How ProductLed Helped Clients Generate Over $1 Billion in Self-Serve Revenue Using Product-Led Strategies (Talk by CEO Wes Bush)

Introduction and Talk Overview

Wes Bush

00:01It's warmer now. So, thanks everybody. Today, I'm gonna be talking about three product led strategies that I use to generate over a billion dollars in self serve revenue for our clients. And so I am gonna try and blast through everything, but I wanna give you a little hints. Yes. If you know me, I wrote the book on product led growth. This is gonna involve a little bit of product led growth in order to get that amount

Wes Bush's Background and $1 Billion in Client Revenue

Wes Bush

00:24of self serve revenue. But here's the thing. Product led growth, it's only half of the story, which is why I'm here. Because after writing the bestselling book on product growth, helping over 400 plus companies implement product led growth, and working with some amazing fortune 500 companies that I just can't share, I have identified that there's this one big idea that if you embrace this, if you embody this in your business, it's gonna make the biggest difference

Analyzing 324 Clients: What Separates Success from Failure

Wes Bush

00:50when you try and build a PLG motion. But I wanna just share a bit of the backstory. Like, how did I find out about this? So over this was about last year. I went through all 324 plus of our customers, and I was like, okay. Let's look through everybody we've helped. I'll go through their websites, talk to the founders, talk to everybody we worked with, and see what separates, like, the good results from the people who

01:13like, hey. Like, you tried to implement PLG. It just didn't work out. Like, what what what happened here? And so I realized I was like, okay. 80% were senior product folks, which is, fantastic. That was our ideal customer profile at that time. And so I was like, okay. That's interesting. Now 20% of them were founders. So I was like, okay. Smaller subsection, but interesting. And then question for you. Out of all of this, like, data so

Why Founders Outperform Product Folks in PLG

Wes Bush

01:42which group do you think, like, generate 80% of results? Founders. Yes. Now why do you think that would be the case? Because we're just faster at doing stuff. They're faster at doing stuff, but we experiment a lot more. They experiment a lot more. Anybody else have any other ideas? Looking. Yeah. Totally.

Surface-Level PLG and What It Misses

Wes Bush

02:00So you're all onto something here. There's something going on about what founders do differently when they're thinking about how do I actually implement PLG into my business. And so we'll get to why, but the main thing here that I realized is that when I started looking at all of the product folks that were implementing PLG, they're kinda doing what I call surface level PLG. And tell me if this sounds familiar. I'm sure none of you are

02:24doing this, but this is what I see a lot. Whenever it comes to PLG, is you're kinda focusing on, like, four things. There's, like, your model. It's like, is it a free trial? Is it a freemium model? What's our pricing like? Okay. We gotta make something transparent here. Our onboarding experience, and then there's like, okay. Of course, we gotta have an offer or something to promise people. And so is any of that sound like familiar? Like,

02:45yes. I've done that. Alright. No worries. This presentation will be insanely valuable as a result. So this is what happens. The product folks forgot everything that supports PLG. And so what exactly is that? Well, I call this thinking about PLG as a product thing versus just a company thing, which I totally get because it's like, what is it called? Product led growth. The product thing is a big piece of this. Right? Yes. But it's it's more

03:16than that. So everything below the surface is what we identified as, actually, that's the eighty twenty of this. If you don't actually focus on, like, how does this free thing actually connect with our overarching company level strategy of how we're going to win? Or do we actually have the right team that has the right capabilities to do this, or do we have the right product data to understand, like, what the heck is going on in that

Building a Product-Led Organization

Wes Bush

03:39product? And so we identified that the companies that actually saw a lot of success with PLG, they were actually building everything below the surface, which I call your product led organization. And so the kicker here is if you think about, like, okay, I wanna do PLG, that top level thing, those first four pieces, your product led growth motion will only be as strong as your product led organization to the bottom that supports it. And so that's

04:09really what I am gonna drive home today. And what we're gonna go through today is what I call the product led system. This is a little preview of the book I'm working on and, little update. Five of you are gonna get it for free today. So, yeah, before it's even released. It's gonna be fun. So I wanna share three of the product led strategies out of the nine that are gonna be insanely helpful for you to

Bullseye Strategy: Becoming the Obvious Choice

Wes Bush

04:32actually build a product led organization, and these are gonna be really great questions for you just to to think through and really refine your product led strategy. So first question is how clearly are you the obvious choice for customers in your market? Where do you stand on this scale? Are you kinda like in the the first part where you're like, yeah, one to two, like, barely noticeable? Anybody? Okay. That's fine. And that's where a lot of

05:01people are too. If it is, is it fairly apparent where you're like, I think I think I think we're like, okay, maybe obvious choice. Okay. Yeah. And then how many of you are like, damn. Like, there's no way a customer could come into this space and be like, we're not the obvious choice. Anybody there? Alright. So the rest of people not participating are liars. You're one of them. So just think about what that looks like for

05:28you because the goal here with the winning strategy is you have to be in the position where you're like, okay. We are the obvious choice in one part of the market. So this, I kinda ripped off of the book Essentialism, which if anybody's read it, fantastic book. You can take a lot away from just the cover of the book because it it is this actually. And a bad strategy is a lot like this one where it's

05:51like, okay, we're gonna expend energy in all these different directions. A fantastic winning strategy is like this, where it's like you actually direct everybody's energy into one place. So how many people wanna be like this one? Alright. Yeah. Cool. Alright. Now these five questions will help you do just that. So the first one is, which market do you think you could become the obvious choice in? What does that look like? I believe every one of you

06:21in your business, you can become the obvious choice in a market. Not every market, but a given market. You just have to get really, really clear on what that looks like for your business. So that's the first big task. Try and think about what does that look like for your business. Now once you're clear on what you can become the obvious choice in, the next piece is where do you actually play in your business? So I'm

06:47talking about, like, who is your ideal customer? What is the problem you solve? What are the marketing channels that you're going to really hone in on, dial up? And once you're clear on where you're gonna play, the next thing is how the heck are you going to win in this particular case? So I'm talking about how do you build hard to copy moats? And so these are really thinking about, like, is it you're gonna differentiate? Is

07:14it, operational efficiency? Is it user experience? And what we identified, there's like these 15 main moats. So you gotta really think about in your business, but less is more. What are those top two or maybe three moats that you've got to dial in as far as how you're going to win in your business? So that's the third thing. There's two more. The next one is what is the winning picture? So when we think about your business,

07:39what does that one year picture look like? If at the end of this year, like, what does that look like? And also your quarterly picture, the next three months, what does that look like? What are your top initiatives? What does that winning look like for your specific business? But more importantly, what is the end game for your business? Does your entire team know, or is it just, kinda something for you as a founder? You're like, yeah.

08:00It's this. Exit. Make all the money. But what does that winning picture look like for your business? And then the last thing is, what are some of those strategic choices you must make? And back to that first slide where it was like energy diffusing in all these different directions, the really big thing is a lot of times when we feel like friction as a founder where we're like, yeah, we're trying to do so many things and

08:22all this stuff, it's usually a result of we haven't made a strategic choice there. We're trying to do too many things. We're trying to focus on too many different kinds of customers. We have too many kinds of products, and so we just need to bolt it down and make a strategic choice to say, no. Actually, we can't do everything. We can only do a few things really well. So combined, I call that the bull's eye strategy

Designing an Intentional Free Model

Wes Bush

08:45framework that helps you really become the obvious choice in your specific market. So that's one of the product led strategies they can use for your business. Now I wanna share two more. The next one is the most popular when we talk about what the heck do you give away for free for your product led motion. So I wanna go through the model component. And so quick kinda quiz. How intentional do you feel like your free model

09:10is? Is it like, we we just guessed? Anybody? Nobody? Oh, okay. A couple. Is it you know, it's I think it's okay. Like, it's it's kinda working, you know, somewhere in the five to six. Okay. Yeah. A lot more people. And is it like, yes. This is perfectly free. Do do not touch it. We've nailed it. Okay. One person. Awesome. We gotta talk. Alright. So this is so interesting because when it comes to your free model,

09:38a lot of times, I encountered myself in this boat too. It's just I just guessed my first time. Was thinking about what to give away for free. Competitors had a fourteen day free trial. We're like, great. Us too. And so I wanna give you the Mario analogy as far as how you think about what the heck do you give away for free. So the first kinda like insight here is a great free model is just like

10:00playing Mario. So little Mario over here, he, picks up the flower, he goes like much bigger, spews fire, he's really cool, he's badass, all that thing. So like that's an amazing free experience. Now when it comes to like what is most common, it's usually something like this, where it's like, okay, somebody signs up for your free trial and they're exactly the same. There's like net no difference. Anybody have that trial experience where you're like, uh-huh, yeah,

10:29it's not that fun. I mean, you do it, then you're like, okay. But I'm not really gonna come back to that product again and again. So this is the golden standard. This is what we want. We want people to actually pick up that flower and actually level up. They're able to do something that they weren't able to do before. They can actually attribute, like, a a meaningful difference in their life between your product, signing up for

10:52that free product, and actually doing something. Now if you're like, usually, this happens to VC backed companies, there's the other alternative where it's like you go way too far on the spectrum of what you give away for free, you just give them everything, they beat the whole game, they have no reason to upgrade. This was me with Evernote. I was like a freeloader user for eight years before they ever got me, and, that's because they just

11:16gave me all the features for free. So think about that for your product. What is that fine line of what you need to give away for free? Now I'll share a quick example with Tetra, and when you actually nail this for your business. So with Tetra, one of the things that they initially had was a free trial motion, and so if you don't know what Tetra is, it's like a Wikipedia knowledge based tool, kinda like Notion

Tetra Case Study: Switching to Freemium

Wes Bush

11:39in a lot of ways, and so they had a fourteen day free trial. You would sign up for it, and it's kinda like a Google Doc. It's nice, easy to use, all those things, but then if you just play around with it for fourteen days, how different is it than like a Google Doc? You don't really get the value of a Wikipedia tool for your company until you actually start sharing it with a new employee onboarding

12:02or something like that, and so people couldn't actually, get the value out of Tetra, and here's the kicker and the main kinda takeaway when you think about what do I give away for free, is your product's core value needs to shine. In this case, with their free motion, it couldn't shine. It was like, I would only see the value of Tetra when I onboard new people and then they start using the product, and so If that's

12:28your case and your free product, you're like, our best feature is the coolest thing about our product. Nobody can see that value. Then, okay, we gotta switch things up. Whenever TETRA switched it up, they decided, okay, we need to give a freemium motion for this product, And what you can see here is the number of sign ups for their switch. It started to skyrocket as soon as they made that switch. The number of actually, like, net

12:51new MRR started to grow when you get the right model. And then also when it came to the number of upgrades, those also started going up as well under retention. I don't have that graph here, but that also started to increase. I wanted to share the example because whenever you pick the right model, you will see more sign ups. You will see more people upgrading. You will see more upgrades. You'll see less churn at the end

13:15of the day when you get it. Now here's how you can actually decide at the end of this what the heck do you give away for free. So the first thing you gotta do is you this is your user at the other side, and you gotta think about, okay, for them to get to all the way to this side, what are the levels? I want you to, like, obsess about this. Get a little, like, nerdy gamify

Framework for Deciding What to Give Away Free

Wes Bush

13:37this with me. There's level one, level two, level three. Break down, like, okay, for that user to ultimately get to success, let's, chunk this down into a few different levels. What does that look like for them? And so once you do that, you kinda say, okay, level one, you are able to do this. If it's Canva, you make your first graphic. If it's like level three for Canva, it's, you know what, you're you're adding the rest

14:01of your team on board, you're creating your brand assets, all that stuff. So you create those levels, then the next thing is you gotta identify what are all those challenges that get in their way. What are all those things that prevent them from hitting level one, from hitting level two, from hitting level three? You map out everything, not just product stuff, skill deficiencies, knowledge gaps, all the things that might be missing for them to actually see

14:24success in each of those levels. So you map out all those challenges, and then what you do is you just try and identify, okay, what are all the solutions? If we think about any potential solution, what are some of the best ones we could give people to really just overcome each of those challenges at that specific level? So once they start level one, it's much easier for them to actually overcome. And then the last thing is

14:48just tighten it up, go through what the heck is this called. Is it a usage based model? Is it a freemium model? All that stuff. Get really specific on what this is so people know what they're signing up for on that end. So that is the second product led strategy. That is how you decide what to give away for free and what is paid. The last one I wanna leave you with real quick is the onboarding

Frictionless Onboarding and the Snappa Example

Wes Bush

15:12component. So this is all about how do you actually get people to value within your product as soon as humanly possible. So quick question. How easy is it to sign up, get the value, and upgrade your product? Is it, you know, super difficult? Is it extremely smooth, or is it effortless? Just think about that in your head, and we'll get through the framework real quick. But first, I wanna give you a quick example. So this is

15:37my friend's company, snappa.com. They get, 10,000 plus sign ups per week on their website, and at that time, I was talking to the founder, Chris. I'm like, hey. How many sign ups, what do they typically do in the product? How many people who sign up actually go into the product? He was like, I don't quite know. Then he went into Mixpanels. He tried to rummage through the numbers. He came back to me. Was like, Wes, yeah.

16:02We have this one step that they have to do before they go into the product. It's the the email verification step, and twenty seven percent of people don't ever even do this step and go into the product. I was like, interesting. I mean, I've seen this before, but like that's a that's a lot of people you're missing out on, and so we decided on how to actually address this. We said, okay. Let's, you you still need

16:26this step. Okay. In that case, was trying to convince them not, but they're like, we gotta keep this step, but let's delay it, you know. The first time people log in to this product, they don't have to do this. The second time, okay, on that login page, if they haven't verified it yet, they gotta do this step to get in the second time, but, like, let's make it easy for the first time users. As soon as

16:44we did this, anybody wanna take a guess at the percentage of their monthly recurring revenue of how much it boosted within the next month of rolling this out? Anybody wanna take a guess? 20%. Yes. You got it. 20%. Bang on. You win a prize. Yes. It was 20%, and he kept sending the screenshot. Was like, oh my god. This is amazing. I'm so excited for you because we made frictionless onboarding, and that is the goal. When

17:15we reduce friction, most times you will see the similar result. So that's why more users upgraded. We made it frictionless. But how do we actually do this for your product? There's three things you gotta do. Actually, four. Let's talk about the first one. First one is you see the, bowling alley, this part? I forget what you call it. Pins? Yes. Pins. When you strike them out, that's called the first strike. Get very clear on, like, what

Straight Line to Value and Product Bumpers

Wes Bush

17:36is that first strike for your product, and the next thing is you gotta do is build a straight line. So this is a really fun activity to run with your team is what I love to do. I get everybody in one team and say, alright, here's the game. You're gonna find the fastest path to get to value, and you have them kind of all go through, jot down every single step, and then what you're supposed to

18:01do is just find out, okay, what is the fast path? What is the exact minimum number of steps to get to value? And so how you do that is if it's like a red step, it's something where it's like, hey, that's like we could kill it. It does not matter. We don't need it. Yellow step, kind of advanced. Let's delay that step, but you're just left with the green steps. That's your straight line. Now once you

18:24have your straight line, the next thing you gotta do is layer on a product bumper. So anybody seen like those tool tips, things when you log into a product? Yeah. So product bumpers are amazing when you use them right. They're terribly annoying when you don't know what you're doing and you just wander around slapping on onboarding tool tips and, yeah, it doesn't drive anybody anywhere. So what you wanna do is you just use product bumpers every

18:46single time for one of those straight line onboarding steps so that the first time somebody goes into the product, it's really easy. And you don't have to use onboarding tips. You can just make your product easy to use in the first place, but, that's what you wanna do is make it really, really simple for people to get to that value, but that's still not enough. People will still drop off. The next thing you gotta do is

19:06build a conversational bumper, and that conversational bumper is it could be emails, could be text, it could be even reaching out to people on LinkedIn. If they signed up, you found them, you're like, hey. I saw you sign up for our products. How can we help you? I noticed you got stuck in the onboarding. Could I set it up for you? And it's just being helpful for that part and guiding them back on to the straight

Recap and Key Takeaways

Wes Bush

19:25line wherever they are. And so combined, that's how you create that frictionless onboarding experience that improves with getting more people to value. So where do we go from here at the end of this? So I wanna recap this real quick. So remember, PLG is only half of the story. You need to build a productled organization to make this work for your business. How you do that is you gotta build a winning strategy for your business, design

19:53an intentional model, and then you also have to craft frictionless onboarding for your business. And how you do that is you can build a product led organization. Now for the last part, these are like the full kind of nine frameworks and product led strategies you can utilize. I did say I had a gift for the people who are fastest on this one. So here's a little challenge. The first five people that scan this QR code on

New Product-Led Playbook Preview and Closing

Wes Bush

20:17the next page, are gonna get the free product led playbook, and this is gonna be a fun game here because you ready?

20:27This book isn't released yet, so you're gonna actually get it tomorrow. You ready? Set. Go. Alright. I'm super pumped to share this book with you because I've been working on it for years as Nathan said it's Release date. October 1, and I haven't shared that anywhere else, so don't tell anybody, but, yes, it's coming out. Thank you everybody for attending my talk. This was great, for bringing your warm body energy because this room is warm now.

Nathan Latka

20:54Thank you.

20:57Think up next we got Steven.