PRODUCTEA with Leah, Growth & Senior Leadership

Kyle Poyar joined me on the ProductTea to talk about anything that makes businesses and VCs tick.I love this conversation for the simplicity of how Investors make decisions and what the future of our industry might very well look like. You should leave this podcast once you listened to it with some great insights into what makes product-led growth companies run differently than their competitors. 00:00 Kyle and Leah’s introduction04:00 Using LinkedIn to validate concepts and Ideas07:20 The balancing act of what we say and what we mean in different channels08:45 Consistency on LinkedIn and challenging established things like the NPS13:00 Kyle’s “Growth Unhinged” posts as a well of knowledge of the past 6 years in PLG15:30 The business model of “Openview”, Investment profile, and typical companies to invest in18:45 How to determine whether a company has reached product-market fit22:15 How to “show” product-market fit with non-obvious numbers26:20 How long it takes to “proof” a certain motion, typical Lifetime Value numbers29:30 The data Gap of tracking emails instead of people34:57 Investing into companies that have no revenue to show for39:00 Pre-Seed investment methods43:33 Do you know how the business you work in, works?45:00 Putting a price on Customer Success and the increasing business literacy around it47:30 When risk profiles are driven by greed and how PLG runs on a “skeleton crew”50:15 Where PLG companies spend more money than others51:50 Product-Led Sales and the maturity it’s in.Connect!Kyles LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-poyar/ Kyle’s Substack: Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged Connect with Leah: https://linktr.ee/leahtharin Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

Wes Bush joined me to talk about everything product-led. Wes specialized in advising companies on product-led growth through his courses and successful book. He’s a fun, authentic person to be around and I loved every minute we spent together.His no-bullshit approach to product-led growth is exactly why I started following him closer 5 months ago and have not regretted it in the slightest. There are a ton of very specific learnings in this talk condensed to one hour.00:00 Wes and Leah's introductions04:00 On the fundamentals of Product-led Growth and how its fundamentals are still basic business07:10 How consulting differs from how we represent PLG on LinkedIn and other spaces.09:40 How to get everyone on the same page in company consulting. Start at the very basics.10:55 How the term Product-led Growth is misleading and misunderstood.12:30 Product-Led Growth is not a binary, it’s a spectrum16:30 Coaching around PLG and how it is a tricky business to get buy-in from the entire organization19:15 Trying to convince people vs. doing team building around product-led growth21:50 ProductLed the company and how the product changed25:00 Chairs and ICPs28:00 Empowering anybody to do anything.30:40 How a product-led growth approach transcends everything33:45 The ideal customer for Productled39:35 Product-led Sales and whether it’s too early yet44:50 The mixup with Customer Success and the ensuing bloodbath48:30 What happens if Wes goes missing? How would his friends describe him to the police?50:00 If Wes had a time machine, what company would he have joined?53:15 Trends Wes believes inSend us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

Dave Boyce started to talk to me about meatloaf. The logical follow-up to this topic is of course that he is a board member at Forrester. And a great human to be and spend time with. He advocated for PLG through Winning by Design, an amazing gig that gets the numbers right about PLG. Their visualizations are legendary and the reason for this is the people behind them, David is one of them.0:00 Dave and Leah introductions05:30 What do people get wrong about Dave Boyce08:40 How Dave sees his growth mindset and puts his ego where it belongs.09:45 Why we should not hold back from sharing our learnings16:15 Dave’s beautiful story of realizing that we’re all just humans during his entire career20:35 Leah’s framework about leaders and why it’s impossible to have it together all the time23:00 Dave’s definition of leadership. Bringing people somewhere they can’t see yet26:00 When letting people go becomes difficult, and how some decisions are impossible to get right.28:50 The connection to middle management. Do not resent people for making mistakes under you.30:40 Winning by Design and its mission to push into unexplored territory connected to PLG35:15 Why the math of Sales-Led doesn’t work when PLG could work.36:30 Leah’s take on PLG43:00 How sales can be a miserable experience47:15 It’s not about pretense anymore, it’s about bringing the best we have to offer to our fellow humans48:30 How Hubspot brought PLG to Leah56:00 How to bring Product-led Sales into a Sales-led organization59:15 The trend about bringing Product to SalesSend us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

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

David Pereira on when product management goes wrong and it's better to be called bullshit management.When things get overcomplicated practical advice is needed and egos are hurt. In the end, it's about delivering value for the users.David has a talent of getting to the level where agile is a framework that belongs to the past. He talks about Strategy, decision making and how to deal with prioritization.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

I talk with Tim Geisenheimer about everything related to product-led sales.What's easier? To transform a product-led growth distribution to product-led sales or to pivot an existing sales organization to product-led sales?Specifics on what PQA's / PQL's can do for you and how to qualify your accounts the right way.If you are working in product, are interested in product-led growth or toy with the idea to bring in Product-led Sales to your company. This episode is for you.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

The passionate and unparalleled Scott Brinker talks about his love for Martech. He is an insights factory, second to none and we talk about all things marketing at scale, market ops and why MQLs suck.What trends are going to amplify and why AI is going to take over the world but not quite.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

Jennifer talks about her gig at Onomondo a company built for IoT connectivity. From finding your scooter to having vaccine shipments at the correct temperature at all times.Why MQLs suck and how Marketing & Sales have to shape up to be ready for the future. Experimentation and the evolution for learning with the customer instead of creating more silos.Whether she ghosts or replies to everyone all the time.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

Matthew shaped his book into a critical part of my and many other product people's understanding of modern organizational building in tech.We talk about it in detail about what makes an organization great and what to look out for.How the industry changed from when we shipped everything on CD-ROMs to modern tech development as we know it today with organizations that need to be able to ship multiple releases a day.How did the requirements change for pretty much any leader in the space as a result when we moved from coordinating to alignment?Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube

Adam and I are talking about lovely annual planning sessions, difficulties in advisory roles, and why loops are the thing.What to do when you only have partial buy-in for a pivot that might require the entire C-Level to pull?The misunderstanding of "Growth" and the recent news of Reforge laying off people.Also hear live how Adam manages to lose sight of his dog.Send us a textLeah on Linkedin / Twitter / Youtube