Lenny's Written Position
100% of bottom-up B2B companies eventually layer on a sales team, and waiting too long to do so often leads to competitors firewalling you out of enterprise segments.
Podcast Moments
“Slack wasn't even viral, there was no synthetic virality. Slack couldn't even connect to organizations for the longest time. But what happens when you went to lunch? People are like, 'We got Slack and this is amazing.' This is the bedrock of virality. Build a great product that solves a sharp problem.”
Picking sharp problems, increasing virality, and unique product frameworks | Oji Udezue (Typeform, Twitter, Calendly, Atlassian) · Oji Udezue
“We had Coda. They were our first user, and they were based in Palo Alto. Dylan and I drove down and demoed the product to them, and they were the first ones. Their designer, Jeremy was like, 'Yes, we'll take this on full time.' And I remember we were both like, 'What? Really? You will?'”
An inside look at Figma’s unique GTM motion | Claire Butler (first GTM hire) · Claire Butler
“Being technical is important. And caring about your tools, that's another one. Designers, specifically, and I think engineers are the same way, have deep passions for their tools. Probably because they're in it eight hours a day. So, it certainly helps if your target audience already cares deeply about what their tools are.”
An inside look at Figma’s unique GTM motion | Claire Butler (first GTM hire) · Claire Butler
“ChatGPT is the most hypergrowth product that we've seen in history potentially, because people are so excited to use it and it's working in interesting ways.”
How to achieve hypergrowth in your business and career | Carilu Dietrich (Atlassian, Miro, Segment, 1Password) · Carilu Dietrich
“PLG I always say is actually fundamentally DLG, data led growth. So when you give away your free product, what you want to get in exchange are two things. One is a broader reach because free product spread itself is lower barrier to entry. Two, you want to understand usage behavior of those free users, which features do they use and which features kind of correlates with a higher conversion rate, retention rate. If you don't have a foundation of data and understanding of how to analyze those data, you are giving away a free product for nothing.”
The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab) · Hila Qu
“A lot of the companies, if you go to their website, especially B2B companies, you'll see the biggest CTA is called book demo. They don't have anything else. The first step for you to do is submit a form and basically explain yourself to this company. That means the entry point to PLG is cut off. Instead, the first step is you need to either have a free product, free trial, some sort of a low barrier entry for anyone who stumble upon this product to give it a try.”
The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab) · Hila Qu
“Think of it as the first time a user experienced value of your product. Facebook has this example from the early growth days -- you added 10 friends in seven days, you hit your aha moment. At GitLab we ended up with something along the line of two users, two features used in the first 14 days. Two users is talking about the team component -- whatever the first user is trying is so valuable, he or she is confident to invite another coworker to come in.”
The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab) · Hila Qu
“Being able to identify the various micro and macro loops, how they're all connected, being able to document them in a qualitative model to communicate a shared understanding of how you grow, it's really powerful. Augmenting that with the quantitative side that helps guide quarter to quarter focus and ensure you can be intentional about where you're investing, that becomes a big enabler.”
How Snyk built a product-led growth juggernaut | Ben Williams (VP of Product at Snyk) · Ben Williams
“The most common mistake with product-led growth is thinking it means you don't need sales. Product-led growth is about using the product as the primary vehicle for acquisition, expansion, and retention. But sales still plays a critical role, especially as you move upmarket.”
Merci Grace (ex-Head of Growth at Slack) on PLG, interviewing, storytelling, building a diverse team, hiring salespeople, building a growth team, and much more · Merci Grace
“At Slack, the thing that really worked was that the product sold itself. People would use it, love it, and then bring it to their company. That viral loop was the engine of growth. But we still needed to build the infrastructure to support enterprise customers.”
Merci Grace (ex-Head of Growth at Slack) on PLG, interviewing, storytelling, building a diverse team, hiring salespeople, building a growth team, and much more · Merci Grace
“Freemium is always better than free trial for B2B companies. With a free trial, you're creating artificial urgency. With freemium, you're letting the product prove its value. The best B2B products can afford to be patient because they know the value will compound.”
Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more · Elena Verna 3.0
Cutting Room Floor
Guest insights on this topic that Lenny hasn't (yet) written about in his newsletters. Potential material for future posts.
“We had Coda. They were our first user, and they were based in Palo Alto. Dylan and I drove down and demoed the product to them, and they were the first ones. Their designer, Jeremy was like, 'Yes, we'll take this on full time.' And I remember we were both like, 'What? Really? You will?'”
An inside look at Figma’s unique GTM motion | Claire Butler (first GTM hire) · Claire Butler
“Being technical is important. And caring about your tools, that's another one. Designers, specifically, and I think engineers are the same way, have deep passions for their tools. Probably because they're in it eight hours a day. So, it certainly helps if your target audience already cares deeply about what their tools are.”
An inside look at Figma’s unique GTM motion | Claire Butler (first GTM hire) · Claire Butler
“ChatGPT is the most hypergrowth product that we've seen in history potentially, because people are so excited to use it and it's working in interesting ways.”
How to achieve hypergrowth in your business and career | Carilu Dietrich (Atlassian, Miro, Segment, 1Password) · Carilu Dietrich
“PLG I always say is actually fundamentally DLG, data led growth. So when you give away your free product, what you want to get in exchange are two things. One is a broader reach because free product spread itself is lower barrier to entry. Two, you want to understand usage behavior of those free users, which features do they use and which features kind of correlates with a higher conversion rate, retention rate. If you don't have a foundation of data and understanding of how to analyze those data, you are giving away a free product for nothing.”
The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab) · Hila Qu
“A lot of the companies, if you go to their website, especially B2B companies, you'll see the biggest CTA is called book demo. They don't have anything else. The first step for you to do is submit a form and basically explain yourself to this company. That means the entry point to PLG is cut off. Instead, the first step is you need to either have a free product, free trial, some sort of a low barrier entry for anyone who stumble upon this product to give it a try.”
The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab) · Hila Qu
“Think of it as the first time a user experienced value of your product. Facebook has this example from the early growth days -- you added 10 friends in seven days, you hit your aha moment. At GitLab we ended up with something along the line of two users, two features used in the first 14 days. Two users is talking about the team component -- whatever the first user is trying is so valuable, he or she is confident to invite another coworker to come in.”
The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab) · Hila Qu
“At Slack, the thing that really worked was that the product sold itself. People would use it, love it, and then bring it to their company. That viral loop was the engine of growth. But we still needed to build the infrastructure to support enterprise customers.”
Merci Grace (ex-Head of Growth at Slack) on PLG, interviewing, storytelling, building a diverse team, hiring salespeople, building a growth team, and much more · Merci Grace
“Freemium is always better than free trial for B2B companies. With a free trial, you're creating artificial urgency. With freemium, you're letting the product prove its value. The best B2B products can afford to be patient because they know the value will compound.”
Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more · Elena Verna 3.0