Product Collective - ⚠ Product Led Growth - the wrong way

Common Pitfalls of Product Led Growth

Product-led growth can be a brilliant strategy for your organization, or it can cause more problems than it’s worth. It all depends on your company’s current situation. Here are some perspectives on when product-led growth may not be the right strategy for your company and some general growth challenges to watch out for.

7 business growth challenges to anticipate and overcome. Achieving consistent, sustainable growth is likely to be a fundamental goal for your business. Expansion can lead to many exciting opportunities for your company and new experiences for your employees. But it’s important to be prepared for the obstacles that might arise on the path to long-term success. From managing uncertainty to maintaining efficiency in an increasingly complex organization, Hung Le describes some challenges your business could encounter as it grows, and some tips to overcome them.

(via Sage)

Not all B2B companies should do product-led growth. Product-led growth is a great strategy, but it’s not a magic wand. In fact, if you implement product-led growth (PLG) when your organization isn’t ready, you risk doing more harm than good. Elena Verna describes four scenarios where you need to prioritize other work before you can start a PLG motion.

(via Amplitude)

Continues below...

New York Product Conference

Hey there, peasants and lords of the internet! Back in November, Elon Musk tweeted about Twitter's new "Lord and Peasant" model. Effective yesterday, if you want a blue checkmark on your Twitter profile, you'll have to cough up $8 a month. It doesn’t matter if you’re a politician, celebrity, or journalist. You’ll have to pay up. (Well, unless you’re LeBron James, Stephen King, and William Shatner, I guess). 

So move over, feudal lords - it's Twitter's turn to play the Game of Thrones.

As Product Managers, we're always looking for ways to make a buck. But, there is a larger debate here about whether or not it's fair to charge for something that was once free. On one hand, Twitter needs to make money somehow. It’s pretty well known that they’ve been bleeding cash both before and after Musk took the helm. On the other hand, this move is certainly going to create even more of a divide in the Twitterverse. Some even are saying it could be the start of the demise of Twitter. While I’m not so sure that’s true just yet, I’m also not personally paying for the privilege to have the blue checkmark next to my name unless I see other real benefits added to the program.

At the end of the day, product managers need to strike a balance between revenue and inclusivity. Maybe Twitter could find a way to offer premium features without creating such a clear divide. Or maybe we'll all just have to accept that we're either peasants or lords and move on with our lives. We’ll just have to see. 

For more on all of this, check out Rocketship.FM’s latest episode on the Elon Musk brand of Twitter – was released, appropriately, yesterday… on April 20th. You’re welcome, Elon.

Why rapid growth for a start-up isn’t always good. For a SaaS start-up, experiencing rapid growth can seem like the perfect outcome for hungry and impatient software entrepreneurs. But there are risks associated with growing too quickly. With growing too fast just as damaging as not growing at all, it’s vital that founders stay grounded, aware, and open-minded to pivots as their company expands. Yoda Yee explains the pitfalls to rapid growth to look out for.

(via Fast Company)

Avoiding pitfalls and embracing enterprise growth. At a certain point, any successful product-led growth (PLG) business will need to embrace the enterprise. Eventually, breaking into the larger market by selling to organizations instead of individuals becomes the next goal. However, changing over from a self-service model to a sales-led model can bring down your business entirely if you’re not careful with how you manage it. To make matters more difficult, the strategies that brought you success so far could hurt you in the long run as you expand to this new market. Annie Pearl, the Chief Product Officer at Calendly sat down with Blake Bartlett on the BUILD podcast to discuss the reasons embracing the enterprise is inevitable, what to watch out for when transitioning, and discussed strategies to help successfully navigate this new sales world.

(via Annie Pearl)

Most product-led growth transitions fail. Here’s how to fix them. A successful transition to product-led growth requires a complete reorganization of priorities within every team in the business — a process that doesn’t magically happen when you add on a free trial. Wes Bush learned this the hard way when he was a growth marketer at Vidyard. Wanting to boost leads and scale the product as fast as possible, Vidyard added a free trial option, but changed nothing else. It bombed. Wes shares how he discovered what Vidyard did wrong and how he learned the number one reason most product-led transitions fail.

(Via ProductLed)

Love the Problem with Ash Maurya - Founder of LEANSTACK