Product-led growth B2B companies succeed if they master this first step | Elena Verna
Summary
TLDRThe transcript discusses how companies should focus first on product-led growth and retention before acquisition. Retention has two key metrics - activation and engagement. Without these, there are limited opportunities for product-led acquisition. Determine if the product has a one-to-many collaborative element to enable product-led strategies. If not, rely more on marketing and sales. Most B2B lack one-to-many relationships. Execute both sales-led and product-led motions correctly together over time, instead of choosing one approach. Reinforce the product-led roots even when chasing enterprise sales to avoid slowing growth. Letting product usage and community growth lag risks enterprise pipeline drying up.
Takeaways
- 😀 You must first focus on product-led retention before product-led acquisition
- 😇 Retention has two key metrics - activation and engagement
- 🧐 Without strong activation and engagement, acquisition efforts will fail
- 😎 Successful companies layer sales-led and product-led growth
- 😮 Don't abandon one model when adding the other - amplify both
- 🤔 Determine where to start with sales or product led based on market and use cases
- 😠 Avoid letting enterprise sales crush underlying product-led growth
- 😢 80% of companies abandon product growth when chasing enterprise sales
- 😡 Pivoting from product to pure sales requires changing company structure
- 🥺 Successful companies never forget the product-led roots that drove initial growth
Q & A
What are the two main KPIs for retention according to the speaker?
-The two main KPIs for retention according to the speaker are activation and engagement.
What does the speaker mean by a 'habitual loop' in relation to product-led retention?
-A 'habitual loop' refers to getting users to habitually use your product through engaging features and experiences that keep bringing them back.
What are the prerequisites for effective product-led acquisition?
-The prerequisites are strong product-led retention with good activation and engagement metrics, so you have a solid user base to build acquisition strategies on top of.
What are the two types of monetization models mentioned?
-The two types are product-led self-serve monetization and sales-led monetization chasing larger contract values.
What layering game is the speaker referring to?
-The layering game refers to typically starting with either product-led or sales-led, and then later layering the other model on top rather than switching completely.
What crucial mistake do most companies make when scaling up sales?
-They let go of their product-led growth initiatives and tactics that were the original root of their success.
Why does the speaker say the sales pipeline starts drying up when focusing too much on sales-led enterprise growth?
-Because without continuing to grow the product-led user base that feeds inbound sales interest, there is no foundation for sales to continue exponential growth.
What pendulum swing is the speaker advising companies to be aware of?
-The pendulum between investing in product-led growth vs. enterprise sales - needing to correct back to product if neglected too long.
What percentage of buyers will typically be in a company's user base according to the speaker?
-The speaker says only 30 percent or less times will your buyer actually be in your user base.
What crucial mistake do most companies make when scaling up sales?
-They let go of their product-led growth initiatives and tactics that were the original root of their success.
Outlines
😊 Focusing on product-led retention before acquisition
The paragraph argues that before focusing on acquisition, companies must first focus on nailing product-led retention comprised of activation and engagement. Without strong retention metrics showing users are habitually using the product, there will be limited opportunities to hook in an acquisition engine. The core message is to start with retention before acquisition.
😟 Neglecting product usage growth after pivoting to enterprise sales
The paragraph explains a common pattern where product-led companies successfully monetize through self-serve, then hire enterprise sales teams to increase deal sizes, which works initially. However, most companies then neglect ongoing product usage and community growth. This dries up the pipeline as enterprise inbound relies on continued product usage growth. Reinvesting in product-led is key.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡product-led
💡retention
💡acquisition
💡sales-led
💡self-serve monetization
💡enterprise
💡advocates
💡pipeline
💡inbound
💡pendulum
Highlights
Focus on being product LED and retention first before acquisition
Retention is key - activation and engagement via habitual loops is crucial before acquisition
Start with product LED retention before product LED acquisition
Choose if your product has a one to many or collaboration relationship for product LED to work
B2B products often don't have one to many relationships so product LED acquisition is difficult
You can still be product LED with sales via product LED sales
Every industry will go through transformation to product LED sales and self-serve
To succeed, do both sales LED and product LED - it's about layering sequentially
Going from sales LED to product LED means amplifying growth, not abandoning sales
Most successful companies execute both sales and product LED correctly together
Starting product LED and then focusing on sales crushes product growth
Letting product usage growth slide kills inbound enterprise interest
Reinvest in product LED growth to correct the sales focus pendulum swing
Never forget your product LED roots that drove initial success
Know when to swing the focus pendulum back to product for sustainable growth
Transcripts
I think every single company has to
First focus on being product LED and
retention
period the only way that you will ever
have any chance of acquisition being
product LED is if you nail your
product-led retention let me break it
down retention falls into two main kpis
which is activation and then engagement
if your product is not able to activate
and more importantly engage via habitual
loops and be in the hobbit-forming zone
then you'll have no chance to hooking an
acquisition engine into your product
because acquisition and product LED
means users and buy it or users refer or
users create content that attracts other
users well if your users are not
habitually using your product there's
less and less opportunities for you to
actually create any sort of product-led
acquisition so never start with product
LED acquisition you first always have to
start with product LED retention
activation and engagement then you can
choose is your product has a
relationship of one to many if it has a
collaboration at its core say slack or
Miro or even the amplitude or does it
have more
of a single mode relationship so let's
say snowflake there is not one too many
relationships there between users well
if you have one too many relationships
product LED is a fantastic way for you
to prototype that model if you don't
have them then it becomes increasingly
hard and most of the B2B products don't
have that one-to-many relationships so
it's very difficult to stand up product
LED acquisition so you rely on marketing
lead and sales lead and that's fantastic
those are fantastic growth models as
well the only other question becomes in
the self-serve monetization that's
product LED otherwise you go in the
sales LED and you chase up to those
large contract values and you can still
be product LED and monetization with
sales team via product LED sales or you
can just be self-serve if you have a
specific segment that is valuable for
but
the question there is your use cases and
your Market matureness to handle
self-serve or do you need that sales
touch every industry and every
sector is going through transformation
at different velocities so even if you
don't have that product like sales or
self-serve in your industry now I
guarantee you it will pop up in the next
10 years and that you're not going to
introduce it you will get disrupted by
it say a company
starts sales LED on acquisition by the
way I love how you're kind of like
spanning this would seemingly as a
binary idea of product lab for sales
like everyone's always talking about
them in such simplistic terms and just
your way of thinking about it where it's
kind of this like I don't know three by
three almost it's just bending my brain
so I'm gonna try to keep up
so say a company starts sales LED on
acquisition and
later wants to think about adding a
product LED self-serve motion do you
find that that often Works doesn't work
is that like a rare success story or how
have you seen that happen I think in
order to succeed and own the market you
have to do both it's not a question of
it working it's the question of how you
will make it work the game is a layering
game it's a sequential game which one
will you introduce first and how can you
layer the next one on top of it so if
you are sales LED now
if you continue being sales LED you have
a high chance of leaving a product led
to be disrupted by it from the bottoms
up but also going from sales led to
product LED does not mean you have to
abandon sales lead that means you have
to hunker down on your sales lead and
overlay product lit on top of it to
amplify already existing growth never to
switch so in the most successful
companies whether they go from product
led to sales led to sales led to product
LED they're able to execute both
correctly and together as opposed to
saying I have to switch or pick one
versus the other and I think it's the
biggest mistake when people view it as a
decision making of which one I should be
versus a sequential play that makes life
so much simpler knowing that eventually
you're going to do both it's basically a
question where do you start
I know you have some strong opinions
about kind of how product lead often
gets crushed by sales being added down
the road
is there something you can share around
that problem you see yes I see a very
clear pattern and it's sad that so many
companies fall into that pattern even
though it's so prominent and the
learnings unfortunately don't get shared
and propagated enough you start as a
product LED company you get the user
love they talk about you you have Word
of Mouth Loop happening you have
Community happening you have great
retention you ready to monetize you
monetize self-serve and you get
fantastic traction you start aggregating
multiple users within an organization
starting to get inch closer and closer
to your first Enterprise contract and it
closes and that's exciting it's a big
ACV average contract value it's
exhilarating it's addicting how many or
more of those do we have to close
instead of doing these 10 20 30 dollars
arpas what if we have a hundred two
hundred thousand dollar R bus how fast
can we grow you start doubling down and
saying let's just hire more sales people
we have all of this usage let's put
productivity per sales head put that in
the forecast hire sales people let's go
at the beginning everything is unicorns
and Roses because you have very strong
usage you have great Advocates your
Enterprise buyers are likely already in
your user base so you're going and
you're closing them but then slowness
occurs it always occurs because you run
out of Enterprise buyers in your user
base because only 30 percent or less
times is your buyer gonna be in your
usage user base
which means that the rest of the
accounts usage is happening and it's the
correct usage that is leading to
Enterprise conversation but you need to
go find the buyer because the user does
not have a relationship with a buyer
that's when you're starting to go up the
market you realize that you start hiring
Enterprise marketing team demand gen
team you start investing into Enterprise
marketing activities you seem to be
disconnecting the dots and your pipeline
is taking on next level of growth and
you're starting to close even larger
deals you probably remember the first
time that you closed your first 200 500
000 a million dollar deal and that's
exciting but then at the result of going
and chasing after those Enterprise
buyers most of the companies make
crucial mistake of letting go of their
product usage growth of their product
LED tactics because you still have to
make prioritization in your resourcing
do you hire a PM
or do you hire an Enterprise rep do you
hire a growth PM or growth marketer or
do you hire an ABM specialist and most
of the time when you're chasing after
those Enterprise buyers those personas
don't overlap so you have to choose one
or the other so you hire for Enterprise
because that's what you're doubling down
on that's what you board that's what
Market wants from you those contracts
large contracts and commitments that
increases your evaluation however very
quickly you will realize that even your
sales LED inbound of going on top of
usage is going to start drying up
because if you're not putting continuous
pressure on growing those user growth of
driving that community of driving that
user habitual Loops even on self-serve
monetization your Enterprise will not
grow if that was the root of your growth
if that was your original DNA and if you
let go of that and I would say eighty
percent of the companies let go of your
product-led initiatives in order of
Enterprise they start start seeing a
massive slowdown in Enterprise pipe many
correct and they realized that they've
forgotten
the hand that feeds them in the first
place and they reinvest into that growth
many companies decide to Pivot and say
forget product LED were too far gone now
we're going to create a sales top-down
machine and we're gonna go and hunt
those Enterprise buyers and be good at
it but that requires a very different
work structure that creates a very
different profiles of people that you
need and the different types of running
of business and expectation so it's a
dangerous turn for a lot of the
companies I just wish that businesses
would never forget
the roots that they came from especially
if they started in plg and have a sense
of when to swing the pendulum to the
right direction and correct it when it's
the right time
thanks for listening you can find the
full episode on YouTube or head on over
to lennyspodcast.com
[Music]
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