ProductLed Podcast

Allison Dickin is the Head of User Research at Sprig (formerly UserLeap), an all-in-one product research platform that delivers the 3 key pillars of product research—video interviews, concept testing, and microsurveys. She joins the show to discuss how iterative learning drives website conversions and offers tips so that product-led teams can improve their user research process. 

Show Notes

[02:08] Why user research is important

[03:28] The 2 critical phases in the user cycle that are difficult to get customer insight from

[05:13] Ask users questions that are relevant to what they’re doing in the moment, keep your questions short and simple, and only survey as many users as you need

[07:48] How to get good response rates

[09:32] Allison’s recommendations to improve onboarding experience

[12:13] How to phrase your survey questions

[14:30] On multiple choice questions and micro-surveys

[17:32] How to spread survey/research insights within the organization

[19:13] Allison’s advice for people/teams who are doing product and user research 

About Allison Dickin

Allison Dickin is an experienced user researcher who blends rigor with pragmatism to guide customer-informed decision-making for digital products. She works with startups to lead qualitative and quantitative research studies. Her clients include Blue Apron, Skillshare, Catalina Crunch, and Microsoft.

Links

Product-Led Growth Certificate™ Program

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Profile

Allison’s LinkedIn

Sprig (formerly UserLeap)

Wes Bush appears in today’s episode to talk about the upcoming Product-Led Growth Certificate™ program. He provides an in-depth overview of the 4-week long program that helps small businesses and large companies transition from sales-led to product-led. He shares the goals of the program, what people can expect each week, and other benefits of joining.

Show Notes

[01:10] Important dates to take note of

[01:32] The main goal of the program

[03:25] The sales-led way versus the product-led way

[04:50] A sneak peek of weeks 1 to 3

[07:28] Why product-led monetization is included in the program

[09:22] What makes the Product-Led Growth Certificate™ Course different from other courses

[11:13] There will be real-world weekly projects

About Wes Bush

Wes Bush is the founder and CEO of ProductLed, the bestselling author of “Product-Led Growth: How To Build a Product That Sells Itself”, and one of the most sought-after product experts in the world. After working for some of the world’s fastest growing companies in the world, today he trains teams around the globe how to turn their product into a powerful growth engine.

Link

ProductLed

Jon Butterfield is the Head of Growth at Speedinvest, one of Europe’s largest seed-stage investors with over €400m in seed capital. In this episode, he weighs in on the common mistakes that investors and founders make when it comes to product-led growth. He then talks about product-market fit and offers advice on data.

Show Notes

[04:40] The danger of premature growth

[07:00] Get your data right first before you launch your product

[10:15] Talk to as many customers and potential customers as possible

[11:20] What to do after finding product-market fit

[15:45] How to breakdown your go-to-market strategy 

[18:30] More sales does not necessarily mean more success

[21:20] Look into cultural differences before going into different markets

[22:48] Some examples of product-market fit: Quibi, Myspace, Facebook, and Airbnb

[26:55] Have a data tracking system in place or hire a business intelligence analyst

About Jon Butterfield

Jon Butterfield has started companies across Europe and the United States over the last 15+ years. He specializes in go-to-market strategies, product-market fit, developing growth models and aligning data and analytics to a business’ and customer goals.

When not building businesses, strategies and models, Jon spends time on his second passion, building motorbikes. He also enjoys mountaineering and spending time in nature with his family.

Links 

Product-Led Growth Certificate™ Course

OneTap

Facebook

Airbnb

Profile

Speedinvest

Jon Butterfield’s LinkedIn

Rachel Obstler is the ​​VP Product at Heap, a digital insights platform that empowers product teams to focus on what matters—building the best products. In this episode, Rachel talks about proactive analytics and why it’s key to delivering a great product experience. She also offers advice on product-led growth, highlighting the importance of effective teamwork and making sure that everyone agrees on the data.

Show Notes

[03:05] The advantages of proactive analytics

[04:45] An example of what Heap is capable of

[06:22] About Heap Illuminate

[08:10] The challenges of building your own digital insights platform

[10:32] Data is a way to align different teams in an organization

[13:13] Have KPIs that you review on a regular basis

[15:15] Baseline your metrics especially if you’re embarking on product-led growth for the first time

About Rachel Obstler

Rachel Obstler is a self-proclaimed data geek who specializes in go-to-market strategies and product management. She has over 20 years of experience leading product teams for different companies, including PagerDuty, DynaTrace, and Keynote Systems.

Rachel learned to love recreational ice hockey while she was getting her bachelor’s degree at MIT. She still plays it to this day. 

Profile

Heap

Rachel’s LinkedIn

Heap Illuminate

Alison Taylor and Trevor Johnston are the co-founders and co-CEOs of Jane, an online platform for health and wellness practitioners that makes it simple to book, chart, schedule, bill, and get paid. They join Ramli on the show to talk about product-market fit and how customer service is at the heart of a product-led business. They then go through the steps they have taken (and still take) to overcome growing pains.

Show Notes

[01:17] How the Jane app came to be and scaled with just one “customer support” team

[05:34] The signup process is a way to get customers committed and to get them on the product journey

[08:00] Why Alison and Trevor decided not to go with the freemium model 

[09:48] About Jane’s high-touch onboarding experience

[12:26] Prioritize loyal customers over sales

[15:23] The evolution of Jane’s signup process

[19:30] About Jane’s org structure and support system

[23:48] The challenge of hiring and helping people develop their careers

[28:05] How marketing and engineering fit in Jane’s org structure

[30:05] Alison and Trevor’s advice for product-led startups

About Alison Taylor and Trevor Johnston

Alison Taylor has been in the healthcare space as a business manager since 2008, and she believes in the integration of work into life and life into work. She hired Trevor’s creative agency to brand her clinic, Canopy Integrated Health, which she opened in 2011.

Trevor Johnston loves doing creative things with technology to create enjoyable experiences and to solve people’s problems. He co-founded Thought Shop Creative Inc. and was its lead digital guy until 2016. Jane is his first app and his first foray into coding.

Profile

Jane

Alison Taylor’s LinkedIn

Trevor Johnston’s LinkedIn

Emily Lonetto is the Head of Growth at Voiceflow, a platform that allows anyone to build voice apps without coding. In this episode, she shares insight on user onboarding, offering practical tips to create a memorable onboarding experience, weighing in on some of the common mistakes companies make when it comes to user onboarding. She also talks about Voiceflow’s early days, along with ways to improve the customer’s journey.

Show Notes

[01:35] About Emily’s sticker store

[02:48] Her experiences with user onboarding

[06:15] Emily’s process for customer activation

[08:54] What people can expect from Voiceflow

[11:23] What Emily did and realized during Voiceflow’s early days

[14:52] Match the level of the user with the level of expertise/technicality that a tool has

[18:30] How product-led growth should scale with every user

[21:28] Examples of apps that have different ways for users to “level up” 

[27:06] Design for function over looks and keep things simple

[29:44] Emily’s tips to improve user onboarding

About Emily Lonetto

Emily is the Head of Growth at Voiceflow – a platform that helps designers, developers, and their teams design, prototype and launch voice & conversational experiences. Before Voiceflow, Emily was the second growth hire at Clio, introducing product growth experimentation to the org. Before joining Clio, Emily led product growth at PartnerStack (formerly GrowSumo) YC'15, and helped automate/scale Tilt (acquired by Airbnb) YC'12 massive ambassador and community program across the globe. In her spare time, Emily is a speaker, advisor and cofounder/co-organizer of GrowthTO and currently helps startups tackle early growth strategy with several incubators and advisory councils across North America and Tel Aviv.

Links 

Squarespace

Webflow

Duolingo

Jonathan Chang – Artist for AAPI

Twitter for Jonathan Chang

Profile 

Voiceflow

Emily on Twitter

Emily on LinkedIn

Voiceflow Community on Facebook

Andres Glusman is the CEO of DoWhatWorks and used to lead growth at Meetup. In this episode, he joins Andrew on the show to talk about his journey into the growth space. He presents the power of experimentation and optimization, sharing lessons that he learned from his mentors and his own failures. He also offers tips for people who are in management or leadership positions and are looking to be successful.

Show Notes

[01:15] An overview of DoWhatWorks

[02:05] How Andres came up with DoWhatWorks

[05:50] How he built his growth skillset

[14:00] Identify key risks, go after it as quickly as possible, and validate your assumptions

[16:58] What Andres did for Meetup

[20:10] An overview of Meetup’s growth journey

[25:15] On winning, gaining momentum, and transitioning to a leadership role

[33:00] What Andres has learned from some of his mistakes

[37:20] His advice for people who are building their growth skillset

About Andres Glusman

Andres Glusman has a background in behavioral science and economics, and he is very interested in growth and experimentation. Before founding DoWhatWorks and becoming its CEO, he spent 14 years working for Meetup. Andres is also a board member at Devpost, a dad, and a casual surfer.

Links

Meetup

YouTube

MySpace

Facebook

Profile

DoWhatWorks

Andres’ Email Address

Claudiu Murariu is the co-founder and CEO of InnerTrends, and in this episode, he talks about activation and PLG metrics. He highlights the advantages of working backwards and highlights a big mistake that teams make when it comes to “getting people to the promised land.” He also offers advice and tips for entrepreneurs looking to improve their activation and onboarding process.

Show Notes

[01:10] Claudiu’s definition of user activation

[03:05] Marketing a product is like making a promise

[07:10] About InnerTrends’ tool-agnostic approach and tracking strategy

[09:45] What to expect if you include a product guide in the onboarding process

[13:50] The relationship between activation and onboarding

[17:48] The purpose of the onboarding process is to let people experience things themselves

[20:40] Longer onboarding times lead to better retention

[22:28] How InnerTrends calculates the average time it takes for new users to go through the onboarding process

[24:45] How to improve your activation or onboarding experience

About Claudiu Murariu

Claudiu Murariu is the co-founder and CEO of InnerTrends, a software service that makes data work for companies that are looking to transform growth into more revenue. Before InnerTrends, he spent 3 years as a freelancer, and he worked as a web analyst for PadiCode (which he also co-founded) and Avangate.

Because he is passionate about data analytics and obsessed with data-driven businesses, Claudiu has been a keynote speaker for product events and conferences around the world. He is also the host of The Data-led Professional Podcast.

Links

Actionable Metrics Canvas Wizard

Product-led Growth Community

Profile 

Claudiu Murariu on Twitter

InnerTrends

April Dunford is the author of “Obviously Awesome”, and in this episode, she talks about positioning—what it is and why it’s important. She dives into some of the analogies she used in her book to explain how positioning works. She also brings up Clay Christensen's milkshake story to break down the 5 components of positioning. She then answers some of the viewers’ questions, offering practical advice for startups.

Show Notes

[03:22] Some misconceptions about positioning, why positioning is important in business, and how it differs from traditional branding

[09:22] Why positioning is like the opening scene of a movie

[16:25] Some signs of weak positioning: total confusion, wrong comparisons, prospective clients don’t think your value is valuable or they think your vision is just a fantasy

[20:25] Define what makes your product special and then figure out what is the best context to frame those qualities in

[25:35] The 5 components of positioning: competitive alternatives, unique capabilities, differentiated value, target market segments, and market category

[27:58] On Clayton Christensen’s “Jobs to Be Done” theory

[36:05] How to convince buy-in companies that positioning is important

[43:18] How to define positioning if you do not have best customer fit yet

[45:08] How positioning influences product development

[50:05] How to position your product or company if you want to cater to different countries

About April Dunford

April Dunford studied engineering in university and then spent the first 25 years of her career as a marketing executive for startups. She has worked as a consultant for more than 100 companies, helping them fine-tune their sales and marketing teams.

Aside from being an expert on product positioning, April is also a mentor, an adviser, and a keynote speaker. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her kids and a small dog.

Links

Salesforce

Competing Against Luck by Clayton Christensen

Profile

April Dunford's website

April Dunford's Twitter

Zach Sims is the CEO of Codecademy, an online learning platform that teaches people how to code, along with additional skills they might need to upgrade their careers. In this episode, he walks us through the strategies he and his team used to grow Codecademy to what it is today. He also weighs in on monetization, community-driven growth, and internationalization.

Show Notes

[01:26] Codecademy’s mission and how it got started

[04:49] How Codecademy has evolved since its first version was launched

[10:38] On building a brand around the freemium model 

[18:08] When is the best time to monetize?

[19:55] On brand, community, and content

[23:53] The metrics that Codecademy uses to measure end-user success

[25:50] On fostering community and why they invest in their learners

[31:27] On the future of education

About Zach Sims

Prior to launching Codecademy in 2011, Zach Sims was a student at Columbia University. He has worked in product and business development/strategy capacities at startups. He also has experience in the venture capital industry with AOL Ventures.

Codecademy has worked with organizations like The White House, the Government of Colombia, American Express, Rakuten, and more. TIME Magazine included Codecademy in its "50 Best Websites of 2012” list, and TechCrunch awarded it the "Best Education Startup" Crunchie Award in 2013.

Profile Links

Codecademy

Zach Sims on Twitter