Escaping the Product Led Trap from Melissa Perri at La Product Conf.

Opening Keynote: of course, Product Led 😀

In a context of tech layoffs and a generalized run towards profitability, la Product Conf opened the day with a keynote on becoming truly Product Led from Melissa Perri, the famous author of Escaping the Build Trap.

In the last couple of months, Product Led Growth (PLG) strategies have gained significant traction in the French ecosystem as they carry three main benefits for customers and investors :

1. PLG in the long run can help a company reach profitability faster. The product can sell itself and sales teams can focus on highest value deals which leads to an overall drop on the cost of acquiring a customer.
2. PLG forces product investments to be closely linked to revenue KPIs.
3. PLG puts pressure on every team to focus on the customer.

But the shift towards Product Led Growth may encounter resistance from certain teams because it requires them to change and adapt their practices to achieve success.

Why Product-led growth resistance?

In the world of business, there is a prevailing belief that product management reigns supreme. It is widely held that the product itself leads the path to growth and success. However, a crucial question arises: how can we engage and involve all members of a Product-Led company, including sales, support, marketing, and beyond? The answer lies in understanding the reasons behind their resistance and finding ways to overcome them.

#1 The lack of knowledge

One of the primary causes of resistance is the lack of knowledge. People may feel intimidated or unsure about their roles in a product-led environment. To tackle this, it is essential to establish a clear product strategy that defines the company’s direction. This strategy should answer the question of where the company wants to go and provide a roadmap for everyone to follow.

#2 The lack of control

Additionally, the lack of control can foster resistance. Individuals may fear losing autonomy or influence over their work. To address this concern, it is crucial to develop a comprehensive product operations plan. This plan outlines how the company will achieve its goals and ensure that everyone understands their role in the process.

By providing a sense of structure and guidance, all team members can feel more confident and willing to participate.

It is crucial to avoid a common mistake: conflating the company’s vision with a specific solution. The ultimate vision should be broader than simply making more money. Instead, it should focus on the collective success of the entire company. Once the vision is established, it is necessary to work on the strategy’s content. This involves considering the actions, plans, and desired outcomes in alignment with the company’s goals. Stephen Bungay’s concept from the “Art of Action”, can be a valuable framework to adopt.

While this approach is particularly relevant for scale-ups and growing companies, it may not apply to early-stage startups.

At Yousign, we started our PLG journey around one and a half years ago and it has been an exciting one!

As we all listened carefully to Melissa’s words here are some topics that resonated quite strongly with our team!

Product Led is not Product Manager Led

Although it’s really tempting to believe this, don’t!

Learning #1

Becoming product-led puts you in a position where whatever you say, some people will hear: the Product is our primary growth lever, and the other parts of the company are not important.

This was one of our greatest fears when starting our PLG journey, and to be honest, I think we could’ve done better. As a Product Manager in a PLG environment, as Melissa points out, we should be even more empathetic with our stakeholders and find the right framework to work collectively on this strategy.

The main risks of working in silos on PLG are:

1. You will create tensions with the Sales teams whereas they are one of the most important sources of feedback and will help support growth with big enterprise deals.
2. PLG requires fundamental organizational changes, if you don’t have buy-in and alignment your change will take years…or might not happen at all.

Why empathy is key?

The key to implementing this methodology lies in cultivating empathy. When seeking to change an organization’s vision or structure, empathy becomes a vital tool. By understanding and acknowledging the perspectives of others, it becomes easier to collaborate effectively and create a momentum that fosters collective productivity.

A product-led company can only thrive when all members of the organization are fully engaged and aligned with the product strategy.

To not fall into this trap, there are three solutions: Communicate, communicate, and well, communicate. Indeed, to get buy-in from the entire company, make sure you :

1. Explain your decisions in a language everybody understands.
2. Communicate often about where you are in the process.
3. Tie PLG with revenue as often as you can (read below why that’s important :D)

Product is business and business is Product

If you’ve read this far, there is a high chance you will close your tab after reading this statement.

But if it makes it any better, that’s what Melissa said during her talk, and I actually agree. Let’s clarify what she meant by that.

A company is composed of different teams (product, marketing, sales), and for them to produce a lovable experience that helps sustain the business they all need to collaborate efficiently. In PLG, where part of the growth is done by the product your internal silos crystallize, let’s take an example. As a potential lead of Yousign:

1. I click on an ad, that says Yousign is the best eSignature solution.
2. Then land on a website that says it’s the simplest one.
3. But land on a product experience that is extremely complicated.
4. And end up calling a sales rep, that tells me the feature I am looking for is not available.

Anyone, even someone with a very high intent would probably never pay for such a product. So when you build your Product in PLG you should always think of the entire journey and think of business even more than what you are used to because your product becomes a growth lever.

Learning #2:

Make sure the entire experience, from awareness to subscription, is coherent, and try not to expose internal organizational silos to your users.

Now this is easier said than done, but here are some concrete examples we implemented to limit this.

1. Shared objectives with skin in the game. A very good way to break silos is to give teams the same financial objective. For instance, at Yousign, the Growth Team and the Impact Team working on PLG have the same objective and both of their bonuses depend on revenue.
2. As a PM, try to see the bigger picture. Although you are responsible for the feature you are developing something that integrates into a more global flow, do not hesitate to warn teams about changes and try to identify experience gaps whenever you can.
3. Map your user journey and clearly communicate it to the company.

Product led is hard but worth it

Before you go, I can assure you that going on a Product Led journey is super exciting!

Melissa’s insights have resonated deeply and reminded us of the importance of creating an environment where everyone is fully engaged and aligned with our product strategy.

Companies can bring all stakeholders on board by defining a clear product strategy, developing a comprehensive product operations plan, and fostering empathy. By doing so, you’ll harness the collective power of the entire organization and drive growth and success together.

Finally, keep in mind that in a world where a product has to sell itself and drive growth you can’t get away with bad UX, wrong features, and lack of clarity in your copy, onboarding etc … All in all, it’s a strategy that helps you refocus on what matters most: customers and revenue to help your company grow and become profitable.

If you liked this article or want to learn more about Yousign’s PLG journey, let us know!

A huge thanks to Dorinda Huybrechts for writing the article with me and for helping us everyday with our PLG transformation.