Revenue Builders Building PLG Playbooks with Dan Fougere
Nov 9, 2025
Dan Fougere, former head of global sales at Medallia and chief revenue officer at Datadog, dives into Product-Led Growth (PLG) and its impact on sales strategies. He argues that traditional playbooks often fail in a PLG environment and stresses the importance of understanding user behavior through usage signals like downloads. Dan also shares insights on adapting sales outreach to meet users wherever they are in their journey, using Datadog's dual sales approach as an example. Additionally, he highlights the significance of supporting veterans in his charity work.
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Don't Force-Fit Old Playbooks
- Avoid force-fitting old playbooks into new PLG motions and instead adapt frameworks to the company's specifics.
- Approach playbook design from first principles: who uses the product, what's working, and how they buy.
Usage Signals Reveal Buying Stage
- PLG requires focusing on usage signals because users often interact with product before any commercial conversation.
- Signals like downloads, docs views, and testing stage reveal buying intent and stage in the funnel.
Open Source Vector DB Example
- Dan describes advising an open source vector database where downloads and docs views signal progression from evaluation to testing.
- The team triggers help early and moves to SLA/hosting discussions as the user approaches production.