👋 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 ❤️

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Into the Twitterverse 🐦🌌

• Top of the Lyne and the Return of the Power Law… Part 2 😅

  It’s back! The Power Law is back 🙈 We spoke about it here, here, here, and let’s not forget here. I’m obsessed. But can you blame me - spend enough time in VC and you’d obsess over “the” Law too!

  But why is it so addictive? Well, it’s TRUE. Here’s a brilliant tweet from Mathilde that shows how the power law drives all outcomes in the world of SaaS.

  Just 4% of SaaS companies reach $1M in ARR. Only 0.4% make it to $10m and 0.0X% make it to $50M.

  The global ~$200B SaaS market is basically driven by the top 0.00X% of companies who gave it a shot 🤯

  @Team Toplyne - the objective is clear. We’ve got to be the 0.00X% of folks who ever did it 😎

Mathilde Collin @collinmathilde

Just 4% of SaaS companies reach $1M in revenue, only .4% make it to $10M, and 0.0X% to $50M 😳

December 7th 2021

230 Retweets1,998 Likes

• Is PLG the end of sales? 🤭

  Far from it! In fact, the best PLG companies have some of the best and most elaborate sales teams and processes. Figma, Calendly, Hopin, Shopify, you name it! We wrote about Figma’s sales process below 👇🏻

  Top of the Lyne

  How Figma built a $10B GTM engine 🎨

  Design meets Browser 🎨…

  Read more

  5 months ago · Arjun Rakesh

  Check out Brendan’s insightful tweet about how the best sales-led companies are taking a hit of PLG 😅 and the best PLG companies are latching on good ol’ sales 💰

  Brendan 🌊 @brendanjshort

  Sales-led companies are adding PLG, and PLG companies are adding sales teams. You would never ask: "should we do sales *or* marketing?" *Both* should exist. Sales 🤝 marketing. Same with sales and PLG. The answer is not either/or, it's both. Sales 🤝 PLG.

  December 2nd 2021

  6 Likes

• What is PLG?

  Just SaaS? Naah…

  SaaS + consumer apps like Calm? Naahh… think bigger!

  PLG can go as far as selling your latest book. Just ask Andrew Chen. Here’s a free trial on his blog 😉

  Does it work? Ask our office… half of them bought the book after our growth manager plugged the free chapter link on our Slack 😅

Andrew 🇺🇸 @andrewchen

Today is a big day After 3 years of research, interviews, and writing, MY FIRST BOOK IS OUT!!! At midnight, I obsessively hit refresh on my Kindle and Audible until - it felt like magic - it appeared. I hit play on the audiobook, and it was a “holy shit” moment Here’s the pic

December 7th 2021

78 Retweets1,448 Likes

• Loom. Zoom. Room. 🚀

  …and Boom! Sending a deck is soooo 2020 🙄 The high stakes game of impressing investors no longer starts on Zoom in 2021, but rather on Loom! Here’s Garry Tan’s take on why… 👇🏻

garrytan.eth 陈嘉兴 🥑🌐🦇🔊🍌🔺(∞, ∞) @garrytan

"[Sending a deck] is like sending someone a song and some of the tracks of music are missing. Any slide that you put together is meant to be accompanied by your voice track. And so if you’re sending slides without that, it’s a terrible way to convey information."

Protocol @protocol

During the pandemic, VCs have embraced Loom videos as a way to get an overview of a startup or its product before even committing to a “get-to-know-you” meeting over Zoom. It even has its own catchphrase: “Loom, Zoom, Room.” https://t.co/laFr3YGpxG

December 6th 2021

8 Retweets61 Likes

🔎 The PLG hunt

• The Time-traveller’s Debugger: Replay.io

  Replay is a tool that helps developers ⏮ play back and ⏺ record websites down to lines of code. The app records the entire state of an application and lets developers inspect state by travelling back and forth in time to understand code interactions better.

  Over a decade, Brian Hackett and Jason Laster have built something that even the big boys at Apple and Microsoft have been trying to develop for years.

  a16z @a16z

  We’re excited to announce an investment in @replayio, which provides developers with a dramatically better debugging experience using familiar browser tools. a16z general partner Peter Levine has more on partnering with the Replay team on this journey 👇 a16z.com/2021/09/15/inv…Investing in Replay | Andreessen Horowitz“The most magical experience,” “a true game-changer” — not exactly the sentiments you expect to unanimously hear from developers, famously selective and opinionated about their tools. But we heard this over and over again when talking with devs about Replay…a16z.com

  September 15th 2021

  12 Retweets54 Likes

  They raised $5.7M in seed funding from a16z earlier this year, and are hiring aggressively.

  Replay is really best described as “magic.” The tool attempts to make debugging more visual, exploratory, and fun.

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

Leave a comment

Growth Stories 🚀

Overheard here at Toplyne HQ the other day:

“After mmhmm, let’s write Clockwise”

We’re big fans of Clockwise, a browser extension that tucks away uninterrupted hours, sets up focus-time blocks, reschedules conflicts, and intelligently manages your time. In the year that followed their series A, Clockwise’s landed and expanded at companies like Slack, Spotify, Twitter, Etsy, and Pinterest and grew at a blazing pace of over 5% week over week.

Their Sales and Marketing budget at the time? $0

We covered the Clockwise story in detail here this week 👇

Top of the Lyne

Growing 5x in one year with $0 spent: A Clockwise masterclass

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again In the fifty or so years that have followed the release of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, the average amount of time spent by an executive in meetings has roughly doubled to a stunning…

Read more

2 days ago · 5 likes · Rahul Krishnan, Ruchin Kulkarni, and Arjun Rakesh

Here’s a growth story in just numbers:

Paid subscribers in Dec 2020: ~250,000

Paid subscribers in Feb 2021: 500,000+

We’re talking about Substack, of course. Substack’s growing user base is symptomatic of a larger shift of power from legacy media corporations to the individual creator. From r/wallstreetbets to Joe Rogan and Salman Rushdie, we cover some ground in the latest podcast.

🎙 Tune in!

An ode to Substack By Top of the Lyne Podcast episode

Fundraising, Venture Capital and Exits 🤑

• Opensource is a terrible bus…. erhmm… nevermind 😬

  Look out for “HCP” on NASDAQ. Cloud software vendor HashiCorp’s IPO values the company at $14B, becoming one of the highest valued open-source tech companies.

TechCrunch @TechCrunch

HashiCorp's IPO will place it among the most richly valued open source tech companies tcrn.ch/3DkSZRf by @alexHashiCorp’s IPO will place it among the most richly valued open source tech companies – TechCrunchYou can argue that HashiCorp deserves its 44x revenue run rate multiple, if you’d like. It wouldn’t be impossible to make an argument that it’s a bit rich, but this is 2021 and no one is doing that.tcrn.ch

November 30th 2021

7 Retweets16 Likes

• Did someone say easier app development? Sign us up!

  Started by two former Shopify employees, Gadget is a set of advanced building blocks designed to simplify app development. They just raised seed funding of $8.5M from Sequoia Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.

TechCrunch @TechCrunch

Developer productivity startup Gadget raises $8.5M led by Sequoia and Bessemer tcrn.ch/3DzCr7R by @AiishaMalik1Developer productivity startup Gadget raises $8.5M led by Sequoia and Bessemer – TechCrunchOttawa-based Gadget, a developer productivity company founded by two former Shopify employees, has raised $8.5 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by Sequoia Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Greg Brockman, the co-founder and CTO of OpenAI, Koen Koppen, th…tcrn.ch

December 8th 2021

8 Retweets18 Likes

• 4x YoY growth 🤤

  CEO Sid Yadav describes Circle as a “Shopify for creator and brand-led communities.” Over the last year, Circle has grown from $1M to $4M in ARR while almost tripling headcount to ~40.

Sid Yadav @sidyadav

I'm thrilled excited to announce that @circleapp has raised a $24.7m Series A led by Tiger Global at a $200m valuation! This round will help us become the defacto all-in-one community platform for all creators and brands next year. Here's the plan ⬇ Circle comes around again with fresh capital, led by Tiger Global, for $200M valuation – TechCrunchThe company was founded in January 2020 to make engaging with paying customers and thus building creator businesses as effortless as possible.techcrunch.com

December 7th 2021

35 Retweets520 Likes

• Video killed the radio star… and now it’s coming for the others

  Picsart’s acquisition of DeepCraft reflects the recent growth of video creation on its service.

TechCrunch @TechCrunch

Picsart acquires R&D company DeepCraft in seven-figure deal to aid video push tcrn.ch/3DbHR9b by @sarahintampaPicsart acquires R&D company DeepCraft in seven-figure deal to aid video push – TechCrunchSoftBank-based digital creation platform Picsart, which recently hit uniciorn status, announced today it’s acquiring the research and development company DeepCraft. The deal is a combination of both cash and stock and is in the seven-figure range, but the exact terms aren’t being disclosed. Picsart …tcrn.ch

December 2nd 2021

20 Retweets39 Likes

Launches, events, and releases 🎊

• In democracy we trust! 💪🏻

  Calendly launched their newest, shiniest feature this week. Meeting Polls allow attendees to vote for their preferred time slots.

Calendly @Calendly

Polling + Scheduling: Together at last. ✨ We’re thrilled to announce that Meeting Polls are now available on all Calendly plans! Simply offer times from your calendar for people to vote on and book the most popular time 📊🤝 bit.ly/3cZcNyvIntroducing Meeting Polls: Now it’s even easier for everyone to find time together! | CalendlyMeeting Polls make it easy to schedule meetings with multiple people. Vote on preferred times and book the actual meeting, all within Calendly.bit.ly

December 2nd 2021

5 Likes

Live reaction from Calendly users everywhere:

Nerding out on PLG 🤓📚

Current VP of Sales at Figma, Kyle Parrish spent over five years at the OG of PLG: Dropbox.

In this podcast, Kyle breaks down his entry into the world of Sales, how to create the sales playbook, non-obvious traits to look for in Sales hires, and more.

20 Sales: When To Hire Your Head of Sales/ First Reps, What To Look for in 10x Sales Candidates, How To Structure The Hiring Process, How To Onboard New Reps Efficiently, How To Set First Quotas and more with Kyle Parrish, Figma's VP Sales By Harry Stebbings | Entrepreneur | Investor | Blogger Podcast episode

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