Humans of Martech 58: Dave Rigotti: What is Product-Led Growth and why you should care
What’s up everyone – today on the show we’re joined by exceptional martech mastermind: Dave Rigotti.
He’s the co-founder & CEO of Inflection.io, a marketing technology startup focused on helping companies with product-led growth.
Before building his own company, Dave has had a fascinating career in marketing.
- He got his start at Microsoft working on the Bing marketing team just as the search engine was launched.
- He quickly discovered his love for growth and B2B marketing.
- Hen then spent half a decade at Bizible, a marketing attribution platform where he worked his way up to VP of Marketing – and was part of the successful exit to Marketo
- He spent a year at Marketo running ABM and demand gen before they were famously acquired by Adobe
- At Adobe, Dave was Director of Account Based Marketing focused on Marketo and Magento products
- Last year, while working on Inflection, he also launched the ProductLed.Marketing community which has more than 700 members and is continuing to grow.
Dave, we’re excited to have you on the show – thanks for taking the time.
Questions we asked Dave:
What is Product-Led Marketing or Product-Led Growth?
- What’s the substance of PLG?
- What’s the difference between PLG and customer led growth?
How is PLG different from all the buzzwords that hit marketing over the years?
- People in tech love to find new ways of avoiding calling marketing marketing. Growth hacking, conversational marketing, community led growth and now product led growth… What do you say to all the folks who claim this is just another buzzword that will fade?
How is PLG different from freemium and why does this instigate such brutal Twitter wars?
- Traditional: generate leads and serve sales.
- PLG: using your product as part of your GTM. More customer centric.
- Jon isn’t active on social but I’ve witnessed my fair share of PLG debates on twitter.
- What do you say to folks who claim PLG has been around for decades (appcues, mailchimp) and that it’s simply a repackaging of freemium and free trial models… that its the old marketing playbook for the SMB segment?
Where does a PLG model make sense? Can this be done with enterprise software that requires integration and onboarding support?
- How do you shift to a PLG strategy when you’re selling a B2B to enterprise and you require 1-2 weeks of integration and setup before end users can get a glimpse of the product in action.
- Do you think some B2B buyers prefer the sales led model? Sometimes I don’t always have 14-30 days to pork around in a product and figure out on my own if this will meet my company needs… sometimes I need someone to show me around and tell me how itll solve my problems
We can skip the MQL vs PQL debate, but how do you define a PQL when your product is constantly changing?
Product usage data is the holy grail of data for PLG marketers.
- How do you see teams forming their marketing strategy around product usage, activation, and engagement?
How is PLG a whole new game?
You wrote an awesome piece for OpenView Partners that PLG is a whole new game for marketers. Can you walk us through what this new game looks like?
What do you say when you hear the phrase PLG is just a product that sells itself?
- What are marketers in PLG companies doing differently to accelerate growth and revenue?
How will PLG influence marketing technology over the next 10 years? What are your big predictions?
Shifting gears, Dave, you've worked at some of the most recognizable marketing technology companies on the planet. Not only have you held senior roles in those companies, but you’ve been on the inside of two major acquisitions. Give us a sense of your career story and how you ended up as a co-founder and CEO in this space?
What differences do you see working at enterprises versus running a startup? What lessons do you apply to your own startup, and what things do you try to do differently?
Dave, you’re a super busy guy. You’re a dad, a husband, a startup founder, and community leader – one question we ask all our guests is how do you remain happy and successful in your career? How do you find balance between all the things you’re working on while staying happy?
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Dave Rigotti
Product-led marketing community
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