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đ From Sales-Led to PLG: 5 Key Lessons From Navattic's GTM Evolution
Ben Williams
December 10th, 2024
Welcome folks! đ
This special edition of The Product-Led Geek is authored by Raman Khanna and Natalie Marcotullio @ Navattic, as usual with my commentary throughout. Itâll take you 8 minutes to read and youâll learn:
How Navattic planned and successfully transitioned from sales-led to product-led
Discover the practical steps for aligning sales and marketing teams during a PLG transition without sacrificing existing revenue streams.
Understand why freemium vs. trial was the right choice for Navattic's specific growth loop and customer journey needs.
Letâs go!
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GEEK LINKS
Here are 3 of my favourite pieces of content from this week
GEEK OUT
From Sales-Led to PLG: 5 Key Lessons From Navattic's GTM Evolution
At Navattic we were a sales-led company for 3 years.
A few months ago, we launched a free plan.
When we decided to embrace product-led growth a lot of things had to change.
Our marketing / growth team had to step up in ways it hadnât before, and the relationship between marketing and sales had to evolve fast.
For some quick context:
Navattic helps marketing and sales teams create interactive product demos. Many customers use interactive guided demos on their marketing site (Ramp, Fivetran, Vitally) and as a follow-up asset in the sales process.
We had a sales-led motion with $500/month and $1k/month plan offerings. We recently launched a free plan.
Hereâs what we learned during that shift and how weâre still figuring it out.
Why we made the switch
We noticed that more and more prospects wanted to try the product before committing. With smaller marketing budgets, it wasnât enough to see a demo, they needed to be hands-on in order to sell it internally.
We realized freemium was the answer. It would lower the barrier to entry and allow users to experience Navatticâs value firsthand.
But launching freemium meant a fundamental shift in how we operated. Sales wouldnât own the entire user journey anymore and marketing / growth would have to own awareness, acquisition, and also early product activation.
Geek Note: I asked Raman and Natalie to share some of the thinking behind the decision to go with a freemium model vs a trial.
They shared that it took them a while to figure it out, but a few points really supported the freemium path:
1. Freemium would allow users to build and share demos without the pressure of a ticking clock.
2. Freemium would allow Navattic to expand their user base, which they knew would supercharge their most powerful growth loop (the more people seeing "Powered by Navattic", the better) and they would also get valuable data to improve the overall product experience.
This highlights the importance of packaging in supporting growth - PLG is not just about direct user/account monetisation. You have to consider how the model supports indirect monetisation, just like the âPowered by Navatticâ loop here.
Something Iâd suggest Navattic might look into in the future is a reverse trial with usage limits. That would avoid time constraints and more naturally support evaluating orgs of different sizes, while not forgoing the conversion lever benefit that a trial has.
Start by acknowledging the tension and aligning on the main goal
When we first floated the idea of PLG, it took some convincing. Sales was worried about cannibalization and especially worried that freemium leads replace demo requests.
These were valid concerns, and we didnât have all the answers at first.
But we were aligned on the bigger picture which was to use PLG to expand the funnel and reduce friction to getting started.
Geek note: Iâm always curious about the cultural aspects in these situations (as theyâre often what derails these go-to-market motion changes) so I asked Raman how they overcame these early sales team concerns before even getting started.
Raman: Sales definitely had those two concerns (cannibalization / worried that freemium leads replace demo requests). CS was worried about downgrades.
To take an incremental step in the direction, we first got buy-in around a $50 / month plan. It seemed like a good compromise (aka a lower barrier to entry without fully committing to freemium).
Once we improved onboarding, activation, and conversion with the $50 / month plan the team got comfortable taking the next step toward freemium
It also helped that we launched freemium over a period of several weeks in a phased way - starting with just 5% of traffic seeing the experience (called it âturning the dialâ to more traffic).
That meant that
1. Sales could use that time to adapt + start creating a new playbook
2. We could make adjustments in-product to activation based on where freemium users were getting stuck, and
3. It helped confirm to the GTM team that there would be limited impact to ARR cannibalization and downgrades.
And we could do all this before 100% of the site saw traffic + before we did any public promotion.
Key Takeaway 1: Over-communicate and iterate
Weekly standups between marketing and sales became - and still are - the norm.
We share the data we were seeing, what is working / what isnât, and make quick adjustments.
In the early days of the shift to PLG Sales needed visibility into what growth was doing - everything from in-app email campaigns to our promotion plans.
And marketing needed feedback from sales on the quality and journey of the product qualified leads (PQLs) they were getting.
This constant iteration wasnât just about fixing problems.
It helped us build trust.
Sales knew marketing wasnât just walking away after launching the free plan.
We were just as invested in the results.
Geek note: While the sales/marketing alignment is the focus here, the Navattic product team werenât left out.
Theyâd have weekly syncs involving the product team where theyâd discuss progress, problem areas, and data - aka where they saw users are getting stuck, ideas from user interviews, and anything else of relevance in the PostHog recordings or funnel drop-off.
From there theyâd brainstorm together and sketch out what solutions might look like before committing to work on a few things.
This structure took the team some time to figure out but now helps them move really fast on making improvements to activation.
Key Takeaway 2: Make it easy for the sales team to share feedback
We had a lot of âfiguring it out as you goâ moments when setting up this motion. It helped to have an open line of communication with the sales team.
We got direct feedback on positive things they were hearing from free users on calls
We mapped the entire free user journey, detailing lead routing to sales, PQL definitions, automated email touchpoints, and systems involved. Sales was actively involved and provided valuable feedback to refine the journey.
Geek note: Raman shared with me that they focused on PQLs to get started quickly, but are already thinking about evolving to a PQA based model.
Sales flagged to us where in the product their PQLs getting stuck and why they werenât activating, so we could prioritize where to make product improvements.
This feedback helped us build a process that the sales team was excited about. It also set-up a direct line to real user pain points and wins, letting us tap into some great insights on where to improve the product.
Key Takeaway 3: Supporting sales in a PLG transition
Freemium brought in a lot of PQLs. Maybe obvious - but our team quickly learned that selling to PQLs is quite different than the way we had been doing things.
Many of these users werenât interested in a conversation initiallyâthey wanted to explore the product independently.
To help sales adapt, we used those weekly meetings to think through PQL outreach and messaging experiments - focusing on how to engage these users without being overly pushy.
Additionally, we created alerts in Koala so that the sales team was notified when a freemium user hit a key milestone like publishing an interactive demo. Sales would get an instant alert and it would be prioritized on their list of accounts.
This let reps focus their time on the most promising leads and reach out at the right moment.
Geek note: I asked Natalie and Raman about how the sales team approach changed with this new motion
Natalie: Initially, the adjustment was challenging. Many PQLs were exploring the product independently and werenât necessarily looking for a sales conversation. The sweet spot for our sales team was adopting a more consultative approach. They leaned into helping PQLs reach activation and sometimes acting like a support lead rather than a salesperson (guiding them through roadblocks, providing resources, etc)
Our sales team has really leaned into this once it started working - they even independently organised a webinar series for free plan users to help get them activated.
They havenât changed their titles, but the sales team focusing on providing value and answering questions has been what has been most effective in getting free accounts to engage. They build trust with the value they provide.
Key Takeaway 4: Celebrate small wins
One of the toughest parts of the shift was adjusting our expectations. Freemium leads didnât convert overnight. The sales cycle stretched out as users explored the product at their own pace.
To keep the team motivated, we focused on celebrating small wins. We had alerts in Slack to see which new users had launched demos. Even if those users werenât ready to upgrade yet, it was a sign that freemium was working and that people were engaging with the product.
We also shared positive feedback from users on LinkedIn. Seeing comments like âIâve been wanting to try Navattic, and now I canâ was energizing. It reminded the team that we were building something valuable, even if the results werenât immediate.
Key Lesson 5: Transparency builds trust
We made sure to share data regularly and started to compare our metrics to industry benchmarks. We also regularly showed how the product was evolving. This transparency kept everyone aligned and motivated.
Here is an example of a slide we showed during team meetings where we would share what the funnel metrics looked like - we learned to contextualize this with what benchmarks for âgoodâ were so that they team was motivated:
Sales reps knew their feedback was shaping the product. And on the marketing side we felt validated in our efforts to drive user acquisition, activation and upgrade.
The main takeaway
For any company considering PLG, our advice is to embrace the mess. You wonât get everything right on day one, and thatâs okay.
What matters is your willingness to learn, adapt, and keep moving forward with your sales team as partners rather than adversaries.
Geek note: Raman also shared that while Navattic still have an outbound motion, they have seen that often folks who donât respond to outbound will end up taking a self-serve path - they get to engage with the product on their terms with an ultimately smoother path to conversion. đȘ
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Not spending a ton of money on paid search ads anymore.
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Nowadays, 85% of our free trials come from organic channel and we experiment small budget on remarketing ads instead.
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â Ben
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