ProductLed Podcast

Zach Sims is the CEO of Codecademy, an online learning platform that teaches people how to code, along with additional skills they might need to upgrade their careers. In this episode, he walks us through the strategies he and his team used to grow Codecademy to what it is today. He also weighs in on monetization, community-driven growth, and internationalization. Show Notes [01:26] Codecademy’s mission and how it got started [04:49] How Codecademy has evolved since its first version was launched [10:38] On building a brand around the freemium model  [18:08] When is the best time to monetize? [19:55] On brand, community, and content [23:53] The metrics that Codecademy uses to measure end-user success [25:50] On fostering community and why they invest in their learners [31:27] On the future of education About Zach Sims Prior to launching Codecademy in 2011, Zach Sims was a student at Columbia University. He has worked in product and business development/strategy capacities at startups. He also has experience in the venture capital industry with AOL Ventures. Codecademy has worked with organizations like The White House, the Government of Colombia, American Express, Rakuten, and more. TIME Magazine included Codecademy in its "50 Best Websites of 2012” list, and TechCrunch awarded it the "Best Education Startup" Crunchie Award in 2013. Profile Links Codecademy Zach Sims on Twitter

Momo Ong is the co-founder of HeadsUp—a plug-to-play, end-to-end solution for sales teams to understand and engage their customers. In this episode, Momo shares the insane amount of research they completed before HeadsUp was built, weighing in on the challenges that go-to-market teams face in product-led growth. He also talks about the importance of product usage data and identifies specific metrics that should be created for marketing and sales success. Show Notes [01:32] What prompted Momo and his colleague, Earl Lee, to create HeadsUp [03:42] On the increased need for collaboration within go-to-market teams [05:55] On the increased need for collaboration between go-to-market teams and product engineering functions [06:55] Why product usage data is important [12:28] How go-to-market professionals increase collaboration within their organization [15:15] On rolling out product usage data beyond product teams [17:25] Extract, transform, and load product usage data into a cloud data warehouse and then create actionable metrics [20:45] When product-led companies hire go-to-market individuals About Momo Ong Momo is a graduate of Princeton University who used to work on video ads at Facebook. He also held product leadership roles at Beam and FiscalNote (where he met his HeadsUp teammates Earl Lee, Justin Hegyi, and Dev Shah). He really enjoys playing games and thinking about leadership and management. Links FiscalNote Salesforce Marketo Product-led Growth Slack Profile HeadsUp

Sean Hurley is the founder and CEO of Pathright, a company that helps marketing teams and startups supercharge their growth. In another episode of the How I Got Here series, Sean talks about the challenges of taking “the next step,” what it’s like to work in marketing and growth, and the subtle differences between the two industries. He also offers advice on hiring and how to harness the power of social media platforms. Show Notes [00:42] About Sean and Pathright [04:50] How going up the career ladder inversely affected his happiness and motivation [07:58] On working with Properly VP of Marketing Jess van Rooyen [10:50] Why he wrote “Head of Growth Playbook” [12:30] The growth engine is built by humans—not channels or money [14:38] What Sean learned from Jobber growth product manager Connor Bradley [17:05] Four or five channels are enough to scale your startup [19:42] What kind of content Sean shares on LinkedIn [22:32] On the nuances of marketing and growth [29:32] What skills people in the growth space should have About Sean Hurley Sean Hurley has been in marketing and the growth space for nearly 15 years. He’s had a couple experiences on the B2B front but mainly focused on B2C products. He quit his full-time job last October 2020 and launched Pathright in February 2021. Sean is intrinsically driven by the need to understand people and to create enough value that will inspire them into action. He started Pathright to help convert people on different channels and to drive growth. Links  Properly Jobber Profile  Pathright Head of Growth Playbook Sean on LinkedIn

Hiten Shah is the founder of several popular software startups—Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics, and most recently, Nira. In this episode, Hiten talks about FYI and its transition to Nira, weighing in on the importance of access control in the hierarchy of collaboration needs. He also talks about pricing and the emotional aspect of pivoting. Be sure to tune in until the end where Hiten shares great advice for SaaS founders. Show Notes [01:05] On the creation of FYI and what inspired Hiten and his team to shift focus [06:35] The problem Nira addresses [12:22] The 3 types of pivots: problem pivot, customer pivot, and product pivot [14:08] The differences between a pivot and a “hop” [17:32] When is it time to pivot? [24:08] About Hiten’s team, their approach to product building, and how they reacted to the change in direction [28:18] On doing product-pricing research  [31:00] How to counter the pains of attachment [35:05] Lean into your fears About Hiten Shah Hiten Shah is the co-founder and CEO of Nira, a real-time access control system that provides visibility and management over who has access to company documents in Google Workspace. He is a founder at heart, having started multiple well-known companies. He has also helped thousands of other people with their startups. Links Box Confluence Airtable Slack Profit Well Profile Hiten Shah on Twitter Nira

Louis Grenier is the founder and host of Everyone Hates Marketers, a popular contrarian marketing podcast that has reached over a million downloads without ads in less than 4 years.  In this episode, Louis weighs in on the importance of radical differentiation in marketing while also explaining the steps you need to take to stand out from the competition, including things like finding a niche and being hyper-focused in your minimum viable market. Show Notes [01:01] About radical differentiation and marketing bullshit [06:14] Challenge your self-limiting beliefs, obsess over your minimum viable market, engineer the differentiation, and then make people pay attention to you in a non-sleazy way. [09:30] How to overcome your self-limiting beliefs [15:02] April Dunford’s method for niching down [19:02] The benefits of being hyper-focused on your minimum viable market [20:42] Louis’ tips for finding your minimum viable market [22:33] Look through different lenses to engineer your uniqueness [26:07] How Louis built his podcast [35:00] It’s hard to change people’s minds. Go after those who believe in what you believe. [39:55] How to communicate your uniqueness  About Louis Grenier Louis Grenier is the founder and host of the Everyone Hates Marketers podcast. Speaking from 10 years of experience in the industry, he believes that radical differentiation is the antidote to marketing bullshit. He also has an 8-week high-intensity program to help people and organizations stand out without being sleazy. Resources ZAG by Marty Neumeier The Practice by Seth Godin Obviously Awesome by April Dunford Eating the Big Fish by Adam Morgan Profile Everyone Hates Marketers Louis Grenier on LinkedIn

Stephanie Cox is the president of Lumavate and host of the Real Marketers podcast. In this episode, she walks us through Lumavate’s journey from being a direct sales-driven company to a product-led one. Stephanie also talks about some of the tools and techniques that Lumavate has applied to find success. Show Notes [01:20] About Lumavate [03:42] The challenges of transitioning from sales-led to product-led [08:10] Why being product-led is like eCommerce [10:22] How Stephanie and her team track data [17:48] Consumer behavior is constantly changing [19:19] On marketing in relation to product-led growth  [25:13] How Lumavate approaches customers [28:25] On marketing qualified leads and how people engage with software providers  [37:15] How Lumavate has changed from a marketing point of view [43:07] Stephanie’s advice for companies going product-led    About Stephanie Cox  Stephanie Cox has over 15 years of marketing experience and was the VP of sales and marketing at Lumavate until she became its president last May. She also hosts the Real Marketers podcast to help out other marketers, leaders, and sales reps.   Stephanie has done just about everything: launched companies, brands, new products, geographic expansion, and more. She has driven phenomenal growth, spoke at conferences around the world, led incredible teams, and she’s just getting started.  Links Pendo Salesforce Sumo Logic Pardot Google Analytics   Profile  Lumavate Real Marketers Podcast

Arpit Choudhury is the founder of Data-led Academy, a go-to place for anybody to learn how to work with data. In this episode, he explains why data is at the heart of being product-led and offers advice on implementation and documentation. He also talks about the different types of technologies and tools that startups should know about and consider investing in.   Show Notes [01:18] What being data-led means to Arpit [02:39] Why product-led companies should be data-led  [07:13] On data collection, storage, analysis, and activation  [13:25] Some of the most popular tools and their open-source alternatives [18:10] On model data [19:02] Have your data warehouse as your main source [20:50] Arpit’s recommended tools for product-led startups [26:38] Implement server-side analytics from the get-go [29:24] How to overcome “data spaghetti” [34:00] Create a tracking plan   About Arpit Choudhury  Arpit Choudhury is a non-engineer who loves data and application programming interface (API). He started Data-led Academy as a side project about a year ago because of the lack of educational resources for non-techy people, but now, it’s a full-time endeavor.  Challenge is a word that can be connected to Arpit—he likes to think about the big challenges we face as a society, work on challenging problems, and challenge the status quo. He is also driven by building value and passionate about contributing to communities. Links Segment Connections RudderStack Fivetran Stitch Matillion mParticle Hull Amperity Snowflake Google BigQuery AWS Redshift Heap Indicative Rakam PopSQL Metabase Redash Superset Preset Amplitude Brave   Profile  Data-led Academy How to create a tracking plan Arpit Choudhury on Twitter Arpit Choudhury on LinkedIn

Sandhya Hegde is a Partner at Unusual Ventures, an early-stage VC firm that provides funding and comprehensive GTM services to early-stage founders. Sandhya leads enterprise investments at the fund, focused on new-age SaaS, data, and fintech. In this episode, Sandhya chats about the role enterprise fits into product-led growth. She touches on the biggest challenges for PLG companies, and shares her #1 piece of advice for founders.   Show Notes [01:13] Sandhya’s background and how she got started at Unusual VC [05:09] Something to brag about from what she accomplished in Amplitude  [07:42] What Product-Led Growth is for her and its misconceptions  [10:05] On the misconception that PLG is all about the product [11:19] How she sees teams work in a Product-Led company vs. Sales-Led company [15:00] The biggest challenges she sees for Product-Led companies  [21:15] Her thoughts on going ahead with PLG for pre-product market fit [26:06] Her advice for companies on transitioning to product-led from sales-led  [32:15] Her thoughts on going product-led for complex products [39:54] On the key focus for getting started with product-Led growth [44:07] Her thoughts on PLG and enterprise  [49:19] A strong piece of PLG advice she has for founders [52:40] Where to find more about Sandhya  About Sandhya Hegde In addition to being a Partner at Unusual Ventures, Sandhya Hedge is currently an investor of four other companies: Webflow, Wonderschool, Flutterwave, and iMerit Technology. Prior to Unusual Ventures, Sandhya spent four years at Amplitude, where she gained significant experience in Product-Led Growth. She earned her BS and MS in Electronics and Computer Science degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay in 2007 and her Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University in 2013. Link Amplitude   Profile Unusual Ventures Sandhya on LinkedIn

Tom Coburn is the co-founder and CEO of Jebbit, a Boston-based startup. The Jebbit platform enables marketers to quickly build beautiful interactive experiences and drives high engagement by providing consumers with immediate value in exchange for relevant information about their motivations, interests and preferences. During this live session Q&A, Tom will reveal how Jebbit found more success after its transition from a sales-led enterprise to a product-led organization. Show Notes [01:08] An overview of Jebbit and how it went from startup to working with big brands [08:08] How Tom’s PLG Task Force gradually created an onboarding flow that the company was comfortable with [12:20] On finding a specific use case [14:09] The initial steps Jebbit took to introduce the free version of its product [17:57] The challenges they had to overcome during beta testing [20:00] Analytics help them discover points where they need improvement [23:00] The start of Jebbit’s success and the developments that took place after that [28:46] How pricing has shifted since Jebbit became product-led [31:02] The differences between Jebbit’s free and premium versions [33:36] On having open dialogues with customers and how Jebbit’s sales team reaches out [38:34] Tom's advice for sales-led businesses that want to become product-led About Tom Coburn Tom Coburn is the co-founder and CEO of Jebbit. The digital marketing startup created the world’s first declared data platform. It was named one of the Top 25 Most Promising Companies in the World by CNBC, and its clients include Procter & Gamble, NFL, and Bliss Cosmetics. Tom is a student entrepreneur who honed his experiences while doing his undergraduate in Boston College. He is also “Settlers of Catan” enthusiast who made it to the 2015 Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list together with Jebbit co-founder Jonathan Lacoste. Links Mentioned On Starting and Scaling HubSpot HubSpot Shopify Profile Jebbit Tom Coburn on LinkedIn Tom Coburn's email

Andrea Saez is the Senior Product Marketing Manager at airfocus. airfocus is an easy-to-use prioritization and road mapping software solution that helps teams visualize priorities, build lean roadmaps, collaborate on strategy, and align vision with the whole organization. In this episode, she will talk about creating a product adoption strategy. She will also give tips and recommendations on doing product adoption and dealing with customers.  Show Notes [00:58] How Andrea defines Product Strategy and how it fits in the product roadmap [01:38] How to start coming up with product adoption strategy in teams for her  [02:41] Her suggestion on the product adoption goal to drive around and how to hit it [04:41] Her way of knowing if a product is already adopted [07:02] The strategies and tactics to achieve the desired goal or outcome  [09:07] An experiment she had on product adoption [10:50] On driving product adoption geared towards a buying persona [12:45] How she measures product adoption on new features [15:57] How she deals with user issues  [18:21] On measuring loyalty, giving delighters, and creating and developing relationships with users [26:18] Her advice for the product-led community and enthusiasts [30:13] Her view on the scope of product adoption [31:22] Her tips for creating a customer experience journey map across teams [33:01] How she handles communication with uninterested customers [36:24] On balancing self-education and personal experience for customers About Andrea Saez Andrea Saez is passionate about product management, growth strategies, and community engagement. She loves to learn, talk, and engage with customers and apply product-thinking to scaling companies. She shares her passion through writing and hosting talks and events. Andrea is the Co-Founder of The Product Dynamic. It is a company that helps teams navigate organizations, defeat cognitive biases and create healthy working dynamics across teams to build great products and drive positive change. She has honed her expertise through her experiences working in various companies such as Evoca, CakeMail, Amilia Technologies, Inc., Brandwatch and ProdPad.   Links Mentioned Miro Hubspot Canva   Profile airfocus Andrea Saez on LinkedIn