Hey folks! 👋

Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition of the Product-Led Geek:

• Why it’s important to question conventional PLG wisdom

• 8 pieces of PLG folklore you might be better off ignoring

• The one thing that remains good advice regardless of go-to-market motion

Shortcuts:

GEEK LINKS | GEEK OUT | GEEK OF THE WEEK

Total reading time: 5 minutes

Let’s go!

TOGETHER WITH DOVETAIL

Dovetail’s biggest launch is coming in October - and you’re invited!

Get ready for the next generation of customer insights. Dovetail is launching tons of new features and THREE new products that each leverage AI to its cutting-edge capacity. To celebrate this momentous milestone, you’re invited to:

• Exclusive in-person and online launch events

• Sneak peeks and early access to the new products

• Q&As with our product team and founder

Plus special promotions and premium content. If you want to know what the future of AI-powered customer insights looks like - sign up to our waitlist and we’ll keep you in the loop for our events and more!

Please support our sponsors!

GEEK LINKS

5 bookmark-worthy links:

• How to be strategic

• How Perplexity's growth is changing search habits

• Programmatic vs Editorial SEO - Why you need both

• 150+ Questions to Assess the Health of your SaaS product

• Planning for 2025: How to Create, and Communicate Your Startup's Plan

Also sharing a new product that has actually changed how I interact with my Mac for a ton of use cases. It’s called Wispr Flow and I’m a huge fan. I have no vested interest other than hoping the product is a commercial success so that I can continue to use it for years to come.

GEEK OUT

Is PLG Folklore Holding You Back?

The siren song of Product-Led Growth is alluring: build a product users love, and they'll reward you with growth.

Sounds straightforward, right?

But what if some of the most cherished PLG beliefs are actually myths?

Myths that when religiously adhered too (as I unfortunately see too often) will stunt your growth, not drive it.

You see, sometimes, the most effective PLG strategies feel downright counterintuitive.

Even bordering on "bad" by conventional standards.

The best thing you can do is be a skeptic.

PLG folklore is rife, and what works in someone else’s context might be disastrous in yours.

So with that in mind, here are a few common pieces of PLG folklore that are often banded about, and too often blindly followed.

1. Eliminate Friction At All Costs.

What if strategic friction, carefully woven into the user journey, actually deepens engagement and boosts long-term retention?

At 95% of the products I’ve worked on that’s been the case.

I’ve seen countless experiments to remove friction surprise and flummox product and growth teams when the impact on key metrics like activation hasn’t materialised.

The most positive friction creates a deeper relationship between you/the product and your users.

They get to know your product better, and you get to know them better.

And when you know them better you can tailor their entire journey (in and out of product) to more effectively help them get the thing they’re hiring you to do, done.

2. Zero-Touch Everything

While automating user onboarding for scale is essential, it’s easy to overlook the power of a well-placed human touchpoint.

A personalised onboarding call for a high-value user/account or proactive support during a crucial 'aha' moment can make all the difference.

Thinking that leaning into human assist is a no-no just because ‘we’re PLG’ is just wrong.

Good PLG finds the balance between automated efficiency and human connection.

Think about Superhuman for a moment.

They’re all in on PLG.

But do you know what enabled them to do it so well?

5 years of white glove human onboarding.

That sounds mental when you hear it first - but they now have a level of customer intimacy that is incredibly valuable, and extremely hard to catch up with.

3. Sales Is A Dirty Word

PLG often positions itself as the antithesis of traditional sales.

Yet, the most successful PLG companies leverage their product usage data as a superpower for their sales teams.

Here’s the truth, like it or not.

You cannot scale beyond a certain point without integrating a sales motion.

I don’t mean slapping on an enterprise sales team cold calling all your new signups.

We all know how that’s going to end up.

But layering on a product-led sales process is an eventuality that every PLG founder should prepare for and embrace.

Just do it the right way.

4. Follow The Voice Of The User

The pressure to be all things to all users is real.

But constantly chasing feature requests and trying to please everyone can dilute your product's core value proposition, and equally negatively dilute your focus.

This problem can become pernicious when you have strong top of funnel with a product that technically can support a wide variety of use cases, i.e. it’s horizontal-capable - even if not marketed as such.

Just ask the good folks at Equals about their experience when they introduced a free plan.

When I chatted with Bobby Pinero (CEO, Equals) last, he shared that the move to introduce a freemium GTM had one huge negative impact for them - it distracted them from serving their ICP and core use cases.

Good PLG means saying "no" to the vocal minority to protect the experience for your ideal user.

Sometimes - as was the case with Equals - that might even mean turning off the taps on your product-led acquisition engine.

5. Go Viral!

Viral growth is the holy grail of PLG.

But you can’t force virality.

It can only work in a context where there are natural environmental and situational foundations - most fundamentally where value for any one user/team increases as other users join the product.

There are several drivers for that, but they’re beyond the scope of this post.

Suffice to say, where they exist you can lean into them and build self-reinforcing loops to drive acquisition.

Where they don’t exist is where you’ll see the gimmicks come out.

But try to apply gamified incentives and intrusive referral programs in incompatible contexts will at best be a waste of effort, and more commonly damage your relationship with your users.

Not just that though.

Get the incentives misaligned and you’ll attract a shallow pool of low-value users.

Regardless of whether your product plays in a space where network effects are viable, there’s one thing that holds true as universally good advice:

Focus on building a product so inherently valuable that users become organic advocates.

No gimmicks needed.

6. Rush-To-Value

We're obsessed with getting users to value - fast.

But could a longer, more deliberately paced journey to that "aha!" moment create a deeper sense of investment?

And an enhanced understanding of the product that makes habit formation stronger?

I argued that in complex products that’s exactly the case in last weeks post:

The key is to rightsize your onboarding and activation flows.

That’s the way that you’ll create the biggest impact on long term retention and monetisation.

7. Paid Channels Are Bad

Organic growth is the dream, but who says you can't give it a little push?

Strategic paid acquisition can rapidly validate markets, attract ideal users, and jumpstart those coveted network effects, fuelling sustainable PLG in the long run.

Yes, over-reliance on paid channels is symptomatic of deeper problems in your product-led go-to-market - and you should not ignore that.

But don’t take this valuable tool out of your toolkit in service of the gods of pure PLG.

As your product evolves you’ll find many opportunities where allocating some budget to paid channels is the right thing to do and provides the best ROI.

8. Avoid all churn

Let’s get one thing straight.

Zero churn is a myth.

Obsessing over retaining every single user or account is a fool's errand.

Instead, focus on understanding why users churn.

Sometimes, it's a sign you're attracting the wrong audience.

Good PLG embraces a healthy churn rate, recognising that not every user is destined to be a lifelong customer.

I’d even go so far as saying that there’s some churn that should be celebrated.

Yep - celebrated.

Sometimes you’ll have users or teams using your product that aren’t in your ICP.

They pull you left.

They pull you right.

Up and down.

Every direction other than the direction you should be going in.

They’re the reason it’s hard to move your activation metric.

Understand churn so that you can ignore those customers.

So that you can fire those customers.

So that you can spend more time on and with your ideal customers.

It’s much better for your business in the long run.

Good PLG x Bad PLG

Following these pieces of PLG folklore might give you surface level PLG.

I’d go so far as to call it Bad PLG.

There’s some good theory in all of these of course, and they all have good intentions behind them.

But you should approach every bit of generic advice with a dose of healthy skepticism.

Don't be afraid to challenge the status quo. 

Your situation is unique.

The most impactful growth strategies often lie in the unexplored spaces between conventional wisdom and contrarian thinking.

Embrace the paradoxes, experiment relentlessly, and never lose sight of the big picture: building a sustainable business, not just a beloved product.

GEEK OF THE WEEK

What's one unconventional growth tactic that worked surprisingly well for you?

THAT’S A WRAP

Before you go, here are 2 ways I can help:

Book a free 1:1 consultation call with me - I keep a handful of slots open each week for founders and product growth leaders to explore working together and get some free advice along the way. Book a call.

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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

PS: Thanks again to our sponsor: Dovetail