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- [00:01]
Kieran Flanagan
In today's marketing against the Grain. We're looking back at a very interesting past episode. Back in October a year ago, we chatted with Christopher Miller, who runs product growth here at HubSpot. And we wanted to revisit that conversation and focus on the fundamentals of product led growth, or what we call plg. We had such a great time nerding out with Chris. Let's go get started.
- [00:22]
Kip Bodnar
Hey guys, real quick. You know we love building custom GPTs on the show and we love sharing it with all of you. Well, we wanted to kick that up a notch. We just developed this free guide that teaches you how to build your own custom GPT on chatgpt. We've taken the guesswork out of it. We've got templates, we've got a step by step guide to design and implement custom models. So you can focus on the part that's actually fun, the part we love actually building it. And if you want it, you can grab a link in the description below and go check it out now. Now back to today's show.
- [00:55]
Kieran Flanagan
It makes sense to start off looking at what product led strategy means. So we're here with Christopher discussing that very thing.
- [01:05]
Christopher Miller
I want to start with a great experience I had with OpenAI yesterday. What we're going to talk about in this show is how AI helps to accelerate something called product led strategies. Now first of all, I'm going to kick it over to Chris. Chris, I would love you to explain to our audience what do you think a product led strategy is and why have we seen this kind of blow up momentum over the previous like five to ten years in terms of the way companies grow and, and make money?
- [01:31]
Milzi
Yeah, like product led growth strategy to me is it's pretty simple. It's trying to turn your customers usage of your product into, into revenue. Right. And that usually shows up in the form of self service. So in other words, you know, customers being able to be successful on your product without having to talk to a team of frontline people across sales and customer success and support and just really being able to extract value out of the product in a way that like works best for them.
- [02:03]
Christopher Miller
And I think there's three core components. Like you and I worked together for a long time at HubSpot. You led a lot of the product led efforts at HubSpot. There was like three core components that we always obsessed over and I think all companies need to have these for product led to work for their business. There is the freemium aspect. Right. For the most part, product led became A really popular tool for acquiring more users. At the top of your funnel, right? You have a freemium version of your product that that freemium version can acquire user signups in some way. Then you have this way that you can activate. You have a short time to value, right? You're able to get someone onboarded to the core value of your product in a short amount of time. And they can usually do it themselves. They don't need to talk to a human. And then the product has mechanisms within the product that can help sell itself. And I think the thing that I feel is AI is going to help accelerate each of those things.
- [02:57]
Kieran Flanagan
Okay, so let's take a look at what we mean when we talk about freemium.
- [03:03]
Christopher Miller
So basically, freemium, right? Freemium is like, how do I create a free tool or a free version of my software to help accelerate growth of users into my product, right? And there's usually some sort of mechanic that actually helps that product self maintain its own growth, right? So it's able virality or something else. So I'm like, okay, AI, I think, is a boom for freemium because of this conversation. And I want to kind of go through the conversation with you, pause and let you kind of like riff with me if I give it the right instructions on how to help me. So I basically asked the AI to build a freemium tool for Zapier, right? So I'm going to start with the very first thing, which is just the ideas it give me, right? These ideas are, how can Zapier create something to grow more users? For Zapier, I'm going to give you three, and then I want to see which of these you would pick. I'm going to be three of the best ones. So give me these without me giving it any kind of real prompts. Talked about a template gallery, right? A template gallery is a really interesting thing for Zapier because we could create a template gallery across all of these different workflows and integrations we have. That's kind of the app directory. It kind of already exists. This one here is incredible workflow sharing because we actually tried this. The AI does not know this, right? It allows users to share workflows with others even if they are not currently Zapier users. This could create a viral loop as shared workflows introduce new users to the platform, maybe. Actually, Chris, do you want to just talk to our listeners about what we mean by viral loops and why that's important to freemium?
- [04:31]
Milzi
Yeah, viral loops are super important to freemium. Viral loops tend to happen when users are like creating content on your platform and then they share that content to like the rest of the world or the Internet. And then somewhere on that content, there's usually like a watermark or a link back to the product that created that content. And so that person, that user's audience now becomes incremental to sort of the top of your freemium funnel. And then hopefully they click on that link or logo and then it brings them to your product. And that flywheel just keeps on spinning and spinning if it's working really well.
- [05:05]
Christopher Miller
So there's these mechanics that create virality to acquire more user signups. So it's kind of incredible that it didn't just throw out viral loop randomly. It's actually inherently part of the use case workflow. Sharing like that is exactly how we thought about it, by the way. We tried this last year. There's some reasons that it to make it more complex than the AI would know. But I was blown away that it got an idea that we actually had already tried. And I'm going to give you one more and then ask like, which of those three you actually really like. So the third one that I really liked was this App Connection Checker. Now, the name isn't that great, but it's a free tool that analyzes the apps a user currently users and suggests possible workflows or integrations using Zapier. So basically it can actually look to see what you're doing within the company and actually suggest you. Right, so there's seven ideas.
- [05:49]
Milzi
Yeah, I'm sold on that one.
- [05:50]
Christopher Miller
I'm telling you, every idea was good. I was like, shit, it's doing my job better than me.
- [05:58]
Milzi
I'm kind of nervous.
- [06:00]
Christopher Miller
Which of these would you be?
- [06:01]
Kieran Flanagan
Terrified. Are you serious? Like, this is good.
- [06:03]
Christopher Miller
Which of these do you like, Chris? Like, if you're. If you're like looking at these, I.
- [06:07]
Milzi
Think App Connection Checker. And I'll tell you why. Yeah, really fast. Time to value. Right. Look at my thing, assess what's going on, give me a recommendation on what to do. But more importantly, I think it helps solve a problem that a lot of freemium tools struggle with, which is like the blank canvas problem. Yes, I understand the value prop of this product and like the highest level. Right. But I don't understand how I'm supposed to use it. I'm kind of staring at this blank canvas and I'm struggling to come up with, like, inspiration for what I want to do with your product in a way that's going to like, give Me real value. That kind of hits the bullseye, right?
- [06:46]
Kieran Flanagan
There's so much to chew on and think about when it comes to onboarding and the future of onboarding with artificial intelligence. Here's what we discussed with Chris.
- [06:54]
Christopher Miller
How do you feel about chat, like AI chat as a core part of the onboarding experience? Like what? How have you thought about that in HubSpot? How have you seen maybe other companies? Because chat is much more free form, right? The historical path that we've sent people down is you have to click on things, click, click, click, click, click, click. And so you have to build something linear because the UX like the user experience, the user interface, whereas chat is so much more like Freeform. Right? It's kind of like go where you want to go. How do you think about that is like, you think that's a good place that people can start to pivot a lot of their onboarding experience or how have you thought about it, HubSpot?
- [07:31]
Milzi
Oh, totally. I mean, I think that's, that's definitely the direction that we have to go in. One of the challenges is the way that people might talk about their pain point or their problem or the way your customers might talk about it might not be the same way that someone on your product team might describe it. And so we've had instances where, you know, you're trying to build the onboarding, and we need to give the customer options in terms of how, you know, what the next step looks like, let's say. And we're trying to articulate that in the way that the customer understands. But how do you articulate it in a way that, you know, this customer understands, but also that customer. And oftentimes you just get it wrong, right? Like, the way that they would talk about it isn't the way that you talk about it. And so letting the customers just like, talk about what's going on in their own language. And then you can use what's called, you know, natural language processing to make sense of that and then figure out what happens next just gives you so much more coverage than you have when you're trying to sort of come up with a finite sort of set of options for that customer to, to, to. To choose from. And if none of them resonate, then you might just lose that person in the funnel and they're gone because they don't actually think that your, your product solves the problem that they came there for. So I think that moving in a direction where customers can just use the words that they're most familiar with, to talk about what they need to get done, talk about what value they need, what problems that they're looking to get solved is going to make products who invest deeply in AI seem smarter, seem like they have a wider array of value to offer. I think it's going to really separate the product. It's going to separate the products who take this approach from the ones who don't. I think it's going to be pretty stark from a customer standpoint.
- [09:09]
Kieran Flanagan
Well, what I love about what Milzi just said was it's about solving the problem through natural language. Kieran, I think it's a little shortsighted to call this chat, right? Like I think we're using chat as a shorthand. We're having a user interact with natural language. Like a hot take I would have in all of this is a lot of the one way mediums are going to become two way mediums again. Like for example, like if you're sending product nudges via email, like you're going to start just saying like cool, reply to this message and we'll like and we'll have AI interact with you via email, not just a chat interface or text or sms, what have you. Like, it's not just chat. What we're basically saying is natural language in whatever surface area and user experience they're currently kind of thinking about the product in. And I think we know from people use products like sometimes it's mobile device, sometimes it's their inbox, sometimes it's yeah, they're actually in the product and they need a chat widget to interact with. But it's not limited to chat.
- [10:10]
John Lee Dumas
We'll be right back to the show, but first I want to tell you about another great podcast called Entrepreneurs on Fire, hosted by John Lee Dumas, available Now on the HubSpot Podcast Network, entrepreneurs on Fire is fast paced and packed with valuable stories that will help you be a more successful entrepreneur. And recently they did a great episode with ex Hollywood actor Ben Kurland, who is a blockchain expert specializing in Web3 adoption. It's fascinating stuff. So listen to Entrepreneurs on Fire wherever you get your podcasts.
- [10:41]
Kip Bodnar
Hey, it's Kip. If you listen to this podcast, you know how much I love keeping up with the latest and greatest in technology, but very few podcasts actually give you a dose of the future. The A16Z podcast is the exception. It's hosted by our friend and frequent guest, Steph Smith. The chart topping show brings on movers with a track record of being both early and right. Like Apple Co founder Steve Wozniak, or the CISOs of OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepMind, even the very first CTO of the CIA. From the science and the supply of GLP1s to drone delivery to the economics of deepfakes, Go ahead and eavesdrop on the future. Check out the a16z podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
- [11:33]
Kieran Flanagan
Okay, now let's take a look at what happens when all of this gets applied to like the end user and the team that we're building for.
- [11:41]
Christopher Miller
There's another component, actually one of the things melozy we were one of the hardest metrics for our entirety of doing PLG and HubSpot to move was user activation and team activation. And actually that's notorious. Grossly hard to move in any PLG business because the hardest thing to do is not to get someone to sign up or upgrade. It's to change their behavior.
- [12:01]
Milzi
Right?
- [12:02]
Christopher Miller
Behaviors are so hard to change. And I remember one of the things that you did actually, which was one of the successes we had, major successes we had in HubSpot is you actually started to map out these kind of stories, like if you came in as a salesperson, you could click through and all the data was in the product. It was like you going through it as a salesperson and experiencing what your day to day life was like in HubSpot. And that was a real needle mover. Well, one of the things that Kip and I have talked a lot about, which is like the next version of that, there's this company called. I'm going to bring this up again, Kip, until someone does it. There's this company called Characters. Character AI. Right. And Character AI is one of the most successful AI companies that not a lot of people have heard for. But it's basically, it trains AI models to act like anyone you want it to act like. So people will have people from history, famous people. You can have a conversation with Elon, you can have a conversation with anyone from the past. And that AI bot actually mimics that person word for word, right? So it's like you're having a conversation with those people now in a B2B setting, right? Who's the best person to sell you and onboard you onto software? Like your. Your example was, hey, I know if I can onboard someone so they feel like a salesperson and can experience what it's like to be a salesperson in HubSpot, they'll activate at higher rates. Not proved out to be true. Well, I can come in and say, hey, grab Your role. If you're a salesperson, train AI bots train to be a salesperson, talk like a salesperson, explain the value like a salesperson onboard you to the things it thinks is valuable because it's a salesperson. And I think that's another place that I see us going which is you have all of the bots trained to act like the Persona that that person is. Right. It just identifies with them and can actually communicate with them in the way that they. Yeah, you know that, that they feel resonates best to them.
- [13:46]
Milzi
Well and we know that like data is the currency of AI. Imagine when those models are trained with the data from how actual salespeople are using your product. So not only does it sort of talk the talk, but it actually walks the walk in terms of being prescriptive. Like this is exactly how people who have your job find success on this.
- [14:06]
Kieran Flanagan
Platform, which is all people want. People want benchmarks and to know what everybody else is doing.
- [14:09]
Milzi
They want credibility in the suggestion.
- [14:11]
Christopher Miller
People, people want to get promoted. I think that. So I think that AI first of all is an explosion for product led because product led was basically the first iteration of getting humans out of the buying experience right from the way that you can experience the software to buy the software. And I think AI is an accelerant of that. The two things that we've covered for our listeners. AI is going to make it so much easier to build free tools. Just look at my Sunday afternoon now, should I have spent that with family or communicating with humans? Of course I should have. It'd be much better for my mental health, my day to day life. But no, I built a freemium tool and that was kind of cool for the show and I think it helps people build premium tools, concepts, them, ideation, all the way to building them. And I think the second thing it really is going to help is give you the, you know, journey that it's going to help you get onboarded to the value of a product much quicker because as Nilsy was saying, like you can actually go through your own journey. You don't have to go through the linear click, click, click, click. You can actually experience your own journey and figure out why that product's valuable to you. I think this is going to be an explosion for product led. I think AI is an accelerant or product led.
- [15:17]
Milzi
I totally agree.
- [15:18]
Kieran Flanagan
I'm not left mind blown after shows sometimes, but that's how I feel right now. I just feel like we're three friends sitting at the precipice of this huge explosion of how everything is going to change.
- [15:30]
Christopher Miller
I'm glad I'm not at the start of my career and when I do, that's all I am saying. So come at me if you want some PLG Pro prompt engineering. That is like my wheelhouse. I'm the category leader. There you go.
- [15:46]
Kieran Flanagan
But no, but it's wild what we just talked about on the show. Like, we gave a bunch of PLG basics, but we also just talked about how everything that's common held about PLG is going to change. And my biggest takeaway of that is if you're out there and you're running a business, whether it be a software business or any kind of business, and you don't have a product LED motion, you now get to start at this new wave. Actually get ahead of everybody. You don't have to worry about being a laggard anymore. Like, there's actually. This is. You're almost actually gonna leapfrog just by like sitting on the sidelines a little bit. But there's a window that's open right now for the next year or two that you need to jump in on. And I think that's my biggest takeaway from the show today is that the opportunity is immense. But like, you need to get in this window that's now open.
- [16:32]
Christopher Miller
Yes.
- [16:33]
Kieran Flanagan
We hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as we did. Go ahead and download the original episode from the description to learn more, check out down there. And thanks for listening. We'll see you next week with another marketing against the grain.