ProductLed Podcast

Daryna Kulya, Co-founder of OpenPhone, is with us today. She enjoys serving consumers with the best customer experience by creating products that suit their needs. OpenPhone is an app built for teams and individuals so they can level up and use their phones for business anywhere. It’s everything that you and your team need in a phone system! Daryna gives us an overview of how they were able to come up with this unique vision and how they skyrocketed from 0 to 1000 customers. Are you on the lookout for a business phone? If so, then catch her on the show and stay tuned for more. Show Notes [4:47] They want to be a part of an environment that is a lot more inspiring and that allows them to make progress. [5:50] The reason why they joined Velocity [6:47] Why did they initially give their product for free? [9:42] People should be getting value out of the product, so see if that’s true [12:54] They always knew that OpenPhone would ultimately end up being a product that starts with one person in the company and then scales to the whole team [19:26] One of the most fundamental lessons learned was that a lot of times you overcomplicate things unnecessarily. [23:17] Daryna shares some of the biggest milestones that they have achieved throughout the years [27:08] How were they able to build a team and what did that journey look like? [34:27] Biggest leadership mistakes and lessons learned from the presence of scale [35:57 Daryna’s advice on delegation, building a business, and scaling it up About Daryna Kulya Daryna Kulya is the COO and co-founder of OpenPhone. She was previously a product manager at Vidyard, where she helped to establish and grow Vidyard GoVideo (ViewedIt). She also worked at Deloitte's Digital Innovation Lab, and helped them with their prototypes and innovations. Back in 2014, she established Product Hunt Toronto, one of the city's largest product events and the world's first Product Hunt community-run meeting. But what’s more interesting is Daryna is adventurous. She loves hiking trails in her free time.   Link OpenPhone Profile Daryna’s LinkedIn

Ian Robertson is an innovative thought leader with undeniable skills in business strategy, employee development, software management, and product-led growth. He is currently the head of Product-Led Growth at Boomi and has spearheaded its transition from Sales-Led to Product-Led. Ian has proven himself to be a highly skilled and dedicated leader who always strives to bring out the best in his colleagues and the company. Today he’ll be sharing the big steps that Boomi had to implement during their sprint to achieve product-led growth. You’ll learn so much as we talked about, pricing strategies, operational efficiencies and customer satisfaction. Catch him in this episode and stay tuned for more.  Show Notes [1:18] What are the big steps that he had to take to be able to achieve product-led growth? [2:28] Boomi is the way to connect various endpoints in your digital ecosystem to create better business outcomes. [7:28] What did they cover during the two-week sprint? [16:12] When they started the sprint for PLG, was the pricing iteration in the works?  [28:09] If you bother to sign up for a trial, you should have a good trial experience.  [30:00] They can now use Boomi for all use cases, not just large use cases, and that allows them to win more deals to reduce the operational debt of having multiple integration platforms and sell more services. [31:34] We need to align the objectives of the team. About Ian Ian has directly led Boomi in terms of acquisition, operations, and automation of teams. He also established a global program management team to support the transition into the enterprise and other multi-organizational initiatives.Ian excels at all tasks and work assigned to him, and he strives to produce the highest quality work possible. He is not afraid of challenges and approaches each problem with new and creative solutions. Link Boomi Profile  Ian’s LinkedIn

Kevin Tate is the Chief Revenue Officer at Clearbit. His expertise lies in strategic marketing, specifically in eCommerce, enterprise SaaS, social media, digital marketing and the like. He has over 24 years of experience in the field and has led several go-to-market software professional services and hardware-enabled SaaS companies. In this talk, he explains how Clearbit boosted their product-led to a 5x pipeline as well as how the company creates a seamless experience for their corresponding prospects. There's a lot to dig into this episode. Tune in to find out. Show Notes [0:36] What brought Kevin to Clearbit? [1:56] Some of the big steps that he took in order to get to where he’s at [4:12] Kevin talks about MEL’s (marketing engages leads). [8:24] Creating the weekly visitor report  [11:06] What type of problem space do they want to help companies explore with these tools? [18:41] What metric do they use to reach out to people? [28:56]. How to further accelerate your pipeline growth? [31:19] Try to make your tools as accessible, available, and convenient as possible. [32:07] How can you identify the best person for your ICP and prioritize your best accounts better?  [34:07] The importance of having a portable segmentation approach [36:28] Kevin’s recommendations in nailing the company’s segmentation process About Kevin Kevin Tate is a charismatic leader who likes to work swiftly to adhere to the vision, mission, and goals of his company. With over 24 years of experience, Kevin is well-seasoned to help people fully succeed when they deep dive into the market. He is currently the Chief Revenue Officer of Clearbit, an investor, mentor, and business tycoon at heart. Links Clearbit Profile Kevin’s LinkedIn

Ognjen Bošković is Growth Lead at CXL, one of the strongest communities in the growth and marketing. He's also the founder of Executors, a community of growth experts driving real growth. In this interview, we will reveal why growth loops are the new funnels and how the CXL has become one of the strongest players in our field, relying on content marketing. Show Notes [2:45] How did your career lead you to CXL?  [7:53] From his experience, how does he balance his time and resources between content creation and content distribution? [13:39] Experimentation is key in figuring out what type of content are you looking for  [14:10] Consistent output is the secret to growth metric  [17:48] Product-led companies sometimes hesitate to invest in investing a lot into content marketing due to the perception that the ROI is insecure and it takes a while [21:49] Focus on building the growth model and understanding how things will grow. [23:33] The effect of doing proper content marketing is building one of the most secure modes you can build.  [27:20] Growth loops are what make the company grow fast [29:13] What are some of the super cases that excite him about growth loops?  [33:13] Advice on how people who are new to growth loops should approach growth loops? How can product-led companies manifest growth loops into their daily lives?  [34:15] Look for elements in your product that bring the most value to your users [38:51] How is the growth loop connected with the customer life cycle? About Ognjen Ognjen is the founder of Executors, a community for 5% of the growth experts that do the 95% of the work. He's obsessed with growth models and loops.  He's been responsible for growth at agencies, SaaS and education businesses. The mantra he follows is to do good work, document it and then distribute lessons learned along the way. Links ExecutorsCXL Profile Ognjen’s LinkedIn

Mark Roberge is a leader in the sales world. He is currently co-founder of Stage 2 Capital, the first venture capital firm run and backed by over 300 GTM executives. He is also a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. Prior to these roles, Mark served as founding CRO at HubSpot from $0 to IPO. He is author of best seller “The Sales Acceleration Formula” which became a guideline for start-up companies in growing their revenue and building a winning sales team.  He’s in the show to introduce to us his playbook which revolves around Product Led Growth for B2B startups. Get ready to learn some insightful lessons from this renowned industry expert.  Show Notes [0:44] On creating a playbook for his PLG startup  [3:32] The best of class teams have to set up a cross-functional team of marketing plus product and put it under the product [8:44] How category creation has become such an important part of entrepreneurship  [12:27] PLG tends to focus the organization on usage first as opposed to revenues [14:03] The reason why free user attention is the hardest metric  [14:49] Pro tip: Find a scalable, cost-effective way to generate users [16:35] Mark talks about the last part of the value metric, monetization  [18:42] You don’t start there as a seek funding business doing growth.  [19:42] What the best class engineerings do is specialize their engineering teams and product teams by roadmap to improve growth [21:22] Create your growth team to be cross-functional with both product engineering plus marketing capabilities [21:36] Set your company up to be data-driven rapid experimentation, an organization that focuses on the Northstar  About Mark Roberge As the SVP of Worldwide Sales and Services for HubSpot, he has led hundreds of his employees on how to apply data technology and inbound selling to every aspect of accelerating sales, including hiring, training, managing, and generating demand. Mark understands the ins and outs of marketing which is also a skill that he loves to share with others.  Links Hubspot The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge Profile Mark’s LinkedIn

Dale Bertrand is an SEO Strategist, Keynote Speaker, and Business Coach. He has managed marketing programs for Fortune 500 companies and is currently running Fire&Spark. Dale mainly focuses on SEO, content marketing, web analytics, and applying AI strategies to marketing. With over 15 years of experience in developing strategic and tactical marketing campaigns, he’s always on the lookout to deliver quantifiable results to help brands maintain continuous growth in organic sales. Are you ready to start building a top-down SEO strategy? If you are, make sure to stay tuned to today’s episode. Show Notes [1:11] What are the current trends he sees in the SEO world this 2022? [3:10] Dale explains how google uses natural language processing and algorithms to understand our queries  [6:06] What is purpose-driven SEO? [7:09] When we’re talking about SEO strategies, the goal at the end of the day is to rank better. [8:50] What purpose-driven SEO is all about is looking at your brand and its standing.  [11:28] Google’s AI is tuned to find brands that are resonated with online consumers  [14:28] What would he recommend would be the best steps for people to get started in purpose-driven SEO? [20:22] If you are like-minded and you find a purpose behind your SEO, companies will link to you and will be interested in doing a content partnership  [21:01] Stop thinking about SEO from the bottom up; SEO is not a technical game anymore. You have to move towards targeting content and authority.  About Dan Bertrand Dale began his career working as an engineer. Moving forward, he has developed search marketing strategies for Fortune 500 companies and startups. Throughout his career, Dale has become a great leader and one of the best SEO strategists in the field. Links Fire&Spark ifixit Fire Department Coffee Profile Dale’s LinkedIn Email Address: dale@fireandspark.com 

Alex Haefner is the Head of Product at Envoy, the workplace platform helping companies manage safe hybrid workplaces so employees can connect, collaborate, and thrive. Not long ago, before the pandemic drastically changed our lives, Alex Haefner decided to be a part of the Envoy family, not knowing that work-from-home setups would be the next big thing. In this episode, he shares his experience of running a business amidst all the shifts and changes brought by the pandemic. In today's interview, let's find out how he’s been able to re-align the company’s vision and mission, strengthen its pillars, and manage to shift its focus to the right path. You'll be amazed at how this showrunner handled it. So what are you waiting for? Let's hear his story by clicking on that play button!  Show Notes [0:46] Alex’s experience of running a business in a pandemic [4:13] The story of how they built up a bunch of ideas that could potentially build customers and went through trial and error. [7:28] Time to market is one of the things that they prioritized. [8:25] When you’re trying to build a future for your company, you have to go out and talk to people. [12:56] How did the pandemic affect your whole team? [13:33] Aligning the entire company with their new vision and mission [14:17] How did he manage to not lose heart and shift the business focus? [18:55] They spent a lot of time training everyone internally and growing their confidence in moving forward in the right direction. [22:52] You must have grit and be at ease with challenges. Invest time in taking care of yourself and your mental health. About Alex Haefner Alex is a graduate of the University of Michigan. Before Envoy, Alex previously served as a product leader at Yelp, where he led a team of engineers and spearheaded its content teams. In his spare time, he likes to work on personal projects and is continuously seeking general self-improvement.  Links Envoy Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction Profile Alex’s LinkedIn Alex’s Twitter

Join us as Wes takes us through what's new at ProductLed: The ProductLed Accelerator. [00:45] ProductLed Accelerator [1:05] Most people resist talking to sales reps yet jump at the chance to use a free product. [3:08] What's new in the ProductLed Accelerator course [5:19] Where will the ProductLed Certification fit? [6:52] Sponsored Ad [8:15] The student journey [10:20] Live workshops [11:00] Advice if you're still on the fence [13:00] Live Session Replay update About Wes Bush Wes is the author of the best selling book: Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself and is the Founder and CEO of ProductLed. Links productled.com Profiles Wes' LinkedIn ProductLed's LinkedIn Pierce' LinkedIn

Mona Akmal is the CEO of Falkon AI. She is a product and engineering hotshot whose passion is building solutions to technically challenging problems. She’s in the show today to share data-driven methods such as identifying your product-qualified leads and figuring out what the value of your product is to your end users by using the concept of value metrics. Not sure what your value metrics are? Don’t worry because Mona has got you covered.  So product-led folks, be sure to turn your volumes up because this will be a fun episode! Show Notes [1:08] The concept of value metrics which is generally not well understood  [3:11] Three most common mistakes that she sees in value metric [6:12] A lot of times, value metrics are used to identify atypical behavior of a certain customer population  [8:18] Define value metrics before you even start your user research so that you know which ones are you going to look put for [8:37] Three key parts of figuring out what the value of your product is to your end-users [10:43] What are the correct value metrics for a particular business?  [17:55] When it comes to product-led growth for the growth part, how can you make money out of it? [21:29] Usage-based pricing goes hand in hand with a product-led growth [23:06] Accuracy and rigor in defining value metrics are key to all aspects of the business  [23:32] Your intuition plus data analysis plus unbiased user research all of them have to play together in harmony to understand your value metrics  [23:46] Coming up with value metrics and throwing them in a lockbox does not result in product-led growth. You have to operationalize these value metrics to see the benefits  About Mona Akmal In her twenties, Mona decided to migrate to the United States with a degree in Computer Software. She also had her first job in one of the world’s famous software companies, Microsoft. Two decades later, she’s now spearheading Falkon AI with her undeniable wits and talent. Mona is, without a doubt, one of the best Product and Engineering people out there. Link Falkon AI Profile Mona’s LinkedIn Mona’s Email Address: mona@falkon.ai

Dan Balcauski, our pricing master, is here to help us understand the value of pricing and compete in the market while generating over-the-top revenues. He delves into the ins and outs of how effective it is to maximize your price to have long-term profitability and move your business forward. So let’s hop on in, explore the depths of pricing models and learn a thing or two from this savvy expert.  Show Notes [0:58] How to be competitive while still generating revenues? [2:57] On understanding customer value, psychology and finance aspects  [3:13] What do people typically get wrong about pricing, especially in 2022? [4:17] How does he define an effective price? [5:48] How does the entire pricing process work? [8:49] Using the “jobs to be done” framework to understand customer value [12:01] What exactly is packaging from a perspective of a software product? [14:29] Make sure that your offering is clear and the customers understand what might be the best for them [17:00] Have a pricing committee and internal systems for your product  [18:21] How often should companies change their pricing? About Dan Balcauski As the B2B SaaS Pricing continues to evolve, so does Dan. Dan is always passionate about helping businesses optimize their pricing models. He’s always a one-call away when you need help in your pricing endeavors. Link: Product Tranquility  Profile: Dan’s LinkedIn