Dan Martell - How To Retain Loyal Customers with Wes Bush @ Product-Led - Escape Velocity Show #47

00:00:00.080 Your pricing model is directly tied

00:00:03.440 with your customer acquisition model

00:00:05.200 in a product-led company.

00:00:07.040 Ignition sequence start.

00:00:09.200 3, 2, 1.

00:00:20.320 Dude, what's up?

00:00:21.200 Oh, coming across.

00:00:22.400 Wes, how you doing, man?

00:00:23.840 Good, thanks.

00:00:24.520 The man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Product-led growth.

00:00:27.080 We got Wes Bush.

00:00:29.960 When did the book come out?

00:00:31.300 May 28th, this year.

00:00:33.200 OK, cool.

00:00:34.660 So congrats on the growth of that.

00:00:39.340 What is product-led growth?

00:00:40.840 Yeah, so I feel like product-led growth,

00:00:42.660 a lot of people hear it nowadays.

00:00:44.260 They're like, oh, this is something completely

00:00:45.720 new and revolutionary.

00:00:47.320 And I'm like, no, this has been around for a long time.

00:00:50.520 Now it's just coming to the software space.

00:00:52.900 If you think about buying a t-shirt, especially me,

00:00:55.960 like I'm tall, I'm weird size, I want to try on a shirt.

00:00:59.760 See if it's a good fit.

00:01:00.640 Try it before I buy.

00:01:02.100 If you even think of cologne or perfume,

00:01:04.320 you want to try this before you buy it.

00:01:06.000 See if it's a good fit.

00:01:07.280 And now, product-led growth, a lot of people

00:01:09.840 are realizing you can do the same thing with software.

00:01:12.180 And whenever you buy software, you

00:01:13.860 want to get a taste test of what this is like.

00:01:16.640 And so I feel like product-led growth

00:01:18.220 is really taking off because right now it's

00:01:21.460 so easy to whip up a value prop on your website,

00:01:23.900 throw it on there, and promise someone the world.

00:01:26.760 But can you deliver?

00:01:29.040 And so that's really why people are starting

00:01:31.880 to realize like free trial free models, they make sense

00:01:34.800 because they build trust so much quicker

00:01:37.620 than the alternative of going through a long sales cycle.

00:01:41.800 Is there a category of business type?

00:01:45.040 Let's say B2B SaaS is my world.

00:01:47.760 Are there certain types of products that make more sense?

00:01:49.820 Is it annual contract value, customer segments,

00:01:53.380 or do you think this works even for like enterprise medical

00:01:56.560 software for hospitals?

00:01:57.820 Like, where's the, obviously, SMB,

00:02:01.860 it's made a lot of sense for many years.

00:02:03.360 But where's the spectrum of companies?

00:02:06.840 How should they, what would need to be true about their product

00:02:10.580 or their sales motion for them to feel like,

00:02:12.900 this is something I've got to look into?

00:02:14.280 Yeah, definitely.

00:02:15.020 So like, it's really predominant in the SMB space,

00:02:17.980 because it's been prehistorically,

00:02:19.600 like, really hard to make that work in any other model.

00:02:21.960 Well, it's expensive if you have to pay.

00:02:23.300 Yeah, exactly.

00:02:24.700 But if you go up to enterprise, one

00:02:26.900 One of the most common myths that there

00:02:28.900 is around product-led growth is you can't get a high annual

00:02:31.660 contract value if you use a product-led model.

00:02:35.340 And so that's actually not true.

00:02:36.880 Like there's Lucidcharts, have you heard of them?

00:02:38.840 Oh yeah, for sure.

00:02:39.720 Yeah, so they close really massive deals

00:02:41.820 and they start off with maybe just six, seven, seven figures?

00:02:45.480 Yeah, and so they start off with users

00:02:48.100 just starting to use their product, they like it.

00:02:50.280 And then on their end, they can see, oh great,

00:02:53.400 this Fortune 500 company has 500 people already

00:02:55.960 using our software.

00:02:57.020 Let's actually start that sales motion now.

00:02:59.960 And so the way they approach sales is definitely different.

00:03:02.780 But it's really just focusing in on, OK, now that these people

00:03:06.340 are using the product, we've qualified them.

00:03:08.960 They like the value.

00:03:10.120 Now let's help them get even more value out of our solution

00:03:13.120 for maybe even some of our other products.

00:03:15.160 So how much of it is the trial concept

00:03:19.060 versus freemium, land and expand, product qualified leads?

00:03:24.020 I mean, there's a bunch of stuff we can unpack.

00:03:25.400 But OK, let's start with is this freemium,

00:03:30.140 or is trial still considered product-led growth?

00:03:34.160 Is this?

00:03:34.640 OK, good question.

00:03:35.900 Do you have to do freemium to do this?

00:03:38.060 So no.

00:03:38.960 You just need to let people into the product.

00:03:40.860 Yeah, you need to let people into the product

00:03:42.520 so they can see if it's a good fit for themselves.

00:03:44.660 And so whether it's free trial, freemium,

00:03:46.100 both of them are product-led.

00:03:47.780 And so it's just a matter of how you really treat it.

00:03:51.320 So for instance, I would actually

00:03:52.720 argue you could have a free trial

00:03:54.440 and not be product-led.

00:03:56.100 I've seen this in a ton of companies

00:03:58.280 where they'll have a free trial.

00:04:00.460 And what do they do?

00:04:01.560 They treat it just like a sales demo.

00:04:03.680 And so there's someone's lead magnet.

00:04:05.680 It's a little bit more inexpensive than a demo.

00:04:08.760 And so they'll just have that person sign up.

00:04:11.240 They'll call them up, go through the traditional sales process.

00:04:14.220 And it's awful.

00:04:15.320 It's like a faux-free.

00:04:16.320 It's not real.

00:04:17.520 Because it's like the person expects

00:04:19.040 to evaluate the product in this one method, which is, OK,

00:04:21.480 I want to try it on my own and get up to speed.

00:04:23.940 But then they're going through this traditional sales

00:04:26.700 motion.

00:04:27.120 And so a lot of those companies, they

00:04:29.400 haven't actually thought about, OK, when someone signs up

00:04:31.740 for the free trial, how can we get them to value?

00:04:34.680 They think it's like, OK, they just

00:04:36.180 want to go around the product and then hop on a call with us.

00:04:40.000 That's not true.

00:04:40.800 People want to actually see if they can experience the value

00:04:43.120 that you're promising on your website.

00:04:44.940 And if they do and they're successful using that product,

00:04:48.780 then they're a lot more likely to upgrade.

00:04:50.640 How do you do that if you have a product that

00:04:55.860 requires data configuration, et cetera?

00:04:58.560 I know some people listening are like, yeah,

00:05:00.760 but that might be nice if I have a simple email marketing tool.

00:05:03.720 But my tool is this really complex workflow.

00:05:10.020 It requires work to actually trial it.

00:05:13.160 What are your thoughts on solving that for them?

00:05:15.920 So even really complex products, you can break it down.

00:05:18.820 So in any product, there's three questions

00:05:22.420 you need to ask yourself.

00:05:23.760 So the first one is like, OK, what

00:05:25.220 are those steps that just get in the way of our users?

00:05:28.180 Eliminate those.

00:05:29.180 And then what are those advanced steps?

00:05:30.720 So are we showing people advanced features

00:05:33.580 that maybe it's their first time using the product?

00:05:35.580 They don't need to see that.

00:05:36.840 They just need to get to that first quick win.

00:05:39.140 And then the other and last question

00:05:40.900 is, what are the actual essential steps here?

00:05:43.480 And so what I do is I usually go through with people

00:05:46.480 and say, OK, let's find all those essential steps.

00:05:48.940 And that's essentially building a straight line onboarding

00:05:51.020 experience.

00:05:51.520 So there's sign up, and then there's first value.

00:05:54.220 And how can we get that journey as short as possible?

00:05:56.900 So even if you think of products that you

00:05:58.980 don't get immediate value, like maybe it's Hotjar, Google

00:06:01.240 Analytics, or Drift, Intercom.

00:06:03.280 So all these products are useless unless you do one step,

00:06:07.300 which is you have to put a script on your website.

00:06:09.660 If you don't do that, there's no use in these products.

00:06:12.040 And so it's like identifying, OK, what is the quick win?

00:06:15.600 Once people do that, then what can we get them to do next?

00:06:17.980 Maybe if it's Hotjar, it's actually

00:06:19.560 seeing how people use your products

00:06:21.860 and are on your website.

00:06:23.400 So there's so much more you can do once you nail down.

00:06:26.400 Like, what are those quick wins?

00:06:28.320 How can we get people to those as soon as possible?

00:06:30.780 So even the big companies, you still

00:06:32.600 think there's steps to get them?

00:06:34.620 Yeah.

00:06:35.280 And when you say first value, what does that mean for you?

00:06:40.260 First value, it can mean many things for some companies.

00:06:43.040 Like if you're talking about those really simple products

00:06:45.860 like Facebook or something like that,

00:06:47.460 that might be like adding those first seven friends

00:06:49.820 and you have a reason to come back.

00:06:51.800 Or if you're signing up for Quora,

00:06:53.220 that might be actually following 10 topics

00:06:56.040 or upvoting your first votes or first posts.

00:06:59.320 And then that way, you can actually

00:07:01.160 have a reason or they have a reason to contact you again

00:07:03.380 and be like, here's all this relevant content based

00:07:05.300 on what you showed us.

00:07:06.180 And it's the perfect trigger to continue that journey.

00:07:09.500 And so whenever I think of First Value,

00:07:11.180 I just like to think of, OK, what

00:07:12.920 is the thing that is likely to bring this person back.

00:07:17.240 Because there's an epidemic in the SaaS.

00:07:19.520 I don't know if you know this stat,

00:07:20.900 but 40% to 60% of people who sign up for your product

00:07:25.460 are just not coming back after that first time.

00:07:27.500 No matter what.

00:07:28.300 No matter what.

00:07:29.340 And so it's like, OK, if almost half of these people

00:07:32.300 are not going to come back, what can we do to bring them back?

00:07:35.180 So that first five minutes is the most important place

00:07:38.280 you could ever focus on your funnel,

00:07:40.280 because that relationship starts and ends there

00:07:42.920 for a lot of people.

00:07:44.300 And so if you can start it off on the right foot

00:07:47.100 and have a reason for people to come back,

00:07:50.060 then it's going to be really smooth sailing for you.

00:07:52.840 Where'd you learn all this stuff?

00:07:54.520 Me? 0.99

00:07:55.040 I learned it through doing all the shit wrong. 0.99

00:07:57.620 Yeah? 0.98

00:07:58.340 What's your story like?

00:08:00.020 I know you worked at Vidyard, DemandGen.

00:08:03.160 We've talked in the past.

00:08:04.220 You said you love DemandGen.

00:08:06.960 Yeah.

00:08:08.900 Like, what's the body of work that you kind of are pulling

00:08:13.300 from?

00:08:14.720 Yeah, so how I got into product-led growth

00:08:18.460 really started with, like, demand gen.

00:08:20.940 And so it was working, actually, with my parents.

00:08:23.140 They're both real estate agents.

00:08:24.200 They have their own company.

00:08:25.140 And so I got able to use, like, Google AdWords very early on

00:08:30.200 and when it was first coming out.

00:08:31.460 And whenever I did that, I started generating customers

00:08:34.720 for them.

00:08:35.660 And whenever I saw the first customer close, I was like,

00:08:37.940 oh my gosh, this is incredible.

00:08:40.160 If you can build demand, you can build any kind of business.

00:08:43.440 And so that's what really got me hooked.

00:08:46.040 And so from that point on, I started

00:08:48.020 working on other B2B SaaS companies,

00:08:50.700 whether it's in digital marketing, demand gen,

00:08:53.080 and really just trying to hone the skill of, OK,

00:08:54.800 how do you build demand?

00:08:55.920 And I, at that time, whether it was even just

00:08:58.640 like the traditional inbound marketing approach,

00:09:00.620 I tried that, where you're creating the content,

00:09:02.800 putting behind guides, and then sending those people

00:09:05.840 a bunch of content and emails until one day, hopefully,

00:09:08.740 they convert.

00:09:09.940 Exactly.

00:09:10.860 And so I found that that model for these B2B SaaS companies

00:09:14.000 was just really expensive.

00:09:15.780 And then I started to look at the way I was buying.

00:09:18.660 And I wasn't actually kind of signing up

00:09:20.360 for these white papers and going through to the end,

00:09:22.960 clicking the sign up button for the product,

00:09:25.380 and then going through the demo process.

00:09:27.420 I was more inclined to actually just go ahead,

00:09:30.820 go to the website, sign up for it, and try it out on my own.

00:09:33.620 If I liked it, I would buy it.

00:09:35.660 And that's how it worked.

00:09:36.780 And so it wasn't until I was actually a Vidyard 0.92

00:09:38.580 and we launched Vuedit, which is now just part

00:09:41.060 of their main product, which is a Chrome extension

00:09:43.820 where you can kind of record your screen

00:09:45.500 and see or send it to someone else so you can see, OK, who

00:09:49.660 actually watched this video and get some cool analytics on it.

00:09:52.460 So when we launched that, it went to over 100,000 users

00:09:55.800 really quickly.

00:09:57.020 And so I started to realize, wait a minute.

00:10:00.100 The way you do Dimangin has really changed.

00:10:02.900 It's not so much about, hey, here's the guides.

00:10:05.720 You can read about our product and how we do our approach

00:10:08.240 and then sign up.

00:10:09.960 It's more like the ultimate lead magnet is your product.

00:10:14.060 And that is the best lead magnet ever,

00:10:16.400 because you're shortening that journey of the buyer.

00:10:19.320 And you're saying, all right, you have this problem.

00:10:21.380 Here's the solution.

00:10:22.540 And try it for yourself.

00:10:23.960 And if you can make sure that you can deliver on that value

00:10:27.120 as soon as possible, people are going to be like,

00:10:28.880 I have a problem.

00:10:29.700 Now I have a solution.

00:10:31.060 I am done my evaluation phase.

00:10:33.120 I am great with this solution, because I now

00:10:35.260 have solved my problem.

00:10:36.940 And that journey is incredible for so many people,

00:10:40.900 because it's so quick, and you can help people in a huge way.

00:10:45.760 So most people are doing a sales-led model,

00:10:48.040 right, sales motion, where they have demos,

00:10:49.880 and you've got to get on a call, and they qualify.

00:10:51.740 And here's all these white papers.

00:10:55.240 Is it in parallel with that?

00:10:57.700 I mean, it's not like you can circumvent that.

00:11:00.820 And that does not require, because there isn't

00:11:02.700 kind of like an appropriate buying experience,

00:11:04.600 quoting Lincoln Murphy, that they're expecting in regards

00:11:09.520 to a negotiation, potentially, or maybe something more involved.

00:11:13.900 How do you introduce this without like, you know what I mean?

00:11:18.020 If you already have a sales team, how do you

00:11:20.560 do these things in parallel?

00:11:22.760 Do you have data that supports that this is a better process

00:11:25.180 in regards to ROI and metrics?

00:11:28.900 How would you make that argument for somebody?

00:11:30.340 It's like, hey, man, I love this,

00:11:32.140 but it sounds like really dangerous for me

00:11:35.080 to try this if I want to hit my numbers.

00:11:37.300 Yeah, it can be dangerous.

00:11:39.020 And especially at the bigger scale,

00:11:40.780 you're going to try and make this work.

00:11:42.940 That's really hard.

00:11:44.480 And I've seen it work for some companies,

00:11:46.400 but they have to have the exec team on board

00:11:49.360 with this big shift.

00:11:51.700 It is a big shift, though.

00:11:52.780 Yeah.

00:11:53.280 Because I know you've worked with companies that are like 500K

00:11:55.020 to 5 million in ARR.

00:11:57.940 To make this decision, the exec team needs to be.

00:12:00.940 Absolutely.

00:12:01.700 This isn't like, hey, let's create an e-book.

00:12:03.520 This is, we're going to change a lot.

00:12:07.000 Yeah, I wish it was as simple as, let's just create this e-book

00:12:09.580 and let's get this out into the world.

00:12:12.280 But you're totally right.

00:12:13.200 So there's a lot of things where a lot of people

00:12:15.440 will think, wait, this is such a big shift.

00:12:17.680 And they kind of get frozen in terms of like, OK,

00:12:20.380 I don't think we can do this.

00:12:22.520 And it's good to think it through.

00:12:25.240 I'm not all for like, let's just jump on this.

00:12:27.040 And then you start seeing like, all right,

00:12:29.240 this free trial is cannibalizing all our demos

00:12:31.080 and everything else like that.

00:12:32.200 So the thing is, you just have to start small.

00:12:35.380 And what most people don't realize

00:12:36.900 is nowadays, it's so easy to run simple tests.

00:12:40.320 So for instance, if you wanted to test running a free trial,

00:12:44.160 well, there's A-B testing solutions.

00:12:46.060 Let's show it to 2% of our entire website traffic.

00:12:49.660 Great, great suggestion, yes.

00:12:51.800 And then it's like you can have one person dedicated when

00:12:54.520 someone requests a trial.

00:12:55.880 I'm not even saying you have to get the free trial

00:12:57.340 of the whole touchless onboarding.

00:12:58.780 Just request that free trial.

00:13:00.760 And then you can talk to someone and be like,

00:13:02.480 we're going to walk you through the product

00:13:04.260 and show you how to use it.

00:13:05.440 And sometimes in those first interviews,

00:13:07.800 when you're kind of onboarding people,

00:13:09.480 you're going to realize that you might think something's

00:13:12.240 super easy in your product, and then the person's just

00:13:14.700 rolling their eyes and be like, oh my gosh, this is brutal.

00:13:18.440 And that's when you start to learn,

00:13:20.320 how could we make this completely automated?

00:13:23.220 And so it's not like this one and done,

00:13:25.340 We're a free trial, product-led company today.

00:13:28.220 It's like, just start somewhere.

00:13:29.780 Maybe it's with that 2% of your website traffic.

00:13:31.900 If you're a really big $500 million company,

00:13:34.640 that might be way too much.

00:13:36.480 Maybe it's 1%.

00:13:37.920 If you're smaller, it might be 50%.

00:13:40.520 Who knows what's your perfect kind of match there?

00:13:42.320 So you can work your way into that funnel.

00:13:44.280 Exactly.

00:13:45.100 Got it.

00:13:45.560 And then as you're going through those interviews with people

00:13:48.040 and onboarding them one by one, you're

00:13:49.880 going to learn, OK, there are some $10 tasks here

00:13:53.700 that we're doing that could totally be eliminated.

00:13:56.440 Maybe that is making the process of signing up for people easier

00:14:00.780 so that developers can then make it easier for people

00:14:03.520 to get their passwords for their accounts.

00:14:04.940 So you don't have to do that.

00:14:06.100 And so you can scale it up and just figure out, OK,

00:14:09.240 what are the places we can automate this and go from there?

00:14:12.600 So what's interesting is, you know,

00:14:16.080 Michael Litt from Vidyard is a good friend of mine.

00:14:18.600 And I saw him launch ViewedIt.

00:14:20.640 And we were talking about it.

00:14:22.080 He's like, one of the problems we need to solve

00:14:24.160 is the cost of demand, Jen, is getting crazy.

00:14:27.040 And we have this thesis.

00:14:28.360 And if we build this thing, we'll increase top of funnel. 0.97

00:14:30.680 Sure, we'll have people that may never

00:14:32.040 be a Vidyard customer, so that's totally fine.

00:14:35.220 If we can keep our cogs, cost of goods sold.

00:14:39.960 Do you recommend, or what are your thoughts

00:14:42.400 on doing a splintering of your core product

00:14:45.580 to a freemium micro app tool?

00:14:49.800 Is that a good way to experiment?

00:14:51.660 I mean, Mike from FreshBooks was on recently,

00:14:54.080 and I didn't bring it up.

00:14:55.600 But I remember when they launched a mobile app in,

00:14:58.380 I think it was in Canada under a different brand, to test.

00:15:02.040 What's your thoughts on doing that

00:15:03.640 versus just the split testing on the core traffic

00:15:06.700 to not confuse the market?

00:15:09.380 So I think it really depends on what kind of company you have.

00:15:12.080 So if you have multi-product, like in Vidyard's case,

00:15:15.960 it was multi-product.

00:15:17.200 If in HubSpot's case, it was multi-product too,

00:15:19.540 whenever they did their free sales tool.

00:15:21.380 And so if you have that multi-product approach, it's a great way to test it out, build that internal team and kind of vet that idea and process within your own team without, you know, really killing the cash cow potentially if this goes wrong.

00:15:34.640 And so in terms of risk diversification, it's amazing.

00:15:37.820 That's that's how I would recommend it if you have a multi-product company.

00:15:41.540 But in FreshBooks case, they were dealing with a very old product.

00:15:46.040 And so whenever they did that new kind of competitor that they had on the sideline, that was a brilliant idea because I have seen it in the other case where, for instance, you're working with the main team on the core product and it is just everyone's thinking about how do we monetize in the old way, the way we have done it in the past.

00:16:04.180 And so it's baggage and it means you'll move slower.

00:16:07.840 And so I think what the FreshBooks team

00:16:09.820 did to really introduce that new version

00:16:12.280 was really brilliant.

00:16:13.580 Because you can have that kind of Skunk Works team

00:16:16.260 working in your company, but they're really your competitor.

00:16:19.800 And if you look at any business that has stayed around

00:16:22.520 for a long time, I know a perfect example is like HP.

00:16:25.600 HP has been around a long time.

00:16:27.500 But the way they've done it is they've

00:16:29.140 built products that cannibalize their current market share.

00:16:32.020 I mean, this is Netflix, Apple, et cetera.

00:16:34.840 Exactly.

00:16:35.980 And so that's how they have built a generational company

00:16:38.560 is you have to eat your own company.

00:16:40.960 And so I think that's the best way

00:16:42.760 is you've got to introduce your own competitor.

00:16:44.380 Don't wait for somebody else to go freemium or free trial.

00:16:47.360 Exactly.

00:16:47.860 Be the first one to jump there.

00:16:49.420 For sure.

00:16:50.060 Because I mean, I guess in the MarTech space,

00:16:52.120 there's just so many examples of really expensive email

00:16:54.880 marketing tools, and then MailChimp goes freemium.

00:16:58.060 But they still offer these really powerful things,

00:17:00.740 or even on the video side.

00:17:04.840 In your book, you mentioned in a conversation

00:17:07.680 that I think eight, like there's a bunch of chapters,

00:17:10.080 but one chapter is like 80% of the book.

00:17:12.460 What do you cover in that chapter that makes it so meaty

00:17:17.400 and that people seem to really gravitate towards?

00:17:20.080 Yeah, so chapter 13, the book.

00:17:22.600 And the title of your book?

00:17:23.980 Just plug it, yeah, the author.

00:17:26.920 Product-led growth, go buy it.

00:17:28.500 And chapter 13, what do you cover?

00:17:31.200 So it's all about how to turn your users

00:17:33.560 into happy paying customers.

00:17:35.520 So that's really the crux of product-led growth.

00:17:38.860 Because if the model's right for you

00:17:41.660 and you want to really make it work for you,

00:17:43.800 you have to figure out this one big problem, which is, all

00:17:46.600 right, you can have that free trial for your model.

00:17:48.340 That's really not the hard part.

00:17:50.460 Anyone can get that up and set it fairly quickly.

00:17:53.720 But the hard part is, how do we figure out

00:17:55.840 how to actually get this user to a point in their life,

00:17:59.500 not necessarily in your products, where they say,

00:18:01.420 This is the product I really need to solve my problems.

00:18:04.780 And so a lot of people think, OK,

00:18:06.460 it's if someone signs up for a product,

00:18:08.380 I want to help them become the expert at the product.

00:18:10.720 Now, that sounds great.

00:18:12.220 But that's not the goal of onboarding.

00:18:14.380 It's actually, how can I get you to experience something

00:18:17.900 incredible in your life?

00:18:19.120 For instance, let's say.

00:18:20.420 I think I saw a graphic on your blog,

00:18:23.120 where it was like the Mario Brothers.

00:18:24.620 Yeah, it was like, Mario plus the mushroom, your product.

00:18:27.340 This is what they're actually after.

00:18:29.140 Exactly.

00:18:29.940 the success as a service I sometimes call SaaS, right?

00:18:32.780 Yeah, so Samuel Hulloch came up with that.

00:18:35.260 And I think it's brilliant.

00:18:37.080 Because you have, for anyone that doesn't know Mario,

00:18:39.540 you can run over a specific flower.

00:18:41.640 And the flower makes you twice as big.

00:18:43.340 And you can spew fireballs from your mouth 1.00

00:18:45.600 and kill all the bad guys. 1.00

00:18:46.640 And it's incredible. 0.98

00:18:47.800 And you look at that extra sized Mario, who's super powerful.

00:18:52.020 It's like, that's what we want people to do or feel

00:18:54.440 whenever they're using our product.

00:18:55.980 But the product, what people is, is like, that's the flower.

00:18:59.520 That's the power-up.

00:19:00.720 And so that's not what we're really selling.

00:19:02.520 It's like, we want to sell that super-sized Mario

00:19:04.980 that makes them feel like this hero.

00:19:06.940 And so even if it's like, take it down to the B2B SaaS world, 0.84

00:19:10.560 let's say I sign up for a business intelligence tool.

00:19:13.620 Well, I mean, the tool is great and everything,

00:19:15.880 but what we're really selling is someone actually

00:19:18.560 has insight into their business.

00:19:19.860 They can actually make really incredible decisions

00:19:21.960 based on this.

00:19:22.620 Maybe if they're presenting it to their board,

00:19:25.480 they can look like a pro.

00:19:26.480 Maybe they're not even a designer,

00:19:27.800 but they look like one.

00:19:29.420 They did an incredible job.

00:19:30.560 So there's a ton of inherent value in that

00:19:33.120 that's outside of the product.

00:19:34.540 So that's really, whenever you're

00:19:36.260 thinking of good onboarding and how

00:19:38.160 to turn those users into paying customers,

00:19:40.120 that's what we want to go for.

00:19:41.360 It's not necessarily like, yeah, get

00:19:42.920 good at clicking around in our tool.

00:19:44.900 Got it.

00:19:45.600 And so when you said first value, that's not enough.

00:19:51.780 First value is a step.

00:19:53.720 And if you've ever heard the aha moment,

00:19:55.980 I call it core value, value switch.

00:19:58.420 I mean, they're all saying the same thing.

00:20:00.220 Yeah, so different words, same outcomes.

00:20:02.300 But you're saying that's not enough

00:20:05.460 to get somebody feeling like this powered up Mario.

00:20:08.560 We need to do more.

00:20:10.120 What are those other things?

00:20:11.980 So the other things, like for that first value,

00:20:14.840 sometimes it is enough.

00:20:16.300 So some tools, very few though, especially in the B2B SaaS

00:20:19.540 world, you can sign up and see immediate value.

00:20:21.620 Like usually you'll see this in the B2C space,

00:20:23.940 where let's say it's Netflix, and I sign up,

00:20:27.340 And immediately, I'm just amazed.

00:20:28.820 I'm like, wow, the selection.

00:20:30.040 There's so much stuff here.

00:20:31.720 You lose three hours of your life.

00:20:32.960 You're like, this is amazing.

00:20:35.000 Exactly.

00:20:35.700 Nine bucks a month.

00:20:36.920 Quick time to value.

00:20:37.760 But in B2B SaaS, it's rarely the case.

00:20:39.760 You usually sign up.

00:20:40.600 You see a dashboard that's empty.

00:20:41.840 You're like, oh, got to do something.

00:20:43.620 And there's this one analogy that I love.

00:20:46.280 It's from the CPO of Grow.com, where a lot of B2B SaaS

00:20:50.440 companies, they promise people, like, let's say they'll

00:20:52.580 advertise, get hot and ready spaghetti for $5.

00:20:56.380 And it's like, then people come to your restaurants.

00:20:58.620 They sit down.

00:20:59.800 And then the waiter comes up to them.

00:21:02.020 They're like, hey, wait a minute.

00:21:03.140 You've got to go to the kitchen and make this stuff.

00:21:05.320 Like, that's really what SaaS is like.

00:21:07.620 It's like, oh, yeah, here's the tools in the kitchen

00:21:09.700 and everything else you need.

00:21:11.480 Because you've got to make it yourself.

00:21:13.300 And so there's that expectation in a lot of times.

00:21:16.900 That's really what I was talking about, the perceived values.

00:21:19.120 Like, a lot of times we promise people, like, the world,

00:21:21.340 like, get your problem solved in 60 seconds.

00:21:23.320 And it's like, wait a minute.

00:21:24.820 Making spaghetti takes longer than 60 seconds.

00:21:27.280 And so we have to really get better at setting that expectation,

00:21:30.480 really making it easier for people to make that spaghetti on their own.

00:21:34.020 So they could potentially pull off the 60-second spaghetti

00:21:36.800 if you prepped a lot of stuff, gave them templates, had that.

00:21:39.480 You know what I mean?

00:21:40.220 Exactly.

00:21:40.440 If you think of a conveyor, it's like, you know.

00:21:43.420 So it's interesting how if you think about that for your product,

00:21:46.780 it doesn't matter if it's like, you know,

00:21:48.380 there's a lot of trends in the industry around like management type tools,

00:21:52.480 You know, one-on-ones, Aiden from Fellow,

00:21:56.080 somebody I'll be interviewing soon.

00:21:58.000 And there's work to be done there.

00:22:01.540 But if you make it easy on me, you

00:22:03.220 can deliver on the value prop, which

00:22:05.600 is become a 10x manager.

00:22:07.300 Exactly.

00:22:08.140 Yeah, so it's interesting.

00:22:09.820 I like that thought process in regards to the skill set.

00:22:16.300 Because like, and it's interesting,

00:22:19.900 because I've got a clip of Patrick Campbell 1.00

00:22:22.060 from Price Intelligence telling me to, he said, fuck you, Dan. 1.00

00:22:26.300 He's the nicest guy in the world. 1.00

00:22:27.480 Like, Patrick is pretty much an honorary Canadian.

00:22:31.240 Because we were fighting over freemium, right?

00:22:33.300 Because he's like, he's pro freemium.

00:22:35.620 And it's not that I'm not, but I just

00:22:37.620 think that people don't know how to do it right.

00:22:39.880 And the reason why, especially for the early founders,

00:22:42.500 I'm always concerned that they don't

00:22:45.800 have the skill set from a product point of view.

00:22:48.360 You know what I mean?

00:22:49.140 Yeah, definitely.

00:22:49.940 It's ugly. 1.00

00:22:50.780 It's you're like a pimply teenager. 0.91

00:22:53.900 Like it does it, you know, like in the early days,

00:22:56.460 you kind of are selling the vision.

00:22:59.080 And you're working really hard in the office

00:23:01.380 to get it to catch up to what you sell.

00:23:04.820 So if you let somebody in, they would be underwhelmed.

00:23:07.840 Rightfully so, because you're one guy, maybe 1.5 guys

00:23:10.860 building this thing.

00:23:13.880 What are the skill sets that earlier stage founders

00:23:18.340 need to get at least good enough at to do this right.

00:23:22.840 Support.

00:23:24.300 Like, at all product-led companies,

00:23:27.560 the one common element I've seen them really hone in on

00:23:30.960 is they are always understanding or talking

00:23:33.820 to their customers.

00:23:34.480 And so even if you look at Ahrefs, 1.00

00:23:36.480 one thing I love about the marketing team is they also.

00:23:38.780 They what, 50 million in AR?

00:23:40.880 Last time I talked to them last year was 40,

00:23:42.560 but they could be there.

00:23:43.400 I think they're even further.

00:23:44.560 But it's hilarious, because I think

00:23:47.220 they don't even, like, don't do analytics on their marketing.

00:23:50.040 Like, they're just, no, like, they're not.

00:23:52.320 They've bragged of, like, we don't really know.

00:23:53.980 We just, it's just a product, I guess.

00:23:56.100 Yeah.

00:23:57.000 And, like, their marketing team, each of them

00:23:59.020 spends one day doing support.

00:24:00.940 And even in some of the companies that

00:24:03.340 are making the big transition to be more product-led,

00:24:05.720 one thing I've seen them do that I think is brilliant

00:24:07.840 is they will essentially spend, like,

00:24:10.220 they have one user researcher.

00:24:11.760 They just book a bunch of meetings for these interviews.

00:24:14.580 And they'll invite everyone on the team to participate

00:24:17.940 and just listen.

00:24:19.200 And I think it's so important in any product-led business

00:24:21.820 to have that access to the customer

00:24:23.820 and make it easier for people.

00:24:25.560 And so that's the biggest thing I think any founder needs

00:24:28.300 to have is just like the ear to the ground.

00:24:29.920 But as you grow and you get bigger, it gets harder.

00:24:32.940 And that's why I'm saying some of those items,

00:24:35.140 like having that user researcher,

00:24:36.480 just so you can participate or listen

00:24:38.440 to those conversations, it's such a great way

00:24:40.680 to get a feel for, OK, are we building the right product

00:24:43.140 to solve these problems?

00:24:43.980 Because it's not about, OK, let's just launch these features.

00:24:47.040 But who are we helping?

00:24:48.540 And how are we going to help them with that problem

00:24:50.580 that they're struggling with?

00:24:53.340 What other companies that you look at that inspire you

00:24:58.140 around the way they lead product and look

00:25:01.060 at product-led growth?

00:25:02.520 So I think one of the ones that I think

00:25:05.060 has done a pretty good job making that switch

00:25:07.800 is Arti Station in Brazil.

00:25:09.980 And so they're a 750-person company.

00:25:12.600 And at that scale, it's really hard

00:25:15.960 to make that transition from sales-led to product-led.

00:25:19.140 And so they have done an incredible job really just

00:25:22.400 even splitting up their sales team from,

00:25:24.900 they kept the high-touch sales team,

00:25:27.000 but then they also introduced more

00:25:28.380 of a low-touch sales team for the smaller S&B market.

00:25:31.080 So I think there's a lot of ways you can slice and dice it

00:25:33.780 to make it work for you.

00:25:35.100 But making that transition at such a big stage

00:25:38.220 is really hard.

00:25:39.700 And so I have huge respect for anyone that can pull that off.

00:25:42.580 At that stage.

00:25:43.380 And is there anything different when you've seen the lower touch sales teams?

00:25:49.200 Because I remember, I think I was listening to the woman who leads sales either.

00:25:55.760 I think it was Slack.

00:25:56.800 And she's like, yeah, our SMB team, they don't even have a quota. 0.99

00:26:02.440 They're essentially there to facilitate the customer experience and answer questions

00:26:09.480 and configure and just help.

00:26:11.200 And technically, they're part of SMB sales.

00:26:14.820 Is that something that you think is kind of part of this?

00:26:18.640 Yeah, absolutely.

00:26:19.720 That's exactly what it is.

00:26:21.480 It goes by many names.

00:26:22.420 There is concierge.

00:26:23.760 Like Zendesk calls out their advocacy team.

00:26:26.400 And like Zendesk themselves, they didn't have a sales team

00:26:28.800 until they went over 10,000 customers.

00:26:30.980 Wow.

00:26:31.360 And it was just their advocacy team.

00:26:33.080 So their whole goal was just make your trial users

00:26:35.980 successful.

00:26:37.040 And that's all they focused on.

00:26:38.820 And so whether it's low touch sales, if that's what you want to call it, advocacy, concierge, that's really, it's all the same stuff.

00:26:47.620 And what do you think is the risk?

00:26:51.880 Like if people don't go down this path, do you think that for every market out there, somebody may introduce a trial or freemium solution equivalent to the enterprise version of it?

00:27:04.940 Absolutely.

00:27:05.640 So the big risk right now is there's two big waves coming.

00:27:08.300 that are kind of tacking on to this product-led wave.

00:27:11.600 So the first one is that people are not as willing to pay

00:27:15.000 as much for the software that they paid maybe five years ago.

00:27:18.240 So the willingness to pay is coming down.

00:27:19.900 30% in the last five years.

00:27:21.500 Wow.

00:27:21.860 So that's gone down 30%.

00:27:23.180 And then on the other hand, we have customer acquisition costs

00:27:25.860 has gone up 55% in five years.

00:27:28.660 So either you're getting squeezed,

00:27:31.080 your profit margins just got slashed,

00:27:33.220 or you're trying to think of,

00:27:35.180 hey, how could we approach this in a new way

00:27:37.220 where maybe your customer acquisition costs

00:27:39.060 aren't quite as high.

00:27:40.600 So if you use a product-led model,

00:27:42.340 one of the benefits is it's a lot more efficient.

00:27:45.240 And so if you can lower your customer acquisition costs,

00:27:48.140 and I mean willingness to pay, you can't really

00:27:49.840 change that too much unless you introduce

00:27:51.520 some revolutionary features and enter maybe a new market

00:27:54.900 and create a new category.

00:27:55.980 That's hard.

00:27:56.960 And so for a lot of the customers,

00:27:58.800 especially if they're in more of a competitive space

00:28:00.920 or red ocean, they have to really ask themselves,

00:28:04.280 how are we going to tackle this customer acquisition cost

00:28:07.200 problem, because it keeps going up every year.

00:28:09.660 Either your margins get slashed, or you try and think,

00:28:13.260 how can we be more product-led?

00:28:14.700 So why is it, and again, I ask, this is everybody listening.

00:28:18.600 I'm not, like, I ask the questions that I kind of know,

00:28:20.820 but it's just like, I know that people

00:28:22.800 are thinking these things.

00:28:24.720 Why is it cheaper in regards to, like,

00:28:29.160 I've got to invest in engineering.

00:28:30.640 I now have people in my product.

00:28:32.820 I've got to support them.

00:28:34.500 Is it cheaper?

00:28:35.820 Is there a benefit to it?

00:28:37.240 Is there a word of mouth component to it?

00:28:40.740 How does this help get more top of funnel? 0.97

00:28:44.280 So it's kind of obvious why it's cheaper in a lot of ways.

00:28:47.320 So let's say you book a demo.

00:28:50.460 All right, how much are you paying that SDR?

00:28:53.940 Just take a guess.

00:28:55.260 Average SDR is between $80 and $120 a year.

00:28:58.020 Yeah.

00:28:58.800 And so you're paying that, and that might take an hour.

00:29:02.520 And they're going to qualify maybe 10 people

00:29:04.720 before they get someone that's like, all right,

00:29:07.180 let's pass them on to the account executive.

00:29:08.600 They're a perfect fit.

00:29:09.880 And then you're paying that account executive.

00:29:11.720 And how much are you paying that account executive?

00:29:13.180 Oh, jeez, $120 to $200 a year, you know?

00:29:17.380 Yeah.

00:29:18.120 And so out of that amount, maybe, let's say once again,

00:29:22.000 we have a good close rate.

00:29:24.520 Yeah, one in 10 is going to close.

00:29:26.680 And so by that point, you might have already

00:29:29.120 spent over $1,000, $2,000 in that sales process alone

00:29:32.860 just to qualify that person.

00:29:34.540 And so that's expensive, especially at scale.

00:29:37.000 Whereas with a free trial, a freemium model,

00:29:40.240 how much does it cost you to really get that person to sign

00:29:43.660 up and experience the product?

00:29:46.160 And then that's where you're hearing more of the PQLs, 1.00

00:29:49.720 the product qualified leads come from,

00:29:51.640 which is you get to qualify them based on the data.

00:29:55.280 The activity in the product, the organization

00:29:58.300 that they're with, maybe there's other teams inside.

00:30:01.800 Like now, all of a sudden, that SDR for sure is being done.

00:30:06.360 It's almost like you're putting some of the work

00:30:07.780 on the customer to self-identify.

00:30:09.820 You absolutely are.

00:30:10.920 And so I remember really early on

00:30:13.360 when I was talking to the Dave from Drift when he was there.

00:30:16.740 So he was really just their whole product qualified lead

00:30:19.840 model was, OK, we want to reach out

00:30:21.560 to people who have had 100 conversations on their website.

00:30:24.660 Because that person has actually seen the value of Drift.

00:30:27.120 They get it.

00:30:27.940 And they had 20% to 30% close rates

00:30:29.640 whenever they would reach out to those people.

00:30:31.500 And so it was really just using the product as, yeah,

00:30:33.700 that qualification lever.

00:30:35.520 And it really helped them identify, OK, this person

00:30:38.300 knows the value.

00:30:39.260 They're a good fit.

00:30:40.180 Let's reach out at this point.

00:30:41.640 And it was a much better use of that salesperson's time.

00:30:44.220 And to be honest, not everyone even

00:30:46.260 had to reach out to sales.

00:30:47.440 There was places in the products where it was so easy

00:30:49.880 to upgrade.

00:30:50.740 And so a lot of people don't think about that as like,

00:30:52.920 how can we actually just put in the product?

00:30:54.300 Oh, and then there's no AE involved.

00:30:56.080 Oh, yeah.

00:30:56.580 You can totally cut that whole process out,

00:30:58.380 especially for a lot of SMBs.

00:31:00.600 So it's interesting because it also

00:31:03.900 acts as a forcing function to make the product better,

00:31:08.040 which might sound crazy to people listening.

00:31:10.380 But a lot of, I think, mid-market enterprise

00:31:14.400 customers spend a lot of time on adding features

00:31:17.220 to solve problems for these big guys.

00:31:19.200 But if you just look at the funnel,

00:31:23.040 the bottom of the funnel is going to get better

00:31:24.680 if we can get double the top of the funnel conversion

00:31:27.240 to the secondary stage, right?

00:31:28.620 Definitely.

00:31:29.280 And that'll mean the product gets better,

00:31:32.300 because we need to get them in and activated, which

00:31:35.520 means everybody else gets to win.

00:31:37.360 Because even if I sell somebody that never used the product,

00:31:40.800 when they come in, they'll have a more positive experience.

00:31:46.100 Yeah.

00:31:46.600 And it's something a lot of companies

00:31:48.100 don't think about, where even just the whole process of,

00:31:51.400 OK, maybe they've even had a free trial framing model,

00:31:53.840 but then they don't have any upgrade button.

00:31:55.780 And they're like, what's going on here?

00:31:57.240 And the big thing, and one of the reasons why,

00:31:59.820 is a lot of people don't think about this,

00:32:01.440 but your pricing model is directly

00:32:04.920 tied with your customer acquisition model

00:32:07.080 in a product-led company.

00:32:08.640 It's kind of like this arranged marriage in a lot of ways.

00:32:11.760 Because let's say, for your pricing model,

00:32:13.740 we just jack up the price.

00:32:15.460 Well, OK, now no one really wants

00:32:17.000 to sign up for the super expensive product

00:32:18.720 that they might have to pay for.

00:32:20.100 For instance, with a customer acquisition model,

00:32:21.720 let's say we go all in on freemium,

00:32:23.380 we give everything away for free, I mean,

00:32:25.560 our customer acquisition model is going to go way up.

00:32:27.940 But maybe that's just users that are signing up.

00:32:30.060 They're not actually customers.

00:32:31.460 And so your pricing takes a hit.

00:32:32.840 So you always have to balance, like,

00:32:34.300 what is that perfect balance there?

00:32:35.840 And one of the things, even when you're

00:32:37.200 talking to Patrick Campbell, that he advocates,

00:32:39.800 and I advocate for too, is finding that value metric.

00:32:42.980 Like, how do you charge for your service?

00:32:45.220 If you're an email marketing solution,

00:32:47.400 maybe it's per subscriber that you're charging for.

00:32:49.500 If we sell shoes, it's per pair of shoes.

00:32:52.020 And so you really have to understand your pricing,

00:32:54.600 because you want to make it easy for people

00:32:57.420 to upgrade on their own.

00:32:59.480 And a lot of B2B SaaS companies, they

00:33:01.500 have this very complicated way that they sell their product.

00:33:05.480 And to be product-led, you need to make that process easy

00:33:08.580 so that someone can go to your pricing page,

00:33:10.620 or maybe on an upgrade page in your product,

00:33:12.700 and in five seconds, figure out what it's going to cost them.

00:33:15.240 They get it.

00:33:15.700 So you're saying pricing is part of product-led growth.

00:33:17.960 Absolutely.

00:33:18.920 You have to have that under control

00:33:20.480 and really hone it to a point where it's really easy

00:33:23.400 for your users to understand, not just you.

00:33:26.880 Yeah, as an investor in Intercom,

00:33:28.800 I know that's always been in the early days.

00:33:30.960 I'm not saying today, even though a lot of people,

00:33:32.920 I think I just saw this email go to a bunch of users

00:33:35.940 where they're raising the prices.

00:33:37.680 Again.

00:33:38.280 Yes, and I mean, it's just, but everybody

00:33:43.260 says they don't want to do it at scale.

00:33:45.520 You need to capture value.

00:33:47.040 You need to experiment.

00:33:48.960 I think Patrick says if you're not testing your pricing twice

00:33:52.340 a year, then a lot of people listen to this,

00:33:54.680 you haven't raised your prices, right?

00:33:56.420 Definitely.

00:33:57.000 It's like one of the first things you should probably do.

00:33:59.020 Like, tomorrow, go test it out.

00:34:02.880 Where do you think this SaaS market's going,

00:34:07.260 if it's getting more expensive to acquire,

00:34:10.240 the willingness to pay is going down,

00:34:15.680 how do companies continue to grow if all their,

00:34:20.240 like, what's the next evolution?

00:34:22.060 Is there even on the customer support side, is there ways that you're seeing companies able to scale support in a way that's still great, but more scalable?

00:34:30.660 Or is it human to human?

00:34:32.180 Because it seems like a lot of people, you know, on the back end, on the support side, if you have that many more users.

00:34:38.920 Yeah.

00:34:39.420 So what's happening in the SaaS space is that every industry, I don't care what it is, is getting commoditized so much quicker.

00:34:46.260 Because nowadays, even Hacker News states, you can start a SaaS company for $0.

00:34:51.180 And that doesn't mean you can grow one for $0.

00:34:54.480 But the barrier to entry is low.

00:34:56.740 It's never been lower than it was today.

00:35:00.000 And so because it's been so easy to create a SaaS company,

00:35:02.460 it just means the competition level is getting fierce.

00:35:05.820 And so if you really want to build a moat for your business,

00:35:09.280 you need to think product-led.

00:35:10.520 And really, how can we create that moat?

00:35:12.520 Maybe it's giving away a lot of these features for free

00:35:14.980 as kind of the gateway drug to your product and the main

00:35:17.880 product that you sell.

00:35:19.160 And so I really think that it is going to be imperative

00:35:22.480 for people to think about, OK, how can we give away more

00:35:25.480 for free to really stand out and build that mode

00:35:28.420 for our business?

00:35:29.080 And I think that's actually going to be a really big competitive

00:35:31.660 difference.

00:35:32.000 Raise the free line.

00:35:33.260 It's interesting.

00:35:34.060 I remember even on the content, I

00:35:37.400 had Mike McDermott from FreshBooks on.

00:35:39.140 And he said, because I asked him, I was like,

00:35:41.400 why are you so into giving and speaking at events and stuff?

00:35:44.500 And he said, well, I think he quoted the guys

00:35:47.440 from 37 Signals, and he said we could either outspend

00:35:50.180 or we can out-teach, right?

00:35:52.320 And it's almost like we can out-sell or we can out-give.

00:35:56.820 Yeah.

00:35:57.440 It sounds like that's what you're saying.

00:35:58.500 It's like if we can give more of the product

00:36:02.200 without requiring payment and or conversation and just as much

00:36:08.140 as we can do that, that, and it's interesting

00:36:10.840 because what you see online, it's never

00:36:12.820 been easier to say like, what's the cheapest tool to do this?

00:36:15.620 It's like 55 Facebook comments later.

00:36:20.060 But I mean, free is a good answer,

00:36:22.920 especially if you have good support.

00:36:24.620 You have a great product that gets people activated.

00:36:26.480 They get to that first value.

00:36:28.380 So this is really a strategic direction

00:36:32.060 that all companies in the future are going to have to go.

00:36:35.020 Yeah, I mean, free has always been the most powerful word

00:36:37.920 in marketing.

00:36:38.860 You see free, your eyes are raised,

00:36:40.820 or look in that direction like, hey, how can I get access

00:36:43.260 to that free resource?

00:36:44.260 Yeah, is it really free?

00:36:45.180 And so it's always been that case.

00:36:47.100 It's just now it's a little bit easier

00:36:49.020 to make it work for your business.

00:36:50.260 And if you think about it in terms

00:36:52.080 of even how Elasian looks at their support bugs,

00:36:54.600 they're looking at that as like, this is a bug.

00:36:57.400 Like, let's solve it.

00:36:58.180 Someone had to reach out to us to get a problem solved.

00:37:01.580 Why?

00:37:02.760 And most companies don't ask that last question,

00:37:05.340 which is why are they reaching out?

00:37:07.360 How can we solve that within our products

00:37:09.720 so that people have no need?

00:37:11.300 And so even the support costs of doing this for freemium

00:37:15.180 or a free trial can be significantly reduced if you have that approach.

00:37:17.780 Oh, because all of a sudden you're saying, hey, we've been doing this for them, or there's issues.

00:37:20.980 How do we make it so that that's no longer an issue anymore so it doesn't even show up in support?

00:37:25.440 Exactly.

00:37:26.480 Interesting.

00:37:27.560 Wes, when you look at your journey over the last five years, or you don't seem like a very old dude,

00:37:33.420 but who have you had to become on a character set or just on a personal level to kind of be the guy that wrote the book

00:37:41.040 that works with all these big companies and help them with this?

00:37:44.960 Like, what are some of the things, you know, just on a personal level that you had to evolve to?

00:37:50.040 Who do you need to become?

00:37:51.020 So I think it's two things.

00:37:52.080 The first one is, I guess before this, I was always one of those people who would say things like the whole watch for newer.

00:37:59.760 And I would just say stuff and like, oh, I'm going to build one of these businesses one day.

00:38:03.120 And like one of the reasons why I started my business is like, I'm done with that side of Wes.

00:38:07.660 Like, I actually want to, whenever I say something, have that word mean something and take action.

00:38:13.700 So I think if you're going to build any business

00:38:15.820 or try and build any movement, you have to take action.

00:38:18.460 You can't just be saying stuff.

00:38:20.240 Although I'm saying stuff right now.

00:38:21.580 But yeah, but then you take action when you're right

00:38:24.160 after you're saying it.

00:38:25.500 So then the other part is think long term.

00:38:28.660 And so whenever I started thinking, OK,

00:38:31.700 do I want to double down on product-led growth,

00:38:34.100 I already had the next three years of like,

00:38:36.240 there's all these assets and fun things

00:38:38.000 I want to do to build this category.

00:38:40.360 And I can see myself doing this for a decade.

00:38:43.840 And I think that's, to me, the exciting part

00:38:46.540 is I think long term.

00:38:48.220 And I have no intentions of just taking the shortcut.

00:38:51.720 So for me, that's the big thing I think

00:38:53.860 you need to think about if you're wanting

00:38:55.420 to create any categories.

00:38:56.920 It's not just a quick win.

00:38:59.800 There's better ways to make money than building a category.

00:39:04.000 So I think for me, just think long term.

00:39:06.060 That's interesting.

00:39:06.800 So take action, not just talk about it.

00:39:09.700 I like the decade view.

00:39:11.140 It gives you enough of time.

00:39:12.600 It's not too far in the future, but it gives a good gut check

00:39:17.800 of like, would I be willing to be in this category

00:39:20.140 for the next 10 years?

00:39:20.980 Yeah, absolutely.

00:39:21.760 And not just kind of a fad.

00:39:24.280 Man, I love meeting people like yourself, Wes.

00:39:26.600 You reached out a while ago to ask me to be part of your summit.

00:39:29.700 And that was a lot of fun.

00:39:30.820 And seeing you kind of continue to put out content,

00:39:34.100 speak at events, push this conversation forward

00:39:38.620 is really cool and i just wanted to let you know how much i appreciate it and i'm looking forward

00:39:43.260 to the next decade of you you know teaching everything you know so thanks again man appreciate

00:39:47.280 it thanks so much cool that's a wrap thanks for watching this episode of escape velocity be sure

00:39:53.540 to like and subscribe and leave a comment with your biggest insight from our conversation

00:39:58.260 be sure to check out the next episode

Dan Martell - February 11, 2021

How To Retain Loyal Customers with Wes Bush @ Product-Led - Escape Velocity Show #47

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