Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself

Good book on PLG useful for any product team that wants to learn the key principles of product-led companies and spark some thinking on how to adapt.The second half of the book is dense with examples and templates of email communications to support various parts of the funnel. It's useful reference, but I wonder if these templates could be provided in other ways (downloadable?). Some people may appreciate having everything in one place however.

The “value metric” and “bowling alley” concepts and tips are extremely helpful. Highly recommended for anyone who’s trying to help users succeed with a SaaS product with as little friction as possible.These sections alone make the book worthwhile.However, there are several topics that are addressed in an incoherent and contradictory manner. Chapter 2 addresses the decision between free trial, premium, and demo sales models. I found the information in this chapter helpful, but the rest of the book assumes a free trial approach and doesn’t really address the others. Demo is the best fit for my situation, but the book doesn’t say much about how to succeed with the demo model.The concept of a value metric is also very helpful. However, the author implies that pricing should be based on this value metric, with no discussion of when it makes sense to meter pricing based on this metric and when it doesn’t. I would assume most users would like to do an unlimited amount of whatever activity they are paying for, eg tasks in a task app, videos watched on Netflix, etc.At several points, it would’ve been better for the author to say “here’s what I think everyone should do, and all my advice that follows assumes that you’re going along with my recommendation.” The book would’ve made more sense if the author had just said bluntly that he recommends a free trial model.

If you are thinking about making the jump from sales-led to product-led growth, this book is your first step. It’s an easy read and full of useful frameworks and tips for getting started. There are also good examples weaved in, applicable to both B2C and B2B audiences.I’m generally not a fan of business books, but as an experienced product leader, I could instantly relate to the growth challenges raised by the author, and I found myself immediately thinking about how to put his recommendations into action.I’m recommending it for my CEO and the rest of our leadership team.

Who's the most likely candidate to pay for your product? Someone who's already using it. That's the driver behind Product Led Growth (PLG) strategies. The idea is that instead of (or in addition to) filling your sales pipe with leads pulled in from traditional in-bound and out-bound sales and marketing efforts and then progressively qualifying them as they work through your funnel, you use your product to qualify leads to a much higher level. Users already getting value from your product make the best leads.PLG isn't without its risks though. What if your free offering doesn't provide enough value users don't get it? What if it provides so much value they don't need to pay to for the additional seats or features? This books helps a product manager like myself think through the different kinds of PLG approaches, understanding the risks and benefits of each approach. I enjoyed the book so much I shared it with the rest of our management team. It's spurred some great discussions and helped us all get on the same page about our approach. Highly recommended for any Software as a Service company that feels like they're hitting the limits of the traditional sales model (or need a leaner approach to bootstrapping their start-up phase).

If you're someone who saw the title of this book and thought that it would reveal to you something that you hadn't already considered for sellling your product, this isn't for you. The general concept of the book is, "Develop a great product and that is how you will achieve growth." If there could be a subtitle, it might be "The old way of using sales and marketing to achieve sales is not as good as having a great product." Do either of my quotations seem like a surprise to you? If not, then skip this book. You won't get much out of it that you probably haven't already heard elsewhere. I'm not going to go so far as to say that the book is a complete waste. The author, I sensed from my reading, does his best to steer you in the right direction, but repeating to me what I already know and what I think most people would already know is not really worth the cost of this book. If you have an actual, physical product, go read "12 Months to $1 Million" by Ryan Moran. I found that one way more useful and insightful than "Product-Led Growth." If you have a SaaS, go read "The SaaS Playbook" by Rob Walling. For that matter, pick up his earlier book "Start Small Stay Small."

Wes does an excellent job at guiding business owners through the steps of building a business that is 100% product-led. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn of the strategies they can employ to grow their company via their product.He dives deep enough into the data to give you meaningful experiments to try, yet not too far that you stop reading because of boring context. I especially loved the last few chapters that dive into specific areas you can improve when onboarding users so they have a delightful experience.Honestly, this is one of the best written books on product strategy that I have read. I recommended it to my team immediately after finishing it.

The book is quite good and very timely - I'd give it 5 stars but the Kindle formatting is really hard to read. A screenshot is shared here for a small sample.