ProductLed Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Signing Up Isn’t Enough: The Missing Piece to Scaling eWebinar Beyond $2M

Host: Wes Bush
Guests: Melissa (Co-founder, eWebinar), Espen
Date: February 13, 2026

Overview

This episode of the ProductLed Podcast dives deep into the challenges and growth lessons behind scaling eWebinar, a product-led SaaS business nearing $2M ARR. Melissa, co-founder of eWebinar, joins to candidly discuss founder burnout, the underestimated importance of customer success in product-led businesses, building strong founder communities, and aligning business models with personal lifestyle goals.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reality of Product-Led Growth (PLG) vs. Sales-Led Models

• 10x Harder, 10x Better Lifestyle:
  Melissa and Espen explore why building a PLG business is much tougher at the start than sales-led, yet offers greater lifestyle rewards—freedom, asynchronous work, and reduced need for endless sales calls.

  “I do think that the lifestyle is also 10 times better. I think we all start off wanting to be rich, but we actually just want to be free. Right? I mean time is the most expensive currency.”
  — Melissa (00:00, 23:55)

• Unseen Challenges & the Guessing Game:
  In a self-serve PLG model, founders often “shoot in the dark”, guessing what users need without direct feedback, and may overlook critical growth functions like customer success.

  “In product led you're trying to debug something constantly with having no logs, right? You're just guessing the whole time.”
  — Melissa (09:22)

• Sales-Led is Easier to Start, Harder to Scale:
  Espen notes how economic realities favor PLG for smaller customers and warns that pivoting from sales-led to product-led is very difficult for growing companies.

  “It's insanely hard to become a product led company once you become a sales led company... but in the long run, I think the best companies are really always product led as a foundation and then can layer sales on top.”
  — Espen (13:47)

2. The Lifestyle Question: Designing a Business for Freedom

• Intentionally Building for Life Goals:
  Both guests share how their entrepreneurial journeys shifted from chasing status or wealth to optimizing for autonomy, travel, and joy.

  “The business that I have today is not disruptive to my lifestyle. Whereas the sales led company that I had in the past was very disruptive... ultimately it's the life you want to lead that dictates a company that you're building.”
  — Melissa (16:13, 17:30)

• Evolving Definitions of Success:
  Both Melissa and Espen reflect that aspirations change—what starts as the pursuit of a unicorn or big company often ends up being about freedom.

  “I think we all start off wanting to be rich, but we actually just want to be free… time is the most expensive currency.”
  — Melissa (23:55)
  “With entrepreneurship I wanted freedom... that's the ultimate power of a pure product led business.”
  — Espen (22:31)

3. Burnout: Symptoms, Causes, and Recovery

• How it Showed Up:
  Melissa details her first-ever serious burnout, which did not manifest as exhaustion but rather as a lack of inspiration and motivation.

  “It was like a gradual decline of. Didn't really have any inspiration, couldn't really write, didn't have motivation, couldn't be consistent.”
  — Melissa (27:32)

• Root Causes—Self-Doubt & External Comparisons:
  Much of the spiral related to internalized expectations, denying her own needs, and self-comparisons against more visibly “successful” founders.

  “You start to ask yourself, if I'm so good at what I do, if I'm meant to be successful, then why am I not right? … and all of that, you, I think you just crumble slowly under that pressure.”
  — Melissa (30:26)

• Transformational Recovery:
  A key moment was attending the Hoffman Process, a week-long retreat unraveling childhood origins of self-doubt.

  “Just getting to know that… these internal voices are not real. Like that's just child Melissa talking to adult Melissa.”
  — Melissa (30:26)

• Energy & Flow after Burnout:
  The shift is about returning to intrinsic motivations and accepting incremental progress—“progress is quiet, winning is loud.”

  “It's not changing into someone you're not. All this work just brings you back to yourself…”
  — Melissa (32:26)
  “Progress is quiet. Winning is loud.”
  — Melissa (34:53)

4. The Most Overlooked Piece: Customer Success

• Signing Up Isn’t Enough:
  The episode’s central lesson—simply optimizing signups or onboarding flows falls short. Keeping, educating, and activating users post-signup is what actually drives growth.

  “Don't forget your customer success motion. Like you got to keep your customers signing up and trying. It is not enough. Like that is the first day of the last day with you. So…teaching customers how to use the product after they come in is probably more important than try to cast as wide of a net as possible because if they don't stay, then you don't have a business.”
  — Melissa (47:58)

• Metaphor:

  “You can have like the most beautiful invite to like invite people to your party, but if your party sucks, then they're still gonna leave.”
  — Melissa (48:41)

5. Founder Loneliness & Building Support Communities

• The Myth of the Lonely Founder:
  Melissa rejects the narrative that the founder journey must be lonely, sharing her tactics for building strong founder peer groups both online (WhatsApp, LinkedIn) and in-person.

  “I don't believe that this is a journey you're supposed to walk on alone. I know they say like the founder journey is very lonely, but it doesn't have to be, right?”
  — Melissa (39:23, 41:12)

• Practical “Masterclass” Tips:

  • Build credibility and offer value before asking for help.

  • Be a giver first—help others, make introductions, share learnings.

  • Curate small, high-quality groups (e.g., private WhatsApp for founders at your stage).

  • Make yourself visible and approachable online.

    “You gotta be a giver first and, you know, building credibility, you know, writing publicly, whether it's on LinkedIn, substack, sharing what, you know, just be a real person on the Internet, I think is step one.”
    — Melissa (41:12)

6. The Role of Founder Brand in Product-Led Growth

• Visibility ≠ Vanity:
  Both Espen and Melissa argue the most successful PLG companies have founders who are visible, authentic, and active online—building trust at scale.

  “The most successful product led companies are the ones where the founders are very visible… founder-led branding.”
  — Espen (43:28)
  “It does help when people… look me up on LinkedIn… It just gives them this feeling of familiarity. Like I have people messaging me that says they don't even look at competitors because they know that this is what I do.”
  — Melissa (45:16)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Progress is quiet. Winning is loud.” – Melissa (34:53)
• “Signing up isn't enough… that's the first day of the last day with you.” – Melissa (47:58)
• “If your product fails, you do marketing. If your marketing fails, you do sales.” – Melissa (attributing a well-known quote, 46:48)
• “You can have the most beautiful invite to your party, but if your party sucks, they're still gonna leave.” – Melissa (48:41)
• “You need to still be a human… very few businesses can succeed without creating trust that way.” – Espen (43:28)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Burnout Story & Recovery: 03:35 – 08:13, 27:32 – 34:53
• PLG vs. Sales-Led Discussion: 08:13 – 17:30
• Personal Vision & Lifestyle Alignment: 17:30 – 23:55
• Founder Loneliness & Community Building: 39:23 – 43:28
• Importance of Customer Success: 47:58 – 48:41
• Role of Founder Personal Brand: 43:28 – 46:01

Advice & Takeaways for Product-Led Founders

• Don’t Neglect Customer Success:
  Activation, education, and retention after signup are more critical than driving raw signups.
• Build to Support Your Life—Not Just Your Ego:
  The best PLG businesses enable founders to live freely, not chained to endless sales or service calls.
• Founder Brand Matters:
  Openness, authenticity, and visibility create trust at scale for PLG businesses.
• Surround Yourself with Support:
  Proactively build founder circles and contribute to others.
• Re-evaluate “Success”:
  True satisfaction often comes from freedom and purposeful progress, not just headline wins.

This episode is a must-listen for any founder reevaluating what it takes to build and sustain a thriving product-led SaaS business—and a thriving entrepreneurial life.