Is Product-led Growth for you? (Free Cohort Material and Announcement)
Is Product-led Growth for you? (Free Cohort Material and Announcement)
Take it or leave it
The answer is not always “yes”. The operational reality for most businesses is that Product-led Growth is a risk, let’s find out:
I’m excited to announce that I’m hosting a cohort on PLG on Maven! This is one topic I tackle in my growth cohort starting on the 1st of May. 500$ off with this code: PLG500SS
Like any other business case, it needs to be evaluated and I usually clarify 3 questions on 2 dimensions. Effort and Impact.
Competitor Disruption: Normally I don’t advise looking at competitors but in the case of PLG it can absolutely make sense. Are there already existing incumbents offering the same value proposition that we have as a self-serve product?
Example from advising: https://seon.io/ is a plg example I discovered when advising a sales-led fraud prevention service, which drove home that it is indeed possible to have a self-serve product for their audience. It took us (me + >150k ACV business) 10 minutes of research to find those.
Surmountable Gaps: Do we see a version of our product that can be self-explained and good for showing value by itself even if we don’t have it yet?
For that, we should have made a teardown with our team that designs an ideal version of our product without concerning ourselves too much and whether it can be done. (We tend to jump into solutions too quickly)
Can we imagine a version of our product or flow that allows scaling *with* our customers? This could be having different versions of your product (lite, pro, business) or one product that covers multiple use cases
A scaleable version of our product: Ignoring CAC questions, does it make sense for lower market segment accounts <10k ACV to solve this problem or our sketched ideal version of it?
Important: it has to make sense for the customer, not for us. If there IS a use case for instance for a small business to use a CRM and we’re in the business of CRMs then the oversimplified answer is yes. Even if you don’t see how you would make money from it. Yet.
Are our typical customers growing businesses (typical: SaaS) or are they typically stable, not growing (typical: retail)
The questions are important to understand long-term value: If our customers have a chance to grow with us while they use the product then this becomes expansion revenue. A 10k ACV might grow into a 150k ACV account. This does not happen for the majority of our self-serve clients but it can happen for some and still be extremely worth it.
That’s why product-led growth is a long-term game. It’s not just about getting access to more markets, we grab the market before it grows into high-value clients.
Effort
For effort, we need to consider IPA:
Important: Is this important and reflected in our company strategy → It won’t work without company commitment, it’s not just “product”
Potential: Is there enough potential for us to improve our product still? → If it’s overoptimized and perfect it’s just wishful thinking
Authority: Do we have the authority to make the product better, do we have the team, or can we access experience to make those changes? → Advisors, Growth teams, Budget, and so forth
If you see a realistic path you might have a shot at this point.
Summary
Thinking the case of PLG through like this is an important step. It takes longer than you think to have an effect. It’s more than just adding a little bit of self-serve.
The good news is that with a well-thought-out approach, you can create milestones for an integration that doesn’t take years to manifest, and you will know along the way whether you are on the right path.
If you want to know more about it consider joining my cohort and ask me in person in our Q&A sessions.
https://maven.com/leah-tharin/productledgrowth use “PLG500SS” to get 500$ off for the first cohort.