How can a positive user experience drive product-led growth? In this episode, Oscar Health Director of Product Management Aditya Subramaniam speaks with Chameleon CEO and Co-Founder Pulkit Agrawal about how the user experience drives product-led growth. They start by defining product-led growth and the role of PLG at Chameleon. Then, they dive into a discussion on how user onboarding influences PLG, and the differences in PLG between a B2B and B2C product.
Subscribe to the Product Talk podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and catch every conversation with leading product executives.
On defining product-led growth
“It’s like self-service on steroids. Self-service has always existed as a motion of product-led strategy or go-to market motion. PLG is about enabling that to be predominant. That happens in a few different places. One is just driving product usage everywhere across the user lifecycle, can they use the product more? And that often ties into usage-based pricing, which is a macro trend that we’re seeing more. So more usage everywhere in the customer lifecycle. That’s number one.
“The second thing is that usage should drive awareness and growth. It might drive growth and revenue, but also growth in user base or growth in reach. Create virtuous loops or funnels that drive more usage. So more usage drives revenue. And the third thing is a try before you buy or a try before you speak to a sales rep approach. Product evaluation is now a stage early in the assessment of buying software. The individual user of the software is going to evaluate it before it rolls up to any kind of executive which is different from what it used to be, where you might sell to the executive. Those are the aspects that make product-led growth clearer. You’re using your product as a canvas and a channel to drive growth for your business.”
On user onboarding for PLG
“User onboarding is the most important part of PLG. First impressions are absolutely vital in defining long-term success for a user and product. First impressions are key, and people’s patience is getting shorter. User onboarding isn’t just what you think it is. Sometimes it starts really early, sometimes even outside of the product. Maybe that’s not quite onboarding onto the product, but it’s setting the context for the product. When I visit your marketing site, what do I see there? And where do I go into the product that should define my user onboarding? Because I might come from a competitive ad campaign where it says, switch from a competitor to this product. If I’m coming in with that mindset, I’m looking for certain things that are different than someone seeing your product on Product Hunt.
“If I already use something like this, how would I switch to combat a specific pain point? I need to see some specific things. If I don’t do them quickly, I’m going to I’m not going to explore further. So user onboarding is really critical. And then number two, personalization is the most important part of user onboarding. You need to personalize it. Now, if you have lots of different personas or types of users, it’s a headache to create temporary, different versions. Pick the most important version. If 40%, or 25% of your users are certain personas, create onboarding for them, only show it to them, don’t show it to everyone. We’re trying to move away from the best general version of onboarding to the best specific version of onboarding.”
On the differences in PLG between a B2C and B2B product
“The big difference is for B2C, PLG is old news. They’ve been doing PLG for a long time. It’s the B2B world that’s getting very excited about PLG. That’s partly because the macro trend is that we are converging in a way where B2B apps now feel a little bit more like B2C apps in some cases. And there are many reasons behind that. One is usage-based pricing usage. The user of software is now more powerful than ever before in terms of decision-making. Switching costs are lower. The other key difference is that our expectations as users are different now. When we use B2B software, we expect it to work as seamlessly as B2C software. We’ve evaluated and tried so many apps and are so familiar with using software that is more sophisticated.
“B2C has always had to leverage PLG. It’s more straightforward in terms of providing value quickly, you have to provide value to this user. There’s no B2B excuse like, well, this isn’t the right person, we need to get the advocate that we need to get someone to implement. B2B can learn that there’s no excuse. Whoever signs up for a product, we have to get the value and have more of that mindset. Attention spans are so short, you have to hit value quickly. With B2B, sometimes it’s a bit more relaxed because the buying process is different. Users get locked into annual contracts, etc. But there’s a lot to learn from B2C. I think hiring B2C conversion rate optimization people for product-led growth is a really good idea.”
About the speaker
THREE KEY THINGS ABOUT USER ONBOARDING YOU SHOULD KNOW: 1. It extends beyond sign-up! It encompasses every change in your product, and it is needed for old users and new features. Think of it across the user lifecycle not just at the beginning. 2. Getting users to act is a combination of them knowing WHY as well as HOW to accomplish something. You have to reinforce your value and benefits before directing users to action. 3. Focus on the "aha moment": this is the goal for each small piece of user onboarding, and without knowing this, it'll be hard for you to predictably generate more success. My product, Chameleon, helps you build great user onboarding without requiring any code, so you're in control and can optimize your way towards user happiness and product engagement. Learn more and try it for free at https://www.trychameleon.com/ or ping us at [email protected].
About the host
Aditya Subramaniam has been in product for over a decade, almost entirely at early- to mid-stage technology startups, and across multiple industries like mobile security, education, and healthcare. He is particularly passionate about B2B and B2B2C products, partnering directly with customers to develop world-class solutions. Outside work, he enjoys playing tennis, reading books, and listening to death metal.