PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership

68: Vijay Iyengar: Unbundling PLG and why BI tools are not good for analysis

Jul 28, 2024

Vijay Iyengar, Head of Product at Mixpanel, shares his insights on product-led growth (PLG) and the pitfalls of relying on traditional business intelligence (BI) tools. He argues that PLG isn't a one-size-fits-all solution and emphasizes the importance of understanding core metrics. Vijay stresses that while BI tools serve well for reporting, they fall short in delivering actionable insights. He also highlights the necessity for engineers to engage with data governance to properly track and analyze user behavior, uncovering valuable growth opportunities.

53:26

Episode guests

Vijay Iyengar

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Highlights

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is not universally applicable and businesses should evaluate their market segment before adopting this strategy.

User retention and effective onboarding processes are crucial, necessitating a structured approach to analyze user interactions and performance metrics.

Establishing strong data practices is essential for product management, emphasizing the need for communication between teams to inform decision-making.

Deep dives

Navigating the Product Landscape

The conversation highlights the evolving nature of product development and growth, emphasizing that traditional best practices do not apply. The guest discusses his journey from engineering and analytics to a product leadership role at Mixpanel, underlining that much of the knowledge in this domain is built on first principles. Sharing insights from his experience, he mentions the effectiveness of reaching out for help from fellow product leaders, noting that many are willing to assist those who express a genuine need for guidance, especially in a landscape where uncertainty prevails. This openness to collaboration is crucial in an industry where practices are still being defined.

Structured Data Analysis in Enterprises

01:19

PLG is not for everyone

01:39

Prioritize Churn to Improve Product and Increase Retention Rate

01:15

BI tools are for consumption, not analysis

01:03

Intro

2min

Navigating Product-Led Growth: Insights and Challenges

25min

Redefining Business Intelligence

12min

The Importance of Cross-Collaboration in Product Teams

2min

Exploring CPO-CTO Alignment for Enhanced Product Development

4min

Harnessing Insights for Leadership Success

8min

When is PLG just a fad? Vijay Iyengar, Senior Director of Product at Mixpanel discusses with me about the misconceptions around PLG and the role of analytics in driving business growth and why first principles is in our field the only thing we have.

Do PM’s really need to have a basic understanding of data and how it is stored and analyzed with LLMs being the norm? Why business intelligence (BI) tools are not the answer.

Which key metrics and questions are correct to start with if you’re trying to get your data under control?

Takeaways

PLG is not suitable for every business
Business intelligence (BI) tools are good for consumption and reporting, but not for analysis.
Data quality is a challenge, and engineers need to care about data and be involved in tracking.

Sound Bites

"There's no best practices the way there are in other fields. Like it's all being written. It's all first principles."
"There's plenty of businesses that can monetize much better and grow much better focusing on a different segment of the market where PLG isn't the appropriate sales motion."
"Core root analysis, just following people around this is very, very underappreciated."
"BI tools are good at consumption. It's good when you've predefined a set of metrics and dimensions and you want to push that out for general consumption."
"Reporting is great to just keep a pulse on things, but nobody ever found an insight from reporting or nobody ever found something that's needle moving from a report."

Chapters

03:23 The Relevance and Overrating of Product-Led Growth (PLG)

05:15 Finding the Right Sales Motion for Your Business

09:28 The Importance of Tracking and Analytics in Sales Motions

13:44 Focusing on Churn and Retention for Sustainable Growth

22:14 Understanding the First Week Experience and Power Users

26:27 Understanding Data in Product Management

27:52 Limitations of BI Tools

29:19 Challenges of Data Quality and the Need for Engineers to Care

31:44 The Role of the CTO and CPO in Driving Data-Driven Decision-Making

46:34 Getting Started with Data Analysis: Focusing on Key Metrics

Send us a text

Leah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

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