How MongoDB Transformed From Sales-Led to Product-Led Leading to 20x Increase in Market Cap with Sahir Azam

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Sahir Azam, Chief Product Officer at MongoDB.

 

Sahir shares how MongoDB transformed from a traditional software company—sales driven, longer cycles, etc.—into more of a consumer-style self-service model.

 

Overseeing the growth of MongoDB’s Atlas, Sahir shares his learnings (the good, the bad, and the ugly) about building and bringing to market one of the fastest-growing cloud products of any scale (70% YoY, $400M ARR, 26K+ customers).

 

In this session, Sahir discusses:

7:44 - MongoDB sales-led model prior to going product-led

10:31 - What main KPIs were focused on

16:01 - Recommendations and best practices for building teams

20:07 - Tactics to make sure that cross-functional dialogue is happening regularly

26:57 - The ideal squad structure for a cross-functional team

32:46 - The product development framework at MongoDB

37:34 - Best practices for developing a go-to-market strategy for a product-led company

41:36 - Product marketing roles vs product manager roles

52:29 - What kickstarted growth for the MongoDB Atlas customer base

55:31 - Top pieces of advice that were learned the hard way

57:54 - Recommended books and resources

 

Learn more at https://tractionconf.io

 

Connect with Sahir Azam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahirazam/

 

Learn more about MongoDB at https://www.mongodb.com/

 

This episode is brought to you by:

 

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Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6,000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa, visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca 

 

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