BUILD with Blake Bartlett

Mike is currently the Head of Marketing at Reflektive, but was at Lever and Glassdoor during periods of hypergrowth, where the name of the game was to double in size every year. Mike explains why you should lean on your sales reps throughout a pricing change, how to think about pricing as a competitive advantage and how his background in product marketing has benefited his role in pricing projects.

This episode features BUILD superfan, Abde Tambawala, Head of Business Strategy, Operations and Monetization at Atlassian. His team focuses on making better business decisions, faster. He breaks down why even successful companies can benefit from a pricing change, how to create a framework to make data-driven pricing decisions and how their product led growth approach affects their overall strategy. You'll also hear his perspective on when you should embrace change in the pricing landscape (yes, some things are iterative, but others should stay the same).

This episode features two pricing professionals from PLG companies for double the insider secrets! Madeline Stein is the Principal Pricing Manager at SendGrid and Ismail Madni is Director, Product Pricing Strategy at InVision. They discussed the ideal time to build a pricing team, the cross-functionality of their roles and where pricing should sit within the org. You'll also get their takes on which KPIs matter most for determining when it might be time to make a pricing change.

Andy Wilson is the Founder & CEO of Logikcull, a legal tech startup that’s revolutionizing how lawyers handle document discovery. In this episode, Andy explains why they pivoted from an annual subscription model to pay as you go and the implications this had on the business as a whole (spoiler: it changed everything). He also dives into how their mission drives decision-making and what they've done to help their customers have an amazing experience.

Amanda Kleha has been involved with pricing at PLG companies like Zendesk and Figma. On this episode, she explains when freemium makes sense in SaaS, the right time to add sales or customer success to a self-service business and the implications of PLG on culture. You'll also learn why she thinks you should know your leaders, fillers and killers.

Mike Volpe is no stranger to competitive markets. He was part of HubSpot's founding team, then moved into the world of cybersecurity with Cybereason and is now CEO of Lola.com, a travel management tool. In this episode, he explains the relationship between pricing and brand, his perception of freemium and the importance of looking closely at your happiest customers for growth opportunities.

We're kicking off Season 6 by bringing OV Partner, Blake Bartlett, back to discuss the magic of product led growth. Blake breaks down the placement of the paywall, when a freemium model makes sense and the importance of getting specific about your target customer. Find out why PLG means you can have your cake and eat it too.

Hiten Shah is the mastermind behind Crazy Egg, Product Habits & FYI. He and his team pioneered heat maps and the left to right funnel, but what actually got him obsessed with product and product led growth? On this episode, Hiten dives into freemium, his love for solving problems in unique ways and why founders should get involved with sales. He also describes how to get the entire team to think about growth and the role of sales and marketing in PLG businesses. You'll hear how he got to #1 on ProductHunt and his tips for getting there - be sure to check out his collection, 'Free Stuff For Startups.'

Jeff Weiser hasn't exactly followed a traditional path to get to CMO, but his background in strategy and analytics has made him incredibly successful. In this episode, Jeff explains his perspective on the power of analytics (while also laying out the limitations they present). Learn about the role product led growth has played in the evolution of Shopify's target customer, advice about amplifying the power of word-of-mouth and the role of marketing in a product-led world. At the end of the day, marketers have to be willing to embrace the messiness around their craft and the analytics that come with it and know that there will never be a perfectly attributable answer.

Kelly Watkins has consistently been at the heart of marketing within PLG companies - first at GitHub as the Director of Product & Brand Marketing and most recently as the VP of Global Marketing at Slack. She's seen first-hand the role marketing plays in growth and knows the ins and outs of each type of marketing. In this episode, Kelly sheds light how young companies should think about product marketing and when to make their first hire, how impactful brand was for her team and the role content played in Slack's strategy. You'll also find out the two things she cares about as a marketer and what's next for her career.