ProductLed Podcast

A few months ago, Userlist introduced the $9/month starter plan. The plan allows SaaS founders to enjoy Userlist’s full set of features until they are able to hit the first 100 customers milestone. We talked to Userlist co-founder Jane Portman to know the rationale behind the offering. Aside from co-founding Userlist, Jane is also a UI/UX consultant and the host of UI Breakfast Podcast. In this episode, Jane shared how they arrived at the decision to offer $9/month, why they opted not to offer freemium, and why it makes perfect sense.

Show Notes

[01:50] What Userlist is and how it started

[02:13] What their edge is

[04:38 Reason they added the $9/mo starter plan

[07:11] How they intend to move forward

[09:28] Why they decided on $9 

[11:59] Why they didn’t limit specific features for the $9 plan

[16:08] The thought process behind their video

[19:05] The core idea for a good UI

[20:46] What they have in the works to help users install the Userlist app

[23:02] One of the reasons they ask for the credit card upfront

[24:36] Any experiments they have planned that they’re excited about

[25:35] Her one advice to founders

[26:40] Where people can find out more about her and Userlist

About Jane Portman

Jane Portman is a UI/UX consultant and she specializes in web application design. She is also the founder of UI Breakfast and the co-founder of Userlist. Userlist is designed as an alternative to bulky enterprise messaging tools. At Userlist, Jane’s primary objective is to provide impeccable UX and help users become exceptional at customer messaging. Since 2014, Jane has also been hosting UI Breakfast Podcast where she talks to industry experts about UI/UX design, marketing, products, and many more.

Links

• Jane Portman’s Post on Indie Hacker
• Userlist Website
• Special 30% offer (first 3 months) for Product-Led listeners
• TinySeed Website

Profile

• UI Breakfast Website
• UI Breakfast Podcast
• UI Breakfast Mailing List
• Jane Portman on Twitter
• Jane Portman's Email Address: [email protected]

While seemingly trivial, the shift from sales-led to product-led is actually a massive one. And today’s guest will give us some insight into what it was like. Giovanni Hobbins is a designer, entrepreneur, and product manager. He co-founded (and sold) Nightly Labs and Campus Bubble. He was formerly built product at FullStory. Currently, he is the head of product at Matcha. In this episode, Giovanni shared their journey from sales-led to product-led including the reason they had to make the transition, how he motivated the team around the shift, and how he facilitated culture change.

Show Notes

[00:50] His background and how he became the head of product at Matcha

[01:57] A quick overview of what Matcha is all about

[04:00] What the transition to product-led has been like

[08:46] What pushed them to make the transition to product-led

[10:54] How he motivated the team around the shift

[12:31] How he convinced the investors and the board to pursue product-led

[13:44] How the shift affected the service component of the business

[15:48] The role support plays in a product-led business

[18:07] How he structures their roadmap and the inputs he looks for

[21:41] Effective way to get everyone on the same page

[25:48] How he facilitated culture change

[26:08] Where people can find him

About Giovanni Hobbins

Giovanni Hobbins is the head of product at Matcha, the content marketing experts for e-commerce and lifestyle brands. Aside from creating a technology platform designed to help marketing teams scale content production and measure results, Matcha also provides a done-for-you content service in the form of data analysis, distribution management, and original content production. Matcha’s mission is to give every brand the power of storytelling so they can can deliver more meaningful customer experiences and achieve sustainable growth. 

Links

• FullStory
• Slack
• Zoom
• Amplitude’s North Star Metric

Profile

• Matcha Website
• Matcha Blog
• Giovanni Hobbins Website
• Giovanni Hobbins on Twitter
• Giovanni Hobbins on LinkedIn
• Giovanni Hobbins on Medium
• Giovanni's Email Address: [email protected]

Over the years, many companies have made the shift from high touch and high friction sales models to product-led growth. Today’s guest made the same transition and shared what his journey from sales-led to product-led has been like. Brennan McEachran is the CEO and co-founder of SoapBox Innovations. He was also 2015’s Ontario Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner. In this episode, Brennan shared what the transition to product-led growth has been like—from the challenges they encountered down to how he changed the team’s mindset, he covered it all.

Show Notes

[00:54] How he started Soapbox

[02:47] How they pivoted into product-led growth

[03:28] What prompted them to pivot into product-led growth

[07:29] How he managed the transition

[11:23] Biggest challenge of the whole transition

[13:32] The experiments he made prior to making the transition and the results he got

[21:35] His advice to those who would like to make the jump

[25:01] What their org chart looks like

[29:15] How support has contributed to growth

[37:09] How he changed the team mindset from selling first to adoption first

About Brennan McEachran

Brennan McEachran is the co-founder and CEO of Soapbox Innovations. Soapbox is the first people platform made to revolutionize management. The amazing tool is designed to help managers coach, collaborate, and communicate with their teams better. Soapbox is trusted by over 100, 000 companies around the globe including HubSpot, GoDaddy, Adobe, Coca-Cola, and Netflix. 

Links

• Hubspot
• Chrome Extensions
• Spotify
• Gmail

Profile

• Brennan McEachran on LinkedIn
• Brennan McEachran on Twitter
• Brennan McEachran on Medium
• Soapbox Website

When they redesigned FullStory’s onboarding process, today’s guest scored some definite wins. However, they also made a few mistakes along the way. In this episode, Melanie Crissey shared the six onboarding mistakes they made so you can avoid them! Melanie is FullStory’s product marketing manager. She also serves as product marketing lead for two product programs. In this episode, Melanie shared what onboarding looked like in 2017, how she prevented onboarding from becoming over bloated, and the 6 onboarding mistakes she made and how she addressed them.

Show Notes

[01:57] What FullStory is and what it’s all about

[03:14] Her role and responsibilities at FullStory

[04:27] What FullStory is focusing on right now

[06:51] How having a conversation can help improve the user experience

[08:42] How product-led growth can help traditional sales teams grow the company

[11:57] What onboarding looked like in 2017

[14:21] Her thoughts on activation emails

[16:25] Negative changes she has seen in terms of user onboarding

[17:50] How she was able to prevent onboarding from becoming over bloated 

[19:06] How the sales team qualifies the people they’ll call

[20:30] The 6 onboarding mistakes product-led businesses should avoid and how to address them

[25:35] Things she’s excited to experiment with that’s related to user onboarding

[28:20] Her advice for those who are in charge of user onboarding

[29:35] Where people can find her

About Melanie Crissey

Melanie Crissey is a product marketer and customer experience leader. She is also FullStory’s product marketing manager. FullStory is an intelligent platform designed to create groundbreaking digital experiences. FullStory also works by uncovering hidden opportunities to help improve the digital experience. FullStory’s intelligent software can also help pinpoint when, where, and how user struggle affects both retention and revenue. 

Links

• FullStory
• FullStory Signup Page
• Every Onboarding Mistake I Made (So You Don’t Have To)

Profile

• Melanie Crissey on LinkedIn
• Melanie Crissey on Twitter

While leading marketing for a marketing-led SaaS company, today’s guest discovered customer-led growth. From there, she used the approach to grow revenue by almost 900 percent! In this episode, Georgiana Laudi talked about product-led growth as well as customer-led growth.

Georgiana is a seasoned strategic and growth advisor and marketing executive. She is also the co-founder of Forget the Funnel. In this episode, Georgiana differentiated sales-led from product-led, defined what product-led growth is for her, and shared her thoughts on pricing and its impact, among many others.

Show Notes

[00:43] What got her to where she is today

[07:08] Why some companies are defined as engineering-led

[10:15] What product-led growth is for her

[14:55] Difference between sales-led and marketing-led

[21:44] Types of companies that fits best for different market strategies

[27:19] The main barriers she sees for those who are trying product-led growth

[36:46] How to figure out the success metric

[42:41] One piece of advice for companies who would like to become more customer-led

[45:55] Her thoughts on pricing and its impact on the company

[47:55] Best place to find her

About Georgiana Laudi

Georgiana Laudi is a marketing executive and strategic and growth advisor. She is also the co-founder of Forget the Funnel, a company that focuses on executive level growth strategy and support for scaling SaaS businesses.

They also help growth and marketing leaders to become more effective through their workshops and trainings. Some of the multi-million dollar SaaS companies they’ve helped include Unbounce, SparkToro, Appcues, MeetEdgar, Saasler, and Calendly.

Links

• Hubspot
• Marketo
• Stripe
• WordStream
• Website Grader
• Unbounce
• Jobs-to-be-Done Theory

Profile

• Forget the Funnel
• Georgiana Laudi on LinkedIn
• Georgiana Laudi on Twitter

To find out how product teams drive growth using data, Mixpanel surveyed close to 500 leading product managers. From the survey, they uncovered the latest trends, focuses, and struggles of product teams across the world. To give us some more insight, we talked to Jeff Beckham, the head of product and content marketing at Mixpanel. In this episode, Jeff shared how their report came together, the key metrics product managers are focusing on these days, and his advice for product teams and managers.

Show Notes

[01:32] What Mixpanel is and what his role is

[02:16] Key metrics product managers are focusing on these days

[04:22] How the report came together

[05:25] Things that have gotten in the way of product innovation

[09:02] Tools that are used to increase KPIs and how Mixpanel stacks up

[10:36] His advice for product teams

[12:00] His advice to product managers in terms of the skills they need to learn

[13:35] How product managers can find the balance

[14:05] Where people can find him and the report once it comes out

About Jeff Beckham

Jeff Beckham is the head of product and content marketing at Mixpanel. Mixpanel is the most powerful self-serve product analytics designed to help businesses understand their users better and to convert, engage, and retain them. Trusted by forward-thinking companies like Microsoft, BMW, Shutterfly, and Microsoft, Mixpanel has provided the support companies need to succeed in their user analytics, from implementation to ongoing support, down to technical consultation, they have it all covered.

Profile

• Mixpanel website
• Report (The State of Product Analytics) 

Why is product adoption vital to the success of any SaaS product? For starters, when product adoption increases, churn also plummets. Preventing churn is one of the primary aims of Gainsight PX. Gainsight PX is the brainchild of Michael Alon, a driven consultant and entrepreneur. In this episode, Michael shares what product-led for B2B means, how to build a powerful product-led growth strategy, and what companies are doing to increase product adoption.

Show Notes

[00:59] How he became the founder of Gainsight PX

[03:51] Difference between sales-led, marketing-led, and product-led growth

[07:32] What he thinks is the difference between marketing versus product-led

[10:44] When the best time to talk to users is

[13:07] How he defines product qualified leads (PQLs)

[19:00] What product-led growth for B2B means

[26:10] How one should go about building a successful product-led growth strategy

[32:43] Things companies are doing to increase product adoption

[42:53] Where people can learn more about him and what he’s up to

About Michael Alon

Michael Alon is a serial entrepreneur who’s passionate about designing, building, and launching innovative products designed to drive business outcomes. Michael is the CEO and founder of Aptrinsic. He is also the CTO and founder of Gainsight PX, a leading customer success platform provider that helps businesses secure and surpass the outcomes desired by their customers. Their evidence-based practices as well as their powerful software platform gives clients the insight they need from customer data so they can take the best action at the right time and maximise customer relationships.

Links

• Insightera(Marketo)
• HubSpot
• Slack

Profile

• Michael on Slideshare
• Michael on LinkedIn
• Gainsight

If most conventional CRMs are focused primarily on deal flow, what’s a CRM created for product-led organisations like? That’s one of the questions today’s guest addressed in this episode. Chris Lucas is an entrepreneur, consultant, and startup advisor. He is also the founder of Telemetry and the co-founder of Boardable. In this episode, he shares how he started solving CRM-related concerns for product-led companies, how businesses can deliver the value they promised as quickly as possible, and how one can make the transition to a product-led company happen.

Show Notes

[01:06] How he started solving CRM-related problems

[03:36] How people are solving problems right now using the CRM for product-led companies

[07:20] Why he thinks product-led growth is eating the world in SaaS

[09:25] Why product-led growth has taken over

[10:55] What product-led themes should look like

[13:15] How he makes things actionable for people

[15:42] What product qualified leads (PQLs) are

[17:56] How he determines what the product qualified leads should be

[21:27] What companies should do next after they have identified product qualified leads

[23:23] How teams can hone in on delivering the value they promised as quickly as possible

[26:58] How to make the transition to a product-led organisation happen

[29:19] What’s next for him and Telemetry

[29:57] Where people can learn about him and Telemetry

About Chris Lucas

Chris Lucas is a startup advisor, consultant, and entrepreneur focused on product-led growth. He is also the founder of Telemetry, an insights driven CRM created for product-led companies. Telemetry is also designed to qualify leads and take action so businesses can engage their users in one platform. Chris is passionate about growing teams and scaling businesses and has scaled startups from zero to $10mm ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue).

Links

• Formstack
• HubSpot
• Website Gradar
• WordStream

Profile

• Telemetry
• Product-led Growth University
• Chris on LinkedIn
• Chris on Twitter

For today’s guest, the phrase “jobs to be done” carries with it a lot of meaning. And for people to understand the concept better, he breaks the cycle down in this episode. Alan Klement is a partner at Revealed and author of the book “When Coffee and Kale Compete: Become Great at Making Products People Will Buy.” In this episode, he shares what jobs to be done is all about, how he helps people figure out their jobs to be done, and what they’ve achieved using the process.

Show Notes

[00:52] How he became the author of a book on jobs to be done

[02:43] What jobs to be done is all about

[06:53] Two processes that happens that can cause someone to adopt a product

[10:54] How he helps people figure out their jobs to be done

[14:13] The first step in the process for those who want to nail jobs to be done

[16:19] How he gets granular in terms of understanding the needs of the users

[19:07] Best way to describe a job to be done

[21:40] An example of what they’ve achieved using his process

[26:40] What their process is like

[30:15] When his next book is coming out

[32:50] Where people can check him out to know more

About Alan Klement

Alan Klement is a partner at Revealed, a company that helps clients understand and respond to what’s going in the market and helps teams move faster, reduce risk, and increase success. Apart from writing the book “When Coffee and Kale Compete: Become Great at Making Products People Will Buy,” Alan has also dedicated himself to understanding and predicting product adoption. This led him to create DGA (Demand-Generation Analysis), a systematic means of studying and predicting demand.

Links

• HubSpot
• Pipedrive

Profile

• Alan on Twitter
• When Coffee and Kale Compete: Become Great at Making Products People Will Buy by Alan Klement

For today’s guest, product is the new marketing and in this episode, she shares why she believes it is so. In today’s show, Sandhya Hegde, VP of Growth and Marketing at Amplitude talks about how they approach product-led growth at Amplitude, what the good North Star metrics are for product-led companies, and how she builds customer empathy within their team.

Show Notes

[00:47] How she became the VP of Growth and Marketing at Amplitude

[04:53] Why she thinks product is the new marketing

[08:20] How her team’s thoughts around the product has changed

[10:50] Good North Star metrics for product-led companies

[14:49] Why their strategy is collaboration

[17:13] How she monitors the success of the users for their campaigns

[19:40] How they approach product-led growth at Amplitude

[24:26] Her thoughts on dummy data

[27:25] When should sales step in during the initial touchpoint

[30:00] How they use the product to hit their marketing and growth goals

[31:21] Skills needed in a product-led company

[35:27] How she builds customer empathy within their team

[39:18] Where people can find out more about her and her work

About Sandhya Hegde

Sandhya Hegde is the VP of Growth and Marketing at Amplitude, a computer software that provides product intelligence tools designed to help teams run and grow their digital businesses. To date, over 26, 000 companies use Amplitude for product analytics including Twitter, Intuit, Under Armour, Bonobos, Peloton, and Microsoft.

Profile

• Amplitude
• Amplitude Blog