Brought to you by Linear—The new standard for modern software development | Braintrust—For when you needed talent, yesterday | Rows—The spreadsheet where data comes to life—Elena Verna is a leading growth expert with over 15 years of experience in tech. She was SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey and interim CMO at Miro, where she built high-performing teams that drove significant growth. She recently served as interim Head of Growth at Amplitude and currently advises and is a board member for early-stage startups. In today’s podcast, we discuss:• What product-led sales is• How product-led sales differs from product-led growth• Unpacking common acronyms: PQAs, PQs, PQLs, and MQLs• When and how to consider investing in PLS• Metrics for identifying qualified accounts• The team, data, and tooling required for implementing PLS• Common pitfalls to avoid when adding PLS—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led-sales-elena-verna/#transcript—Where to find Elena Verna:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna• Twitter: https://twitter.com/elenaverna• Newsletter: https://elenaverna.substack.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Elena’s background and what she’s doing now(07:13) Product-led sales (PLS) vs. product-led growth (PLG)(12:47) How sales solutions can be applied to enterprise-level problems(15:06) Defining enterprise-level problems (17:51) How product-led companies start with PLS(20:30) When to add sales(22:36) Two ways to get to PLS(24:27) Why every sales-led-growth company needs to add PLG(26:50) Two ways you can own revenue(28:37) PQAs, PQs, PQLs, and MQLs(37:17) How to get started adding PLS(42:01) Metrics to identify PQAs(47:00) Why sales should be carefully applied (49:07) Systems, infrastructure, and tooling(50:59) The people and resources required for PLS(53:42) Why you should have a clear ROI for every new hire(55:05) Why product needs to be accountable for monetization with PLS(59:57) Revenue-based goals product teams should have(1:06:28) Common pitfalls startups run into when implementing PLS(1:09:15) Benchmarks and the amount of time needed for implementing enterprise solutions(1:12:04) Using onboarding to profile users(1:13:08) Will AI be the next sales movement?—Referenced:• Elena’s previous episode on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-verna-on-how-b2b-growth-is-changing-product-led-growth-product-led-sales-why-you-should-go-freemium-not-trial-what-features-to-make-free-and-much-more/• Miro: https://miro.com/• Figma: https://www.figma.com/• Elena’s PLS funnel diagram: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elenaverna_b2b-product-led-sales-guide-activity-7052664130763206658-yxLK/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop• Elena’s memes: https://www.elenaverna.com/memes• Mixpanel Signal reports: https://mixpanel.com/blog/mixpanel-signal-launch/• Amplitude Compass chart: https://help.amplitude.com/hc/en-us/articles/235147347-The-Compass-chart-discover-your-users-a-ha-moments• Looker: https://www.looker.com/• Tableau: https://www.tableau.com/• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/• Marketo: https://nation.marketo.com/• Waitlist for PLG course on Reforge: https://www.reforge.com/programs/product-led-growth—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Elena Verna, a sought-after growth advisor with leadership experience at Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, and SurveyMonkey, shares her insights on ineffective growth strategies. She highlights common mistakes, such as hiring growth roles prematurely and relying too heavily on competition. Elena emphasizes the significance of earned media in marketing, encourages embracing failure, and discusses innovative growth frameworks. Listeners are reminded to balance intuition with data-driven decisions and to explore varied career options beyond traditional paths.

Elena Verna has led growth at some of today’s most successful B2B businesses, including Miro as CMO, Surveymonkey as SVP of Growth, and now at Amplitude as interim Head of Growth. She’s also worked closely with over a dozen companies on growth and product strategy, including companies like MongoDB, Clockwise, and Netlify (where she sits on the board of directors). Elena is undoubtedly one of the smartest people on growth strategy in the world.—Thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible:• Persona: https://withpersona.com/lenny• Stytch: https://stytch.com/• PostHog: https://posthog.com/lenny—In this episode, we cover:1) How did Elena go from an analyst at Safeway to Head of Product at Amplitude?2) What’s changing in B2B growth?3) What exactly is “product-led growth,” and how can you apply it at every stage of growth?4) How is PLG already transforming itself?5) Why do you need to be both product-led and sales-led?6) Why does PLG often get crushed when you move upmarket, and how do you avoid this?7) What it looks like when your PLG motion is dying.8) Why product-led is the future of sales.9) Why is freemium the way to go, over trial?10) Why should you hire internally for your first growth hire?—Where to find Elena:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna• Twitter: https://twitter.com/elenaverna Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Elena Verna, former SVP growth at Survey Monkey, discusses Airtable's shift to enterprise and Slack's product roadmap. They debate the dangers of betting on a single growth loop, the importance of layering other growth loops, and the impact of PLG on enterprise wins. They also analyze the challenges of transitioning from simplicity to complexity, selling to different market segments, and scaling product-led growth businesses.

If you ever wanted to distill 3,310 hours of knowledge into 60 minutes, then this episode is for you. For the last 6 months, Lenny’s Podcast has been downloaded more than 2 million times and is now a top 10 technology podcast across both Apple and Spotify. And in this special episode, I’m breaking down the top 10 most downloaded episodes, plus sharing my favorite lessons from each. It's unlike anything I've done before, and I hope you love it. Happy holidays, happy new year, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening, sharing, and for supporting the podcast. I’ll see you in 2023!—Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/countdown-of-the-top-10-episodes-of-the-year/#transcript—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:• TED—ReThinking with Adam Grant: https://adamgrant.net/podcasts/rethinking/• Notion—One workspace. Every team: https://www.notion.com/lennyspod• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—The 10 most downloaded episodes of 2022:* April Dunford on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/april-dunford-on-product-positioning-segmentation-and-optimizing-your-sales-process/* Crystal Widjaja on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-scrappily-hire-for-measure-and-unlock-growth-crystal-widjaja-gojek-and-kumu/* Julie Zhuo on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/julie-zhuo-on-accelerating-your-career-impostor-syndrome-writing-building-product-sense-using-intuition-vs-data-hiring-designers-and-moving-into-management/* Shishir Mehrotra on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/* Kristen Berman on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/using-behavioral-science-to-improve-your-product-kristen-berman-irrational-labs/* Elena Verna on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-verna-on-how-b2b-growth-is-changing-product-led-growth-product-led-sales-why-you-should-go-freemium-not-trial-what-features-to-make-free-and-much-more/* Ethan Smith on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-ethan-smith-graphite/* Shreyas Doshi on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/shreyas-doshi-on-pre-mortems-the-lno-framework-the-three-levels-of-product-work-why-most-execution-problems-are-strategy-problems-and-roi-vs-opportunity-cost-thinking/* Marty Cagan on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-nature-of-product-marty-cagan-silicon-valley-product-group/* Matt Mochary on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-fire-people-with-grace-work-through-fear-and-nurture-innovation-matt-mochary-ceo-coach/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) About this episode(02:46) April Dunford on positioning your product(07:16) Crystal Widjaja on why most analytics efforts fail(11:42) Julie Zhuo on overcoming imposter syndrome(19:14) Shishir Mehrotra’s favorite interview question(23:27) Shishir Mehrotra’s PSHE career growth framework(27:10) Kristen Berman on using behavioral science to improve your product(33:29) Elena Verna on why retention is so important(36:31) Elena Verna on what to put into your freemium product(37:57) Ethan Smith on how people often under-resource SEO(38:46) Ethan Smith on when it’s time to invest in SEO(42:41) Shreyas Doshi’s LNO Framework(50:12) Marty Cagan on why big companies are often bad at product(51:46) Marty Cagan’s four steps to being a good product manager(53:48) Matt Mochary on the power of small teams(57:17) Matt Mochary’s advice for making hard conversations easier(59:05) Other episodes that left a lasting impact(59:40) Thank you for joining me (Lenny) on this incredible journey—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Season 2 is all about product-led growth! And we kick it off with a banger!Elena Verna and I are talking about the insecurity side of content production in a broader scope and package everything inside of "Product-led Growth". Plus memes and trends in the industry :DIt turned out to be an episode that I treasure very much  🌸 . Many great moments:0:00 Elena’s relevance to Leah and how I perceive her LinkedIn content03:30 How Elena treats her LinkedIn as a freemium model08:55 How LinkedIn acquisition is a great fit for our introverted selves11:40 Why we should not hold back from sharing our learnings14:30 Elena’s Impostor Syndrome and how she understands it18:40 Leah’s Impostor Syndrome and how it’s about being curious about the world22:30 Losing a growth mindset as children25:20 How outside expectations crushed Leah in school going forward28:00 B2B Acquisition patterns and the advent of product-led growth32:20 Types of businesses that you encounter in consulting and how to lead them to product-led growth34:50 Sales and incentivization in PLG37:45 Leah’s bid on Product Sales Management a new Product Management specialization39:15 Elena on Growth teams with sales competencies42:10 How to reach out to ElenaElena's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna/Leah's Linkedin: https://linktr.ee/leahtharinSend us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

Season 2 of the ProducTea! Elena Verna joins me to openly gossip about our diverse income streams: Advisory, consulting, and everything else in that word salad. We both dive into our different modes of engagement with an emphasis on what the ideal duration and conditions are for each of them.If you ever wanted to have an inside look into how growth advising happens, this is your episode.Timestamps:03:00 What Elena has been up to in the last 6 months03:50 What does being a growth advisor/consultant or solopreneur mean?09:50 Is career optionality a strength or weakness as a candidate?15:11 How content, advising, and full-time role play into each other17:04 How to get your first contract?22:59 It takes a long time for your seeds to grow, learn to seed fast and putting yourself out there including your knowledge27:19 Leah’s modes of engagements28:34 Elena’s modes of engagements34:14 Acceptable durations for different modes of engagements36:54 The first 3 months as an advisor39:10 The case for interim positions and why Elena picks them occasionally43:40 Interim positions and reasons why companies use them46:55 Contractual conditions you need to set up to have a chance at advising52:10 Monetizing your advising career too early54:50 Being a generalist vs. a specialist, disclosing weaknessesSend us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

Today Elena is an expert in PLG models for B2B companies. Elena was a growth Advisor to companies including Krisp, MongoDB, and Maze, and a Board Member at Netlify.  Prior to that she was CMO & Advisor at Miro, SVP for Product & Growth at Malwarebytes, and  SVP at SurveyMonkey.  She’s also an angel investor and Reforge program creator. ________________________ Where to find Elena Verna Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElenaVerna Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna/ Website: https://www.elenaverna.com/ Where to find June Twitter: https://twitter.com/JuneDotSo Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/juneso Website: https://www.june.so/

Casey Winters is the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite where he leads the PM, product design, research, and growth marketing teams. Prior to Eventbrite, Casey spent close to 3 years at Pinterest where he led the growth product team. Andy Johns is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. Andy’s career started in growth at Facebook when the company scaled from 100M-500M active users. Since he has worked in some of the leading growth orgs at companies like Twitter, Quora and more recently at Wealthfront as Head of Growth and President. Bangaly Kaba is the Head of Platform Growth @ Popshop Live, a live streaming mobile marketplace that combines commerce, entertainment, and social. Prior to Popshop, Bangaly led the product growth and consumer product orgs at Instacart and before Instacart was Head of Growth @ Instagram, where he built and led the product team that helped grow Instagram from 440M to > 1B monthly actives in 2.5yrs. Elena Verna is a master when it comes to all things starting and scaling growth organizations. Previously, Elena spent over 7 years as SVP Growth @ SurveyMonkey where she ran product, growth marketing, and data teams. Post SurveyMonkey, Elena worked with the rocket ship that is Miro both as Interim CMO and as an advisor. Ed Baker is an angel investor and growth advisor to various startups including Lime, Zwift, Whoop, Crimson Education, GoPeer, and Playbook. Ed was the VP of Product and Growth at Uber from 2013-2017. Prior to Uber, Ed was the Head of International Growth at Facebook. Rob Schutz is Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder at Ro, the healthcare technology company building a patient-centric healthcare system. Under Rob’s growth leadership, Ro has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. Prior to Ro, Rob was VP of Growth at Bark, the makers of BarkBox, and helped scale revenue from zero to $100 million. In Today’s Episode with Ed Baker You Will Learn: 1.) Casey Winters: How does Casey define "growth"? How does it differ from product? How do the best growth leaders decide between art vs science when making growth decisions? 2.) Andy Johns: What is Andy's biggest advice to founders looking to build their first growth team? What unexpected choice did Andy decide to make at Twitter that moved the needle for new user acquisition? 3.) Bangaly Kaba: What were some of Bangaly's biggest takeaways from scaling Instagram from 440M users to 1BN? What decisions did Bangaly make without data? How did they go? What did he learn? 4.) Ed Baker: What are Ed's biggest takeaways from facebook around structuring growth teams? What are Ed's biggest pieces of advice for startyups looking to grow internationally? What were some of Ed's biggest learnings from working with Travis @ Uber? 5.) Elena Verna: What is the difference between a good vs great growth model? When does one need to change or amend their growth model? How does one know when it is working? 6.) Rob Schutz: Why does Rob believe that startups should not diversify their customer acquisition channels too quickly? How does Rob assess resouirce allocation and spend on new channels? How did this process look when partnering with the MLB for Ro?

Today we're diving deep into Product-Led Growth with Amplitude Head of Growth, Elena Verna. PLG is here to stay, so it's time to start taking advantage of it and allowing your product to truly speak for itself and attract new and old customers. This episode will cover everything you could want to know about Product-Led Growth and how to implement it in your company.Get the FREE Product Book and check out our curated list of free Product Management resources here.Want to see how users experience your website or app? FullStory’s award-winning platform gathers data on user experiences in real-time, allowing product teams to better understand issues and successes in aggregate. Get started at fullstory.com.