BUILD with Blake Bartlett

pMike Volpe is no stranger to competitive markets. He was part of HubSpots founding team, then moved into the world of cybersecurity with Cybereason and is now CEO of Lola.com, a travel management tool. In this episode, he explains the relationship between pricing and brand, his perception of freemium and the importance of looking closely at your happiest customers for growth opportunities./p

p class=p1Were kicking off Season 6 by bringing OV Partner, Blake Bartlett, back to discuss the magic of product led growth. Blake breaks down the placement of the paywall, when a freemium model makes sense and the importance of getting specific about your target customer. Find out why PLG means you can have your cake and eat it too./p

pHiten Shah is the mastermind behind Crazy Egg, Product Habits FYI. He and his team pioneered heat maps and the left to right funnel, but what actually got him obsessed with product and product led growth? On this episode, Hiten dives into freemium, his love for solving problems in unique ways and why founders should get involved with sales. He also describes how to get the entire team to think about growth and the role of sales and marketing in PLG businesses. Youll hear how he got to #1 on ProductHunt and his tips for getting there - be sure to check out his collection, Free Stuff For Startups./p

pJeff Weiser hasnt exactly followed a traditional path to get to CMO, but his background in strategy and analytics has made him incredibly successful. In this episode, Jeff explains his perspective on the power of analytics (while also laying out the limitations they present). Learn about the role product led growth has played in the evolution of Shopifys target customer, advice about amplifying the power of word-of-mouth and the role of marketing in a product-led world. At the end of the day, marketers have to be willing to embrace the messiness around their craft and the analytics that come with it and know that there will never be a perfectly attributable answer./p

pKelly Watkins has consistently been at the heart of marketing within PLG companies - first at GitHub as the Director of Product Brand Marketing and most recently as the VP of Global Marketing at Slack. Shes seen first-hand the role marketing plays in growth and knows the ins and outs of each type of marketing. In this episode, Kelly sheds light how young companies should think about product marketing and when to make their first hire, how impactful brand was for her team and the role content played in Slacks strategy. Youll also find out the two things she cares about as a marketer and whats next for her career./p

pThis may sound strange, but more often than not, Appcues biggest competition is actually nothing. Most companies dont have an intentional onboarding experience; users are just dropped into a dashboard full of zeros. Their Co-founder CEO, Jonathan Kim, explains how to master the art of a meaningful onboarding experience through personalization and humanization. Listen to learn about their definition of product led growth, where theyve seen sales add the most value and what he sees for the future of UX. Youll also find out how to maximize impact if youre designing onboarding for the first time./p

pCustomer success has come to mean a lot more than just churn prevention. As Head of CS at Dropbox, Lisa Ashcraft is constantly thinking about continuous improvement and what success looks like for her team. Learn about the importance of pattern matching to remove friction, the metric that matters most for her team and some of her proudest moments. At the end of the day, its all about becoming a trusted advisor to users and educating them on using the product in new ways to get the most out of it./p

pExpensify kicked off 2019 with a Super Bowl-sized bang, but its a well-known fact that for most of their history, they havent engaged in outbound marketing or advertising. Oh yeah, and they dont have a sales team. So whats the secret to their success? PLG. Jason Mills, the Director of Product and Customers, describes how they focus on their customers and the product to have maximum impact. He also describes how they are proactive about virality, their motivation to remove confusion from the product and how automation is augmented with a human. Youll also find out what else to expect from the Expensify team in 2019./p

pPLG companies dont necessarily rely on a large sales and marketing team to grow. Wistia’s Co-founder CEO, Chris Savage, explains their decision to create a self-service funnel and when their sales team gets involved in the buying process. Chris also explains how the sales team came to be and how they adopted Wistia’s values during the customer’s buying process. Also make sure you check out their One, Ten, One Hundred video series by going to wi.st/series./p

pYouve seen the growing trend of Growth teams and Growth leaders, but what does that actually mean? Elena Verna, the SVP of Product Growth at Malwarebytes and formerly the SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey, wrote the book on growth. This episode is all about the importance of a solid analytics platform, the metrics freemium businesses should focus on, how to make your customers drive acquisition and how the Growth team fits in with the rest of the business. Learn from her biggest wins./p