ProductLed Podcast

Krish Subramanian, CEO, and Co-founder of the leading subscription and billing software called Chargebee, will be sitting in today’s show to answer that question. Chargebee is a global subscription management platform that automates revenue operations of over 4,500 high-growth subscription-based businesses from startups to enterprises across verticals, including SaaS, eCommerce, e-learning, IoT, Publications, and more. Krish and his extremely dynamic mind will be sharing first-hand experiences on how they evolve their go-to-marketing strategy over the years and learn how to straddle sales-led and product-led motions together to drive fast growth. He also talks about the trials and setbacks that they’ve encountered and how they move past those obstacles to generate wins. Shownotes [0:59] Krish talks about their journey of reflecting on their mistakes and wins at Chargebee [1:56] What got them into solving this problem of helping subscription companies understand their business much better? [7:11] The relevance of understanding your subset of customers  [8:42] How do they identify their best customers? [10:36] Getting that value metric and Northstar metric is the biggest revelation for them [15:33] On building more features for your most successful customers [{21:21 Why does he think the pricing is so important to be Product-Led as a business? [25:03] Your end user’s success will eventually become your success  [30:00] Advantages of having both self-service and pre-sales [31:15] How did Chargebee evolve the way they structure their teams? About Krish Subramanian: Krish Subramanian is the co-founder and CEO of Chargebee, a global leader in subscription billing and revenue management solution for scaling businesses. He is an engineer by profession and a problem solver at heart with over 20 years of experience in the software field. As an ex-consultant, Krish strongly believes that business value is defined by service and experience to the customers and the people. He is referred to as the “nice guy” within the company, the tech community, the media, and his mom.  Profile Chargebee Krish on LinkedIn Krish on Twitter

Simon Belak is a visionary; he speaks with outstanding clarity and has a true leader's heart. Working with Metabase has sharpened his skill in product leadership, and today he’ll be sharing his line of work with us and walking us through how he can build high leverage teams for his former company, Metabase. Product leadership has become an increasingly important subject in our field. It focuses on specific challenges on those leading product teams and is accountable for product performance and customer satisfaction. Someone can do this by leading a team with a product-centric strategy. Product leaders progress through creating cross-functional influence, product work, and scale. Listen to this episode, and gain value on Simon’s insights about the topic. Show notes   [3:29] The personal growth that he gets from such a different lifestyle is reflected in his leadership.  [4:27] Simon’s definition of product leadership. [4:47] The fundamental difference between management and leadership. [7:10] Leadership should be fundamentally about enabling people. [8:35] To earn leadership, you have to show that you’re always trying to better your team. [9:57] Taking into account the long-term vision of Product-Led in their company. [11:17] The evolution of leadership at Metabase  [15:23] Metabase created an environment where people can open up their thoughts and feelings without worrying about judgment. [18:39] How do you build a high leverage team? [21:36] How can a person adapt to Metawork? [23:54] The most value starts after you do Metawork in the long term. [26:26] The importance of acknowledging how fast the market is changing. [28:08] Actionable recommendations on developing and implementing new leadership strategies. [28:13] Interaction between company culture and leadership. [28:56] Implementing completely bottom-up and very concrete practices. [31:35] How does Simon get into this business meditative state? [34:50] Don’t think about solutions. Think about the problem harder. Create a hypothesis about the situation and provide solutions on how you can attest to the problem. [36:58] Start with introspection sessions. About Simon Belak During his time at Metabase, his time was split between data science, product leadership, and producing engineering work. Simon brings complex topics and simplifies them so people can understand them better. He is exceptionally customer-focused and helps you go beyond your boundaries by challenging your beliefs. Profile Simon’s Twitter Simon’s LinkedIn

Justin Bauer is known for his expertise in product analytics. He is always one step ahead in helping companies build better products by amplifying their growth. His primary role as an SVP in Amplitude involves creating teams that establish a deep customer understanding and generate inspired visions to produce unique product experiences that users can enjoy. He’s on the show today to share his insights in building excellent product analytics so you can increase engagement, growth, and revenue for your growing company. Show Notes [0:44] Justin’s journey in the institute  [1:47] The most significant milestones, experiences, and learnings along his company journey [3:59] How do we drive growth? [9:00] Shifting balance: How did they shift from product-led to an enterprise? [18:53] Changing the brand of the company as part of going enterprise  [20:33] How has pricing changed for their business? [21:56] Focusing on the product analytics market by making sure to build the best product  [28:25] How do they continue to build an excellent analytics product? [28:56] Make sure to understand your consumers because people want to buy from a company that understands them. [30:44] How investing in high-quality content can produce better results? [32:23] Always start with a strategy in mind [37:04] Understanding the Vision Strategy Roadmap About Justin Bauer Justin Bauer is the senior vice president of product at Amplitude. In his role at Amplitude, he leads product management, design, education, growth, and analytics for Amplitude's Digital Optimization System. Before he joined Amplitude, he was the CEO and co-founder of Rivalry Games, which was acquired by You42 in 2015. Profile Justin on LinkedIn Justin on Twitter Amplitude

Jeff Coyle is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of MarketMuse, an industry-leading content planning technology. Today, he will explain how community management principles can support product-led growth. Jeff also discusses how community drives “sales-led growth” and the importance of employee advocacy in the success of a community. MarketMuse, his platform, identifies content quality issues and creates a channel for content optimization. Show Notes [1:10] Traditional product management and traditionally trained product managers do not typically come from the land of social media. [5:31] How has the community influenced overall product-led growth? [8:22] The importance of having thick skin is that you can experience what it’s like to have a negative emotion emerge and create more transparent communication. [15:54] Employee advocacy and its social impact [23:18] Key takeaways from this episode that listeners should consider. About Jeff Coyle Coyle is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of MarketMuse. This company assists content marketers in establishing topical authority, improving content quality, and transforming semantic research into actionable insights. Prior to joining MarketMuse, he previously operated his own marketing consultancy and managed the Traffic, Search, and Engagement team for TechTarget, a leader in B2B technology publishing and lead generation. Links Product Led Slack Community Profile Market Muse Email address: jeff@marketmuse.com Jeff on LinkedIn Jeff on Twitter

Chase Wilson is a PLG specialist who focuses on solving product led-growth issues. Chase has just launched his new company, Flywheel, a platform that helps hasten self-serve revenue by bridging in-product behaviour and marketing tactics. And today, he sits down with us and tackles areas such as improving your range of vision by making effective marketing strategies. He will also discuss the significance of user experience and pointers on structuring data. And how the company's perspective has become a game-changer in giving customer experience. Show Notes [1:10] Starting Flywheel to solve the product-led growth issue [2:24] His idea of Product Qualified Leads? [5:05] The concept of MQL and why is it problematic? [6:52] Product led growth is highly flexible, and every journey that the company goes down is pretty unique. [7:08] How does changing your perspective of PQL, MQL, and SQL affect the customer's experience? [8:41] You need to take the product usage data, the sales interaction data as well as the marketing interaction data and put it together as an overall timeline. [10:41] Why is it called team qualified leads? [13:30] Advice to listeners About Chase Wilson Chase Wilson is an alumnus of the University of Chicago and is now the Co-Founder and CEO of Flywheel. Chase is known for his determination, creativity,  and resourcefulness when it comes to managing his team and marketing insights. Chase’s talent is his capacity to communicate his rare ideas in a way that inspires multitudes. Which makes him a force to be reckoned with in the industry. Links Flywheel Atlassian Profile Chase on LinkedIn Email Address: chase@theflywheel.app

Alexa Grabell is the co-founder and CEO of Pocus. Pocus is the Product-Led Sales platform that helps sales teams turn their existing users into high-value customers. Pocus combines customer fit and product usage data into a single source of truth so that sales teams can prioritize the best opportunities and take the right action at the right time… all without relying on their engineering team. With Pocus, sales teams can convert more free trial / self-serve users, reach out to the right buyer at the right time, find 'needle in the haystack' opportunities, and save time sifting through data. Show Notes [0:20] Alexa introduces Pocus, her benchmark report on sales, and how it captures the findings to gain data. [1:39] She explains what product-led sales is and how it leverages growth. She talks about the AI of user interaction rather than just traditional sales. [2:46] On how the Product-led world makes the most out of platforms that generate more work efficiency [4:21] The takeaway on product-led growth shows that over 97 of respondents have a sales team or plan to have a sales team. [5:37] She gives us a perspective on what goes on within the sales organization among companies. She also talks about what sales assist is. [7:27] On the principle of show value instead of just selling on the value [8:26] Alexa predicts 2022’s take on PLS’s innovation stage at its infancy to accelerate revenue. [10:37] She emphasizes the importance of focusing on PLG motion rather than traditional sales. About Alexa Grabell  As the co-founder and CEO of Product-Led Sales’ first platform specialized for sales teams, Pocus created the 2021 Product-Led Sales Benchmark Report in partnership with First Round Capital → you can see more detail about it here Links Slack Airtable Asana Profile Pocus Pocus Community Alexa on LinkedIn Alexa on Twitter Pocus Weekly Newsletter

Jeremy's mission is to help startups with the relentless pursuit of exponential growth online. He has launched Conversion Rate Optimization programs for 155+ startups and translated that into a proven and repeatable process to drive growth in your business. This process has generated over $247 million in tracked revenue from winning onsite tests.  As a professional speaker, he has presented over 175 times in 47 states and trained over 42,000 Execs, Marketers, and Growth Leaders. As an entrepreneur, he launched 4 different 7+ figure businesses from scratch. Show Notes [1:26] Jeremy introduces the 4-part extensive definition of a CRO that makes it a comprehensive growth process. He breaks the common knowledge about this system and reveals how it is just as important as any other sector of the business. [3:09] He cites some Product-Led success stories that prove anyone winning a test can change your numbers. [4:33] On CRO maturity assessments validating wins and transforming ROI’s which is made attainable by in-depth market and customer research.  [5:53] He discusses the two (2) crucial aspects of optimization: research and testing. About 14 different specializations have come together to continually integrate these. [8:03] Jeremy also enumerates the misconceptions in test hypothesis formulation that hinder 360-degree understanding of customers [10:34] The efficiency and relativity of time, data, and probability of tests dictate the success of the process. Achieving this mitigates delays and setbacks along the way. [13:44] On the tech stack to be utilized according to the circumstances of the company. He considers the company’s assets and liabilities at hand. [15:52] Jeremy emphasizes the importance of compounding lead interest to produce better results. [18:19] In running a start-up, tracking unfeasible functions and decisions is crucial to know the optimum actions to be made for your business. [22:00] More leads do not equate to higher quality leads. In order to evaluate the success of tests, both must be present.  [23:14] Jeremy explains the essence of team organization and scaling the business. [26:20] On the viability of displaying prices - he talks about whether informing the market of the rates is effective or not for most businesses. Links Conversion Guides CRO Course Profile Jeremy Epperson on LinkedIn

Erika Zeigyte is the founder of Prosana and a remote teams & operations expert. She is also a certified Asana partner. Asana is a project & workflow management tool that helps ensure lean work management across all team members. In this episode, Erika shares her expertise in building powerhouse operations inside digital agencies and eComs. She narrates her journey from being a neuroscientist to being a remote business owner and how that shift in her career led her to engage in apps that build work structures. She emphasizes the essence of making actionable plans and maintaining accountability in the workspace.  Show Notes: [1:44] Erika's 3 milestones: leaving Lithuania to study; adapting back again after her 5-year stay abroad, and quitting a promising project management job to become a personal assistant. [3:54] A reminder to always work on building a structure & why it's important. [4:53] Accountability is a must to make sure people do what they should be doing. She proceeds on the process of goal-setting and dismantling it into smaller short-term and more attainable goals. [9:44] Improving the process first rather than considering replacing someone is what should be considered first. Erika stresses the importance of having regular performance evaluations and meetings with the team members. [13:14] A standard operating procedure can be refined through Asana to create actionable agendas and maintain accountability in executing these processes. [17:07] It takes only 3-6 months to fully get the hang of using Asana as the project management platform. With this, one can ask the right questions about getting the project done. [19:06] Erika started out with Asana as she needed a better way to manage her admin tasks & later on she found it could be used more extensively for her other tasks. Later on, she collaborated with Asana, and became a part of a strong and innovative Asana's community. [22:43] She talks about her services offered: a course on ultimate team growth, Asana templates, and consulting program. [24:38] Her Product-led advice is to always test, learn, adjust and repeat. There is no need to be afraid of failing because it only means you're gonna get better every day.  About Erika Zeigyte Erika is a neuroscientist and remote business operations professional. She is the founder of Prosana. This company builds scalable teams and back-end operations. She provides services that include Business Operations Audits, Remote Recruitment, Asana & Processes Consulting as well as 360 Degrees Back-end Ops Consulting. She also shares advice on remote and international recruitment, streamlined process, communication, goal setting, and leadership.  Links Asana Prosana The Ultimate Team Growth Kit Course page: 25% discount code: TEAMSGROW25  Free ebook Profile Erika Zeigyte on LinkedIn

Product-Led Podcast has reached its 100th episode! Out of 99 insightful pieces, we countdown to the top 10 most downloaded episodes. Featuring an all-star line-up of guests, we will hear snippets of these throwbacks, and recall the different journeys that upheld the essence of being product-led.  Show Notes: [00:45] #10: Episode 87 - User research and the importance of how users use their products with Allison Dickin of Sprig [1:58] #9: Episode 80 - CEO and founder of InnerTrends, Claudiu Murariu, on the selection of user activation KPI's to meet onboarding goals [2:59] #8: Episode 85 - Jon Butterfield of Speedinvest on fine-tuning your go-to-market strategy [4:34] #7: Episode 81 - DoWhatWorks' Andres Glusman gives advice on building growth in skillset [6:36] #6: Episode 70 - The secret to acquiring over 50 million users by Zach Sims of Codeacademy [8:59] #5: Episode 82 - What video games can teach you about user onboarding with Emily Lonetto of Voiceflow [11:00] #4: Episode 83 - Alison Taylor and Trevor Johnston of Jane discuss growing 7-figure SaaS business using Product-Led growth [13:02] #3: Episode 29 - How to acquire your first 100 customers by your Product-Led company according to Gen Furukawa of Pre-hook [14:07] #2: Episode 79 - The art of product positioning with the author, April Dunford [20:54] #1: Episode 28 - The original Product-Led podcast hosts, Wesh Bush, and Ramli John, explain why one should become Product-Led Growth Certified Profile Links: Allison Dickin website Sprig Claudiu Murariu on LinkedIn InnerTrends Jon Butterfield on LinkedIn Speedinvest Andres Glusman on LinkedIn DoWhatWorks Zach Sims on LinkedIn Codeacademy Emily Lonetto website Voiceflow Alison Taylor on LinkedIn Trevor Johnston on LinkedIn Jane website Gen Furukawa on LinkedIn Prehook April Dunford website Wesh Bush on LinkedIn Ramli John on LinkedIn

Loren Elia is the Director of Product Marketing at Honeybook and an experienced marketer with over ten years of involvement in Product Marketing Management, E-commerce, and Digital Marketing. She is a creative problem solver, and her passion leads to product marketing management (PMM) in technology.  Today we will be sitting down with her as she sends us seven helpful strategies that we can use to transition from sales-led to product-led marketing efficiently. She will also teach us to present facts and data while working with the right team. Join us as we give you a ton of golden nuggets to collect in this insightful episode. Show Notes [0:39] Transitioning from sales led and product led entails having to realign priorities on different teams and departments  [1:33] Presenting facts , data and be mindful of the people that you are working with [2:47] Make sure you’re connecting with your teammates  [4:35] PLG makes your company more attractive to investors [5:05] Difference between Product Marketing and Product Management [6:26] Strategies that helped her in transitioning and the 7 things that can help you make that transition [18:18] A quick summary of the 7 points [19:22] Make sure that your information is readily available for users to consume [20:46] Understanding your user’s journey  About Loren Elia Loren's an experienced product marketer with 10 plus years in brand management, e-commerce, and digital marketing. She shows excellent leadership by helping prioritize her company’s business goal and leading an excellent marketing team. Her company Honey Book highlights task management that allows users to view and track various project stages and keeps other documents in one place.  In break times, you can find her munching over chocolate-covered pretzels or mandarin oranges in her office. Links Honey Book Product Led Slack Community  Profile Loren on LinkedIn Loren on Twitter