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How to Drive B2B Product Growth

I recently had the pleasure of joining Aakash Gupta on the Product Growth Podcast, and we had a fantastic conversation diving deep into the world of Product-Led Growth and Product-Led Sales.

It’s a meaty 1h51m, and we covered a ton of ground.

I’d love for you to watch/listen, but if you're short on time, I've distilled some of the key takeaways and insights from our discussion below.

In a nutshell, here's what we covered:

• The misconception of PLG being solely about self-serve.

• Why every company will eventually need to be product-led.

• The importance of simplifying B2B products.

• The critical role of trustworthy data in PLG.

• The value of a well-defined growth model.

• Why product-led sales (PLS) is gaining traction.

• The ideal way for product and sales teams to collaborate.

• Using engagement states to understand user behaviour.

• The power of combining qualitative and quantitative growth models.

And here are 6 BIG ideas we explored during the interview:

1. The Over-Engineering Epidemic in B2B Products

One of my hot takes, as Aakash put it, is that many B2B products are over-engineered. This often stems from a disconnect between how product teams are incentivised and the ultimate goal of creating user-friendly, efficient software.

We tend to reward teams for shipping new features, often neglecting the equally important work of simplifying existing ones or even removing those that no longer serve our core purpose.

This complexity does more than just clutter the user experience. It diverts valuable engineering resources, makes messaging less clear, and can ultimately hinder growth.

The solution?

We need to shift our focus from merely shipping to monitoring and understanding the success of what we ship.

This includes regularly assessing the product landscape and making tough decisions about what to sunset.

I’m a firm believer that a winning strategy is not just about knowing what to do, but also being explicit in what not to do.

It’s rarely done, but having “sunsetting” as an explicit part of the product process is a great way to do this.

2. Product-Led is the Future - In Some Shape or Form

I firmly believe that every company, in some capacity, will need to become product-led.

It’s not a binary choice between product-led and sales-led. R

ather, it’s about finding the right blend of motions for your business.

Product-led doesn’t always mean having a free trial or a purely self-serve model.

It’s about leveraging your product to drive acquisition, retention, and monetisation in the most efficient and user-centric way possible.

Even companies with a strong enterprise sales motion can (and should) adopt product-led principles to enhance user experience and streamline their sales process.

If you aren’t considering this today you are at severe risk of being disrupted by new entrants into your market.

3. The Nuances of Product-Led Sales (PLS)

A common misconception is that PLS is only about converting free users to paid customers.

While that's part of it, PLS also plays a crucial role in expanding existing customer relationships and preventing churn.

By monitoring product usage and identifying key signals, sales teams can proactively address customer needs and unlock new growth opportunities.

But Product-Led Sales is not about blasting every free user with sales outreach.

Understand who is getting value from your product and determine when is the right time to engage them in a sales conversation.

Inform the sales narrative with that usage data.

4. Building a Growth Model and Understanding How You Grow

A growth model is a crucial tool for any PLG company.

It's a way of documenting and quantifying how your product and business grow.

It helps you understand the key levers, constraints, and opportunities for growth.

During the interview, I emphasised that you shouldn't just build a growth model and forget about it.

It needs to be a living document that's regularly updated based on new data and insights.

It should be a collaborative effort, involving not just the growth team but also stakeholders from across the company.

At Snyk, we used our growth model to identify areas where we could improve.

For example, at one point it told us that acquisition wasn't our biggest constraint, so we shifted resources to focus more on activation and engagement.

We also used the growth model to align different teams, such as marketing and product, around common goals.

For instance, by analysing cohort data, we could pinpoint which acquisition channels were driving the most valuable users, helping marketing optimise their efforts.

Having a well-defined and actively used growth model is critical because it acts as a shared language and framework for the entire company to understand how the business grows.

This shared understanding allows for better alignment, prioritization, and ultimately, more sustainable growth.

Without it, it’s just too easy to work in silos, chase low impact initiatives, and miss opportunities for compounding growth.

5. The Power of Engagement States

Engagement isn't binary; it's a spectrum.

Defining engagement states allows you to segment your users based on their level of product usage and tailor your strategies accordingly.

This is far more actionable than simply looking at active vs. inactive users.

At Snyk, we used engagement states to identify users who were at risk of churning and those who were ready for expansion.

By understanding these nuances, we could intervene at the right time with the right message, ultimately improving both retention and monetisation.

And creating a shared language across product, growth, and customer success teams that could be used to describe and discuss this was very powerful.

6. Landing Your Dream Product/Growth Role

During our chat, I shared my experience landing my role at Snyk.

It wasn't a traditional job search; it was a two-way conversation about mutual fit.

I wasn’t just selling myself to the company. I was also evaluating whether they were right for me.

Here are some key points I emphasised for those seeking a great role in product and growth:

• Be Intentional: Know what you want, what conditions you thrive in, and the types of challenges that motivate you. Then you’re better able to choose roles that will serve that, and you’ll more confidently turn away opportunities that do not.

• Focus on Mutual Fit: Approach interviews as opportunities for two-way conversations. Use your questions to understand what success looks like at the company, and make sure that’s aligned with the type of work that motivates you.

• Engage With the Community: Reach out to leaders you admire, attend industry events, and actively participate in relevant online communities. It’s a much better way to grow your network than passively applying to job postings that everyone else is seeing.

• Demonstrate Your Expertise: I recommended showing, not just telling. Instead of just talking about your experience, show some tangible evidence of your thinking and expertise, such as a teardown of a product you admire. Also, look for opportunities to give before you seek. Start by solving or providing valuable insight to someone, rather than going straight for the ‘ask’.

Thanks to Aakash for having me on the show and for the cool infographic below:

Wrapping Up

This conversation with Aakash only scratched the surface of what we could discuss around PLG.

But I hope these insights give you some food for thought as you think about building and scaling your own product-led business.

I’d love to hear what you think about the episode - drop me a line - leave a reply to this email or send me a note at [email protected]

Until next time!

Ben

To watch/listen to the full episode, use the links below:

YouTube:

Spotify:

Apple:

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That’s all for today,

If there are any product, growth or leadership topics that you’d like me to write about, just hit reply to this email or leave a comment and let me know!

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Until next time!

— Ben