Time = flat circle

The latest from the PLG world - and why your déjà vu probably isn't misplaced

Gayatri Gaidhani, Aishwarya G, and Ruchin Kulkarni

Sep 29

👋 Hey, Ruchin here! Welcome to this week’s edition of the ✨Top of the Lyne✨ newsletter. Each week we publish the hottest news from the beautiful world of product-led growth! (PLG)

The outcome we're shooting for is simple... to get enough folks excited about the product-led world that we so dearly love ❤️

Take Toplyne for a spin!🎯

Into the Twitterverse 🐦🌌

Time = flat circle. ⃝
Only the 1850s kids will remember the “Is photography art?” debate 🤠
If they were around now, they’d be shaking their heads at history repeating itself in cunning disguise.

Kim-Mai Cutler @kimmaicutler

I don’t think it’s even a debate. We had this argument about photography 150+ years ago. Paintings became more abstract, more and more complex tools flooded society with imagery and birthed new industries. (Come yell at me, art historians.) https://t.co/9dvROWImys

Suhail @Suhail

The main thing I've learned from the is "AI art, art?" debate is that there's a relatively medium-sized market for artisan, hand-crafted goods still. Probably shrinking though.

Over the last few weeks and months, we’ve seen AI-generated art level up consistently and significantly. It really does feel like we’re on the precipice of a seismic shift.

Like this for example. Sure, flying cars would have been great, but Runway comes pretty damn close:

Runway @runwayml

Make any idea real. Just write it. Text to video, coming soon to Runway. Sign up for early access: runwayml.com

Substack’s got your back ✅
Substack knows how to take care of their users. 🥰 After knocking it out of the park with recommendations - which is now the largest driver of growth even for us - there are two more big moves being made soon:
- They just acquired Yem, a startup that helps newsletters grow their userbase with personalized messaging
- Substack “boosts” are timed interventions - discounts, offers, etc. - that prompt free-to-paid conversions on publications.
  Use-case sound familiar?😉

Substack @SubstackInc

On top of this existing network effect, we’ll be driving further growth through an ever-improving list of features.

🔎 The PLG hunt

Deploy code in ~~hours,~~ minutes ft. Zeet⚡

Zeet provides you with the best DevOps setup by supercharging your cloud provider. Focus on shipping products while Zeet takes care of your deployment needs.

Built by developers for developers!🤝

Zeet @Zeet_Co

Today we're excited to announce that we've raised $4.3m in Seed funding led by @sequoia, with participation from angels @amasad @stopman & other eng leaders We're here to make cloud infrastructure easier for everyone, and we're just getting started

DevOps Automation Platform Zeet Raises $4.3 MillionZeet, which bills itself as an “integrated DevOps and deployment platform for software developers” has raised $4.3 million in a seed round lead by Sequoia Capital.forbes.com

Which hot and upcoming PLG company are you most excited about? 👇🏻

Growth Stories 🚀

Heyo, Tray.io👋

Tray empowers non-technical folks to automate their workflows with its low code and user-friendly platform! The takers? Teams across IBM Cloud, Cisco, Vox Media, Lyft, Mixpanel, and Forbes, and a customer base increasing by 400% each year.✨

We connect all the dots that led to the rise and rise of this $600M rocketship!🚀

Top of the Lyne

Heyo, Tray.io!

Do you want more of these deep dives in your inbox? Go on, hit it 👇🏼 Think of something, and the ancient Greeks probably thought of it first. Democracy, geometry, airplanes, alarm clocks. Even cement! They even vaguely thought of the idea of automation first…

Nerding out on PLG 🤓📚

“Product-led” is very much here to stay. Moving beyond Dev tools, the model is increasingly adopted by software across the board.

Making a strong argument for how the PLG motion needs to take on a hybrid product-led sales assist motion, is Bessemer Venture Partners.

In this article, the team at BV Partners makes a strong case for purpose-built GTM tooling for the hybrid motion, with a mention of, you-guessed-it, Toplyne.io 😏