courses—especially those that cover product creation, graphic and web design, usability, data, and analytics. Links Product-Led Growth Slack Community Books Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself by Wes Bush Profile | |||
| Value First: A Guide To Product-Led Sales | 22 Nov 2021 | 00:27:13 | |
Fred Melanson is the co-founder and CEO of Bliinx, the revenue engine for product-led sales. In today’s episode, he weighs in on the role of sales in PLG companies, how Bliinx engages with its users, and the recent shift among salespersons. He also shares some actionable steps for companies that are looking to switch to a product-led sales motion. Show Notes [02:00] Some misconceptions about product-led growth and sales [04:12] How sales and product-led work together in organizations that combine both [09:10] When is the best time to reach out to users [12:10] The qualification metrics by Derek Skaletsky of Sherlock [14:18] Fred’s observations about salespersons in product-led companies [17:28] How to measure the success of a product-led sales strategy [21:20] On getting buy-in, having data to track, and acting on that data [25:25] Fred’s advice on keeping things simple and providing value for users About Fred Melanson Fred Melanson is a McGill University graduate who started Bllinx out of frustration for the current ways to scale business relationships. Bliinx was among the 29 companies that had made the cut for Batch 26 of 500 Startups’ seed program. Fred likes listening to podcasts while walking his dog in the morning. Links Profile | |||
| The Role of Product Vision in PLG | 15 Nov 2021 | 00:35:36 | |
Partho Ghosh is the Senior Director of Product and Growth at Hootsuite, the leading social media and marketing dashboard. In this episode, he talks about Hootsuite as a platform and how the company has been structured. He then weighs in on the relation between product-led growth and acquisition, sharing some experiments that Hootsuite has done. He also offers advice on onboarding. Show Notes [02:48] How Hootsuite is looking to elevate in terms of product-led growth [04:55] An overview of Hootsuite’s onboarding approach [09:50] What the platform has to offer [14:35] How product-led growth works in the acquisition space [17:52] About the onboarding checklist and the onboarding funnel [23:32] How Hootsuite measures success [28:50] On the company’s product growth team and what needs to be changed [31:40] Product-led growth takes a village but it’s kickass About Partho Ghosh Partho Ghosh is a customer-obsessed, data-informed product executive and product-led growth expert who can create measurable product processes that lead to large-scale growth. He brings over a decade of experience in B2B SaaS, MarTech, and eCommerce—leading the charge for numerous product transformations at hyper-growth startups. On the side, Partho is a constant connector who has spoken at numerous conferences such as Pendomonium, the Traction Conference, Pavilion, and ProductCamp. He is also an avid scuba diver. Links Profile | |||
| How Building a Community Can Drive Growth | 08 Nov 2021 | 00:32:19 | |
Lloyed Lobo is the co-founder and president of Boast.AI, a fintech platform that helps companies identify, claim, and finance R&D tax credits and government incentives. In this episode, he shares how the Traction community came to be. He then weighs in on community-led growth and the value of making an impact. He also goes into what Boast.AI has to offer and the different phases of product-led, sharing advice for early founders. Show Notes [03:02] About Lloyed’s background and the philosophy behind Boast.AI and Traction [08:20] The company’s big vision [10:58] The 2 things that transcend companies [11:28] How to measure impact [14:12] Build a community and you won’t become a commodity [16:25] How Boast.AI evolved from a sales-led model [21:35] What Lloyed learned from the different phases that the company went through [27:22] Why you shouldn’t do things that scale [29:00] Lloyed’s advice on transitioning from sales-led to product-led About Lloyed Lobo After graduating with a degree in software engineering, Lloyed Lobo went into product and growth while working for a few venture-backed companies. He co-founded Boast.AI with his college friend, Alex Popa. He co-founded Traction as a non-profit initiative with his friend Ray Walia, CEO of Launch Academy to provide resources to help innovators become successful. Links Profile | |||
| When to hire, fire, and promote your team | 05 May 2024 | 00:25:27 | |
In this episode of the ProductLed Podcast, Wes Bush and Laura Kluz discuss the crucial process of team auditing, which is essential for hiring, firing, and promoting within a product-led business. The episode provides a comprehensive guide on how to critically evaluate team members based on five core standards: core values, motivation, skill gaps, capacity, and results. Wes highlights the importance of aligning these evaluations with the company's strategic goals to foster a high-performance team culture. Key Highlights :
About Wes Bush: Wes Bush is the founder and CEO of ProductLed and the world’s leading expert on product-led growth. He is the bestselling author of Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself and the upcoming Product-Led: Your Go-To Manual for Scaling a Product-Led Business, due in August 2024 (Read the first three chapters for free). Links: | |||
| How to Run High-Tempo Experiments to Accelerate PLG | 02 Nov 2021 | 00:17:04 | |
Pedro Clivati is the Head of Growth at GrowthHackers, the largest online community of growth professionals on the web. In this episode, he shares what people can expect if they are looking to start a business around growth. He then talks about the importance of running tests, corrects certain misconceptions about growth hacking, and offers leadership advice. Show Notes [01:12] What Pedro learned as a co-founder [03:35] What high-tempo testing is and why it is important for growth [07:25] How growth teams should measure success [11:25] Get comfortable with being wrong [14:30] Start with a challenge that someone in your team has been thinking of—but didn’t have the resources to work on—and run small experiments in that direction [15:48] Promote your wins across the company About Pedro Clivati Pedro Clivati has a background in marketing and sales, but his foray into growth began when he co-founded Contentools and Growth Boulevard. He also used to be the VP of Global Sales at Contentools, but before that, he worked as a digital marketing consultant. Links Profile | |||
| Marketing in a PLG company with Jenn Steele | 26 Oct 2021 | 00:21:22 | |
Jenn Steele is the VP of Marketing at Reprise, a product experience platform for product-led growth. In this episode, she talks about enterprise marketing, the cross-functionality of it, and what a product-led sales motion means. She offers advice to gather more product signals. Show Notes [03:05] Product-led growth versus the freemium model [05:42] How enterprise marketing can tie in with the go-to-market approach [08:00] Think about products and platforms that your company already has as ways to get marketing signals [09:08] How product marketing works in a product-led sales motion [11:30] Communicate with your product team [15:35] Start with baby steps like a product tour [16:55] Once you’ve harvested email addresses from your demo, have it go through the usual steps for your sales team [18:48] What Reprise does About Jenn Steele Jenn Steele’s career has had a lot of marketing leadership roles. She loves marketing to marketers and other executives, growing people and companies, and telling stories (both with and without data). She is also passionate about furthering women in business. Links Product-Led Growth Certificate™ Program Profile | |||
| A Deep Dive Into Customer Research with Allison Dickin | 19 Oct 2021 | 00:21:42 | |
Allison Dickin is the Head of User Research at Sprig (formerly UserLeap), an all-in-one product research platform that delivers the 3 key pillars of product research—video interviews, concept testing, and microsurveys. She joins the show to discuss how iterative learning drives website conversions and offers tips so that product-led teams can improve their user research process. Show Notes [02:08] Why user research is important [03:28] The 2 critical phases in the user cycle that are difficult to get customer insight from [05:13] Ask users questions that are relevant to what they’re doing in the moment, keep your questions short and simple, and only survey as many users as you need [07:48] How to get good response rates [09:32] Allison’s recommendations to improve onboarding experience [12:13] How to phrase your survey questions [14:30] On multiple choice questions and micro-surveys [17:32] How to spread survey/research insights within the organization [19:13] Allison’s advice for people/teams who are doing product and user research About Allison Dickin Allison Dickin is an experienced user researcher who blends rigor with pragmatism to guide customer-informed decision-making for digital products. She works with startups to lead qualitative and quantitative research studies. Her clients include Blue Apron, Skillshare, Catalina Crunch, and Microsoft. Links Product-Led Growth Certificate™ Program Profile | |||