This is a reedition of an old post. “recruitivity”, the chrome extension mentioned in this post is no longer being maintained.

You sell software and you’re tired of jumping from one growth “hack” to the other.

You wish you had an integrated growth strategy that compounds over time.

Then, look no further.

I give you 12 insights from “Product-Led Growth” (by Wes Bush) 🧵

1. A time to read this book

It’s funny to see that people always come across PLG when they’re fed up with outbound growth.

Force-feeding leads to hungry sales is as exhausting as it’s damaging to companies.

So this is a possible trigger to come back here and read Wes’ book.

2. For who?

PLG is not one-size-fits-all.

But let's be honest, it's very relevant to SaaS. Especially those led by solopreneurs.

They lack time so they’re much better off driving growth doing what they do best: dev.

(cf. The Principles of Comparative Advantage: Why Tiger Woods Shouldn’t Mow Your Lawn).

3. What’s the right pricing model

That’s the question we’ve been relentlessly asking ourselves with Gauvain about our free chrome extension.

In the book we found a decision framework to choose wisely btw freemium, free trial or demo.

Couldn’t have wished for better.

4. Red or blue?

Somehow, I was under the misconception that a market is a red or a blue ocean—that’s it and you can’t do anything about it.

Turns out I was wrong: by targeting specific segments in a red ocean, you can end up in a blue one.

Side-note: where do we sit with recruitivity?

Well, if we market as an Applicant Tracking Systems, then we’re in a red ocean—for sure.

But if we market as a Notion supercharger for freelance recruiters, we might find some blue after all.

5. First impressions matter

That’s why Wes put such emphasis on time to value.

And there’s usually one moment when it’s obvious to your users that you’ve delivered.

Your whole onboarding should be designed to shrink the delay before that “aha” moment occurs.

6. Leverage onboarding emails

They’re pivotal and I wouldn’t say so, had I not experienced it firsthand with Beehiiv (the tool I use to publish the article you’re reading)—their onboarding emails are awesome.

Bottom line:

• Lead with value

• Don’t sell too hard

• Use events in your product as inputs in email workflows

7. Focus on outcomes

“why” > “how”

Focus on:

• Functional outcomes (what users can do)

• Emotional outcomes (how they feel)

• Social outcomes (how they’re seen)

I’ve been long convinced of the above.

But then, I read this article by Bulldozer and started to take it with a grain of salt.

Sometimes you do want to market features.

8. Leverage value metrics in pricing

Most companies justify higher pricing with additional features. It’s a very bad habit.

Because you’re not here to deliver features (← take this with a grain of salt, once again), you’re here to deliver value.

How to measure value? With benefit-driven metrics.

9. Find your ideal customer profile

There’s something you MUST know about your business: its ICP.

What's that? People your product benefits the most to w.r.t your VALUE metric.

Yet another argument to choose it wisely, otherwise, you’ll optimise for the wrong users.

10. How to get the most from what you already have

That’s a great mantra that people are too quick to forget.

They’ll frenetically optimise for acquisition rather than retention/revenue, even if the latter is more impactful by several orders of magnitude.

11. Build momentum

Whenever you’re launching new initiatives and need to get people onboard (yourself included) prioritize quick experiments.

Once you reached stationary mode, use the ICE framework. Even better, use this template of mine 🌝 

12. Words matter

Despite my short professional experience, there’s one thing I’m sure of: words matter.

Most people use them interchangeably, which sparks confusion.

We don’t like confusion 🌝

So listen to Wes and make sure everyone’s aligned.