Product-Led Growth has moved from a tactic / buzzword to a mainstream mindset for more and more SaaS companies. So what is Product-Led Growth and what does it look like in a B2B SaaS company? This talk will give an overview of 'PLG' and some key factors to address when becoming product led.

1. Cambridge Product Management Network
Product Led Growth
Tim Wilkinson
Thanks to our sponsors

2. Product Heads
Hire, train and scale your product
team for success

3. Product Led
Growth

4. 34% more SaaS
businesses said they had a
product led growth
strategy in 2021 than in
202o
FastCompany

5. What’s driving
the change?

6. Help, I’ve got a leak!
When can you get here?
Thanks for calling! First I need
to book you in for a sales call…
…how about Thursday next
week?
🤯
Photo by Unsplash

7. Habits are changing
75% of B2B buyers would rather self serve through an
app or website rather than go through a salesperson*
AND
They are prepared to spend 6 figures via automated
signups**
* Forrester
** McKinsey
Photo by Evoke Creative

8. Margins are getting squeezed
● Costs of acquisition and retention have
gone up 60% in the last 5 years
(BusinessWire)
● Customers want to pay less
Photo by Rui Matayoshi on Unsplash
How do you grow and scale efficiently
whilst keeping costs low.
How do you maximise revenue per
employee?

9. What actually is Product Led Growth
The
Product
Sales
Marketing
Customer Success
Engineering
Design
Outstanding
User Experience

10. Example PLG B2B Companies
Product Offer PLG Super Power
Dropbox
Store and share your
most important files
● Native experience (integration)
● Share right away (bringing others into the product)
Airtable
No-code / low-code
platform
● Templates / Airtable Universe
Zoom Real time collaboration ● Speed to start, invite others to, and join a call

11. Bottom up not Top down
⬆
⬇

12. Focus on the user first,
NOT the buyer
🏆
First Rule of PLG

13. Traditional Sales Pipeline
Marketing Qualified Lead
Sales Qualified Lead
Product Usage
Top of funnel
Purchase

14. Product Led Sales Pipeline
Marketing Qualified Lead
Sales Qualified Lead
Product Usage
Top of funnel
Purchase
Product Qualified Lead
Word of mouth

15. For this to work, you MUST
get users to value
ASAP
󰖤
Second Rule of PLG

16. The Bowling Alley Strategy

17. Explicitly
articulate the
friction

18. ��
��
In Product
● Welcome messages
● Product Tours
● Progress bars
● In app messages
● Check lists
● Onboarding tooltips
● Empty states
Out of Product
● Onboarding emails
● Customer Success
chats, emails, calls
● Help articles
● Sales outreach

19. Product Metrics
Marketing
metrics
(ToF)
Focus Metric
Key metric that tracks customer getting to value / success
Reach Activation Engagement Conversion Retention
Volume of leads
landing in the
product /
website etc
% Signups % Engaged with
key value
features in a
given period of
time
(you can ‘go
deep’ here)
% who
actually
purchased
30 day
retention
60 day
retention
90 day
retention
Predictability of revenue

20. Activation and Habituation thresholds
Activation is when a customer gets to value (it is not the same as the “aha moment”)
To understand your activation rate (as a percentage), divide the users who reach activation
by the number of user who sign up to the product (and multiply by 1oo).
Leading PLG companies are at between 20% - 40% activation
Retention is when customer continue to use the product because their is ongoing value

21. Identify Growth Loops
♲
Third Rule of PLG

22. Growth Loops

23. Growth Loops

24. Acquisition and Pricing strategies
Free Trial
Give users full access to all
features for a limited time
(typically 7, 14 or 30 days)
Must be confident users can get
value within the trial period
Should ‘managed’ by CS (and
sales)
Easy to set up, so is good for
‘dipping your toe’ in the PLG
water!
Freemium
Give users full access to a limited
set of features for ever, with the
intention of moving them onto a
paid plan
Need to thoroughly understand
the value and usage of your
products features and model
revenue
Must deliver some value in the free
plan
💵 All pricing must be based around value and usage (not seats)! 💵

25. When Product Led Growth isn’t the best strategy
● Your product is particularly technical
● Your product requires complex set-up / integrations
● Your users have at least some direct buying power (or your freemium model
accommodates for this)
● Your users can get value quickly and become champions, before hitting a paywall

26. A PLG Strategy
Acquisition Conversion Retention Expansion
The focus is on giving users
value and a great experience,
BEFORE charging for it
Generally a ‘bottom up’ marketing
and acquisition strategy
Marketing and lead gen activities
are concentrated on getting
users (not necessarily buyers) into
the product (rather than a sales
call)
Customers can use the product
immediately, with no support /
set up requirements
You offer a freemium or free trial
period
The product may include
features which drive acquisition
and growth in themselves
The product solves the problem
the user hired it for
Users need to purchase either to
keep using the product or access
broader features
Users can self serve purchase of
the product.
The product tracks usage and
drives engagement to conversion
(e.g through automated emails and
in product nudges)
Users can get support through
chat bots, help docs etc
The product becomes part of the
users core workflow, for the
problem you are solving
The product automatically drives
engagement, prompting how to
get further value, next steps, help
articles etc.
Users can add their own
integrations and customisations
building a personalized experience
that they can tailor to their needs
User can add colleagues, create
teams, share etc
Users can easily move between
payment plans themselves
Pricing is generally usage based
driving revenue as accounts
expand
The product may include
features which drive acquisition
and growth in themselves

27. Key Steps to moving to a PLG Strategy
#1
Understand your core value,
communicate it, and deliver it

28. Key Steps to moving to a PLG Strategy
#2
Define and optimise your core
user journey
(getting users to value)

29. Key Steps to moving to a PLG Strategy
#3
Identify Growth Loops

30. #4
Create a dedicated team to
focus on moving towards PLG
Key Steps to moving to a PLG Strategy

31. Key Steps to moving to a PLG Strategy
#5
Edge into it and experiment!

32. ● Product Led Growth book by Wes Bush
● Product Led Foundation (productled.com)
● reforge.com/blog/growth-loops
● Lennysnewsletter.com interview with Ben
Williams from Snyk
Resources

33. productheads.io
tim@productheads.io
01223 944 101
07887 931 981
web:
email:
Phone:
Mobile:
Tim Wilkinson
Founder

34. SUPPORT SCIENCE
& PRODUCT
MANAGEMENT!
rs2187@jbs.cam.ac.uk
Raul Saenz de
Inestrillas