Kieran Flanagan 🤘 Profile picture
May 12, 2021 14 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Product-Led companies grow fast.

Loom > $350 million valuation

Calendly > $3 billion valuation.

You need a sticky product that sells itself.

Here are 10 great examples of how companies turn their products into revenue machines.

🧵👇
First, let's start with a fun stat.

"60% of software users will log into a free app just once, and never log back in"

You need stickiness to create revenue!

Both are critical in creating a rocketship product-led company.
1. Groove - (feedback loops, just ask)

When Groove started, the first email a user would get was from their CEO & Founder, Alex Turnbull.

It asked why did you sign up.

Knowing the answer to this question helps you create sticky onboarding.
2. Superhuman - (personal onboarding)

Superhuman made onboarding a loveable experience

New users received a 30 min 1:1 onboarding call.

The call provided lots of value. It helped people optimize their inbox & use Superhuman.

It led to a sticky product and great worth of mouth
3. HubSpot - (playing detective)

After launching free products, HubSpot wanted to know the free features to include in onboarding.

What features lead to more revenue?

They did regression analysis finding the most common free features among users with the best upgrade rates
4. Quora & Twitter (create value in product signup)

Many free products struggle to show value until the user begins using the product.

But most users only log-in once 🤔

Products like Quora & Twitter solved this by getting you to start using the product when signing up.
5. Airtable (templates, and more templates)

Why do we love templates?

They can help brands grow signups through search.

But, they help a lot with onboarding people onto specific use cases.

Very helpful for products like Airtable, where the world is your oyster.
6. Ghost (the thing that really matters)

Finding what matters in user onboarding matters a lot!

Ghose discovered users who added a theme during onboarded were 10x more likely to upgrade.

So, they made adding a template part of their onboarding.
7. Google Inbox (remind people of the value of your product)

How many times have you emailed yourself a reminder?

When Google detected you were emailing yourself, they had the perfect reminder for their product 'Reminder.'
8. BuzzSumo (show value, ask for money)

BuzzSumo does a great job of finding the balance between free, and asking for money.

They let you get some results for free and show what else you can get by paying.
9. Grammarly (provide a constant reminder of your value)

Grammarly is an amazing tool.

It helps you look smarter.

It also gives you a constant reminder of just how smart it can make you if you open your wallet and upgrade to a paid plan.
10. Evernote (make the perfect sales pitch)

Evernote created a sticky product but struggled to turn that stickiness into revenue.

Too much in free.

But, their sales pitch started to get better.

Evernote realized people would pay to use their app across devices.
I spend a lot of time on Twitter breaking down why fast-growth companies are successful; follow @searchbrat if you like the content.

Or, join the gang in my newsletter >>
kieranflanagan.io/newsletter
TLDR

- Groove (feedback loops)
- Superhuman: (personal onboarding)
- HubSpot (playing detective)
- Quora (value in product signup)
- Airtable (templates)
- Ghost (the one thing)
- Google Inbox (add value)
- BuzzSumo (give free, ask for money)
- Grammarly (constant reminder)

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More from @searchbrat

Jun 28, 2022
There are many flavors of product-led growth

The best product-led growth strategies excel at 5 first principles

Let's discuss them 👇
1. Growth model

You need to create a 'growth roadmap'

It shows key growth metrics

It forecasts growth and helps create focus

You compare how you expect metrics to grow vs. how you need them to grow

Focus on how to apply resources to close gaps
2. Product-led alignment

PLG has lots of teams in the go-to-market - marketing, sales, product, customer success, engineering

Leads to product-led bloat

Get alignment on who's responsible for metrics. Who are the decision-makers? And ensure teams don't have competing goals.
Read 7 tweets
Oct 17, 2021
Canva, Notion, Airtable are together worth > 50 billion (all pre-IPO).

'Land and expand' is a crucial part of that success.

There is a magic ingredient to this strategy.

Here's what it is ... 👇
Land & expand means a user/team starts using your product, for free and usage spreads(expands) across the company.

When Airtable raised their latest round, one of their investors wrote:

"Its software can penetrate an infinite number of use cases across the modern workforce."
Use cases are the fuel for customer acquisition (land).

People search for them; people talk to others about them; people click on ads about them.

But, an infinite number of use cases can present a challenge for customer acquisition. A collection of use cases is a platform.
Read 10 tweets
Jun 8, 2021
Growth frameworks are the secret behind many successful companies.

They give you a clear and coherent model for growth.

Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, Wealthfront, and many others had great leaders with great frameworks.

Here are 9 of the best [🧵]
1. Product-Channel Fit @bbalfour

Start-ups focus on identifying product-market fit and then "testing marketing channels" to find growth.

The problem with this is:

"Products are built to fit with channels. Channels do not mold to products."
How your product will acquire customers should be part of your roadmap.

Distribution follows the power-law; one channel will drive +70% of your growth.

You need to purposely shape your product to fit with distribution channels like virality, SEO, and paid marketing.
Read 19 tweets
Jun 3, 2021
Growth teams work.

Pinterest has a 40 billion market cap with 500 million monthly active users.

Growth experiments were a big part of that success

Here are some of their biggest wins [🧵]
First, let's start with the purpose of growth experiments.

Their purpose is to ask questions, not find wins.
1. Scaling SEO Experiments

SEO is a big growth channel for Pinterest. They get 200 million monthly organic visits.

They built a framework to help them run SEO experiments.
Read 17 tweets
May 22, 2021
Bill Campbell coached some of the best leaders in Silicon Valley.

Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, Marissa Mayer, and many others.

His leadership advice was exceptional.

Here are 7 of his best 👇🧵
1. Make exceptions for talent

Some people are worth the hassle.

For high performers, geniuses, their behavior should be tolerated as long as it's not unethical or abusive.

This is something founders debate a lot.
2. Build Rapport

To build better relationships with your team, start the meeting with non-business topics.

People want to know their manager beyond the metrics and goals.

As a side note, this is one of the best pieces of advice I was given early in my career.
Read 10 tweets
May 21, 2021
It makes perfect sense for @coinbase to launch a media division.

A couple of reasons why 👇
1. Education

There is exponential growth in people searching for educational content on crypto across Google and Youtube.

Coinbase is starting from a point of strength with 35m backlinks.

They'll capture a lot of traffic.

More educated people, more investment. Image
2. Stories

Every coin listed on Coinbase should be treated like a mini-product launch.

Each coin will translate to a lot of great stories.

The story behind the coin, the problem it solves, the founder's story, their vision for it.

More excitement around a coin, more investing
Read 5 tweets

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