Vent: The way we talk about 'product-led growth' now is totally different from two years ago

I was looking back at some old notes from a founder meet-up in Austin, maybe from early 2022... and the whole vibe around PLG was just 'make a great free tier and they will come.' It was this magic bullet idea. Now, after trying to build our own sales pipeline, I see the before-and-after difference. The 'after' is that PLG isn't a replacement for sales anymore, it's just the top of the funnel. The cause was watching our free users hit a wall. They loved the tool but had zero idea how to scale it for their team of 50 people. We had to build a whole 'hand-off' system after someone used the product for 30 days, where a real person would reach out. It's not as clean as the old story, but it actually works. Has anyone else had to build a bridge between their self-serve sign-up and their enterprise sales team?

3 comments

3 Comments

pat_park3mo ago

We automated a check-in email after 14 days.

elliot_grant381mo ago

Ran into a similar approach from a customer success talk I saw online. The speaker mentioned how a simple nudge at the right time can make all the difference. 14 days feels like that sweet spot where users are still curious but might be drifting off. Their data showed a 30% jump in activation just from that one email. Makes you wonder how many other small tweaks like that are sitting around waiting to be tried.

rowan_butler933mo ago

Yeah I was totally in that "build it and they will come" camp too. Our free users got stuck in the exact same way, so we had to build that bridge. I like what @pat_park said about the 14 day email, we found 30 days was too long.