If you're a founder dealing with product-led growth, start here.
Most advice on viral loops is outdated. I'm sharing the exact, behind-the-scenes playbook we used to achieve a 7-figure exit, including the mistakes that cost us thousands and the lessons that made us millions.
What I've Learned From 99 Companies
A few patterns in product-led growth come up again and again.
The founders who handle product-led growth well understand that most founders overthink this and underspend on execution.
The Counterintuitive Truth
In product-led growth, the best practitioners often do less, not more.
The lesson: the best solutions are often the simplest ones. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Investing early in product-led growth can be the difference between raising your next round and running out of runway.
One of my portfolio companies went from struggling to profitable in under a year after they finally got serious about this. The founder told me later that they wished they'd started sooner.
This connects to broader themes around growth hacking, community-led growth, retention strategies, product-led growth that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
What's Next
Best practice in product-led growth is changing fast. What worked last year might not work next year. That's both the challenge and the opportunity.
My advice: stay curious, stay humble, and stay close to the people who are actually doing the work. Read less thought leadership and do more experiments. Talk to fewer consultants and more practitioners.
If you're building in this space, the best time to get product-led growth right is before you need to. Don't wait for a crisis to force your hand.
I'll keep sharing what I learn. This stuff matters too much to keep to myself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
Q:What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 234 startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.
Q:Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
Q:How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.