S6E4 – Mastering Product-Led Growth: Strategies for SaaS Success with Pablo Asensio

Introduction to Product-Led Growth (PLG)

In this latest episode of the “Grow Your B2B SaaS Podcast,” host Joran sits down with Pablo Asensio, founder of 8% Growth, to discuss how to master product-led growth (PLG) for SaaS companies. Pablo explains that PLG is a strategy that shifts away from traditional methods of relying on sales and marketing to acquire and retain customers. Instead, it positions the product itself as the main driver of growth. This approach allows users to see the product’s value before committing financially, making it easier to grow revenue naturally. Key aspects of PLG include self-serve onboarding, viral loops, and in-product upsells. Successful companies like Slack, Dropbox, Calendly, and Miro have effectively used PLG to expand their user base.

When to Use PLG and When to Avoid It

Joran and Pablo also discuss when PLG works best and when it doesn’t. PLG is most effective when the product has a quick and clear value that users can see right away and when users prefer self-serve onboarding. It also works well when the pricing model scales gradually, like with freemium or pay-per-use plans. However, PLG may not be suitable for complex products that need a lot of customization or for businesses that sell to large enterprises with long buying processes. Companies that rely heavily on big sales contracts might also find PLG less practical.

Challenges of Organizational Alignment in PLG

One of the biggest challenges with PLG is making sure all parts of the company work together. Pablo points out that PLG is not just a marketing or sales strategy; it affects the entire organization. If teams are not aligned, sales may focus on the wrong leads, marketing might prioritize marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) instead of product-qualified leads (PQLs), and customer support may end up being reactive rather than proactive. To overcome this, Pablo shares a simple four-step plan: define a North Star Metric that everyone works towards, educate leadership about the benefits of PLG (like lower customer acquisition costs and better retention), start with small tests to see what works, and set shared goals (OKRs) that keep all teams focused on the same objectives.

Common Mistakes in PLG Adoption

One common mistake companies make when adopting PLG is not having clear success metrics and keeping teams too separate. Another mistake is focusing too much on generating leads instead of ensuring users are actively engaging with the product and experiencing value. Pablo advises that companies track the same activation metric across the entire organization to keep everyone on the same page and set realistic goals to avoid disappointment.

The Role of Viral Loops in PLG

Viral loops are also an important part of PLG, as they encourage satisfied users to bring in new customers without extra marketing costs. However, Pablo warns that focusing on virality too early can backfire. Companies should first make sure the product is valuable and easy to use before trying to maximize referrals.

Five Steps to Implement PLG Successfully

To make PLG work, Pablo shares a five-step plan: set activation metrics to measure user engagement, reduce the time it takes for users to see the product’s value, make onboarding simple and intuitive while offering help when needed, introduce monetization at the right time (usually based on usage), and encourage both revenue expansion and referrals once users are happy with the product.

Addressing Sales Team Concerns in PLG

One of the biggest organizational challenges with PLG is getting sales teams on board. They may worry that PLG will make their roles unnecessary. Pablo emphasizes that PLG should be seen as a way to increase revenue, not just generate leads, and that sales teams still play an important role, especially when converting high-intent users or handling big contracts. To keep teams working well together, Pablo recommends regular meetings, shared goals, and dashboards that make data easy to see and understand.

Debunking PLG Myths

There’s also a common myth that PLG completely replaces the need for sales teams. Pablo clarifies that PLG and sales can work together, especially when handling enterprise deals or guiding product-qualified leads toward larger contracts. He concludes by saying that true growth comes from making sure users quickly experience the product’s value. Companies should prioritize self-serve activation and keep users engaged by continuously delivering value.

Key Timecodes

• (1:19) – Guest Introduction
• (1:32) – Defining PLG
• (2:50) – Key Elements of PLG
• (3:23) – When to Consider PLG
• (5:29) – Misconceptions About PLG
• (6:12) – Importance of Organizational Alignment
• (7:13) – Aligning Stakeholders
• (8:15) – Four-Step Framework for Alignment
• (10:37) – Viral Loops and PLG
• (12:52) – Moments to Ask for Referrals
• (14:53) – Common Mistakes in PLG
• (16:12) – Managing Expectations
• (17:29) – Misconceptions About Implementing PLG
• (19:06) – Tools and Frameworks for PLG
• (21:12) – Monetization Strategy
• (23:31) – Aligning Sales with PLG
• (25:25) – Best Practices for PLG Implementation
• (28:12) – Importance of Data
• (30:27) – When to Add a Sales Component
• (33:19) – Summarizing PLG Advice
• (33:54) – Advice for Growing SaaS to 10K MRR
• (35:29) – Advice for Scaling to 10 Million ARR
• (38:52) – Episode Summary
• (39:02) – Contact Information

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – Pablo

You can start small. My advice is always to test the activation and self-serve before scaling because maybe your assumption is that your product is suitable for PLG. Have realistic milestones. Don’t get me wrong, realistic doesn’t mean that it’s not ambitious. But make sure that there is a proper roadmap with milestones, like for instance, in three months, we are going to reduce the onboarding time by X. In six months, we are going to increase the activation by Y. The sales team are chasing the wrong leads, which creates frustration and definitely not revenue. The marketing team is optimizing for MQLs instead of PQLs, which again is not great and is not going to bring the company apart.

[00:00:39.840] – Joran

Today we’re going to talk about product-led growth, also known as PLG, and more specifically, how to organize alignment around it, set expectations, and how to implement successfully from day one for your SaaS. My guest is Pablo Asensio, the founder of 8% Growth, where he helps startups and scaleups with growth challenges. Either as an advisor or a fractional growth officer. Overall, he worked with startups and scaleups in all kinds of industries, anywhere from C to Series B, focusing mostly on data-driven growth, the intersection of marketing and product. He’s now fully focusing on helping SaaS companies. Welcome to the show, Pablo.

[00:01:19.370] – Pablo

Hi, Jerem. Thank you so much for having me here. I’m super happy to be here and discuss about PLG, which is one of my passions.

[00:01:26.040] – Joran

Nice. We’re going to talk about product-led growth, PLG. How would How do you define, explain product-led growth?

[00:01:32.970] – Pablo

I would say that PLG flips the traditional SaaS model on itself. Instead of relying on sales or marketing to drive customer acquisition, conversion or retention, the The build itself becomes the main growth engine. Users experience the value before they pay or they subscribe to any plan, and then the revenue expansion happens naturally. Self-serving onboarding is the most obvious way to go to PLG, but also viral loops in product upsells for plan and grades. I think if we think of examples, everyone has been exposed to PLG. Slack probably is one of the best companies that implement this methodology. Dropbox, Calendly, Myro. Those are obviously big names, but you have many other SaaS companies that they are not so big and they rely quite a lot on PLG, or they try to rely, which I believe is one of the things we’re going to discuss. The bottom line is that those SaaS, they make it easy for the users to try the product, to onboard the users themselves, and to invite others, which means that the organic growth is happening, and the cost per acquisition of the CAC is lower than if you rely on marketing channels, space marketing channels, and also on sales themes, which obviously you will need that as an additional cost to the whole thing.

[00:02:50.550] – Pablo

Just to basically have the short version, PLG means reducing friction, making sure that users are enabled to adopt, engage, and upgrade without needing any additional intervention from sales or marketing.

[00:03:03.870] – Joran

Really do more with less people.

[00:03:06.130] – Pablo

That’s correct. It’s not just thinking of the sales teams, which they also play a role here, but also thinking that many spend tons of money in marketing channels. Obviously, there’s a lot of competition out there, but if your product is optimizing from boarding on activation, you go a long way.

[00:03:23.660] – Joran

You’re a big fan of PLG, right? When should people consider going for a PLD and maybe more importantly, when shouldn’t they consider going for a PLG motion?

[00:03:35.100] – Pablo

I love this question because sometimes, as companies, they come to me because, as you say, I love PLG. I have a conversation with them and I tell them, Look, this is not really for you because X reasons. That’s the thing, PLG is not for everyone. I would definitely advise them to consider and to champion PLG. If they have a product that has a clear time to value, the famous Aha Moment. It’s a product that users can experience the benefit very quickly. Also, that SaaS has ideal users that they prefer self-serve onboarding rather than a long sell cycle. This phase is no one likes to be on a sales call with someone who is looking to deliver on the targets. The third key element for going for PLG is very important. It’s actually another of my passions, pricing. If your product basically scales the pricing gradually, you have a freemium model, you can have a paper use, you can have pricing based on usage, then it’s really likely that your product will be a good fit for PLG. Now, as you say, more importantly, when to avoid PLG. There are products that are very complex and they require a lot of customization or they really require someone to help with onboarding.

[00:04:44.910] – Pablo

Obviously, those are not good for PLG, where self-serve itself is a very important bit. Some companies have customers that are enterprise buyers and have a very complex process for procurement. You see a lot of tape, a lot of stakeholders. Again, that’s not great for PLG. The last of those three red flags for PLG is if you have a company that the sales cycle relies on deep relationships, consulting or large contracts. Again, I think, for instance, government, the products that aim for the government and so on, that’s not a good fit for PLG. Plg mostly works best with SaaS. The users can activate themselves quickly and they can expand naturally. Try different parts of the product and see the value, and again, they don’t need any external support.

[00:05:29.920] – Joran

Yeah, makes sense. I talk to a lot of founders as well, and many want to try PLG, even though they’re not the best fit. This is a great way to explain it to people when it’s a fit.

[00:05:40.820] – Pablo

I would say it’s like with everything else. When you see a hype about a certain term, everyone wants to jump on the platform. But again, it’s not for everyone. I’m always very honest. I’m very open to when I’m done, I tell them what sometimes is the hard truth.

[00:05:54.250] – Joran

Nice. Let’s say the listener is now are confident that they should be going for PLD. They have clear time, the value The users prefer self-serve onboarding and pricing skills with usage, maybe even a premium model, as you mentioned. Why is organizational alignment around PLD so important?

[00:06:12.210] – Pablo

That’s a great question. Pld is not just a decision about your product as a strategy that affects the whole company. It affects marketing, sales, customer success. They play a very important role in my view. Finance, again, it’s not just a team effort. It’s a company-wide strategy. If you don’t have the alignment, this is what usually I see. Sales team are chasing the wrong leads, which creates frustration and definitely not revenue. The marketing team is optimizing for MQLs instead of PQLs, which again is not great and is not going to bring the company far. And customer success, which play an important role. They’re acting reactively instead of being a proactive player on this format. From my experience, PLG only works when all the teams track the same North Star metric. So they basically go into the same direction for the same target. When all those teams are lying around user activation and retention, that’s the only way that your PLG can be successful.

[00:07:13.450] – Joran

The North Star metric has to align across all the different departments.

[00:07:18.120] – Pablo

That’s correct. I think one of the big examples that everyone will know, because probably most of them are using that is Slack. I mentioned that before. I think I read somewhere ages ago that the count of the North Star metric they got when they start looking to PLG was getting a team sending 2,000 messages. Again, that’s not really for the product team to do. If it’s a sales team involved, they have to make sure that they understand that they will get value when they send 2,000 messages. Similar for customer support to make sure that they help directly or not so directly, those clients to get to those 2,000 messages. But that’s really important.

[00:07:52.890] – Joran

Yeah, and maybe for people who are a bit unfamiliar with the North Star metric, it’s tied to the value people can get out of your product. As you mentioned, if you’re attracting the wrong companies with marketing or maybe selling them even wrongly with sales, they won’t get to the North Star metric because they probably won’t know how to use your tool or how to get value out of it.

[00:08:13.330] – Pablo

Absolutely. That’s spot on.

[00:08:15.660] – Joran

How do we actually align stakeholders around PLG?

[00:08:19.820] – Pablo

I would probably maybe go for a four-step frame. I think the first one we just covered is to find that North Star metric or main KPI, if maybe companies don’t feel comfortable with that definition. Make sure everyone is working towards the same direction. Then the second bit is to educate the leadership team, which I mean, sometimes maybe they are not that close to the action on the product and to the activity of the other teams. So educate those on why PLG matters. The benefits we discussed before, lower CSI, higher retention, which leads to more revenue, and less dependency on external factors, especially when it comes to paid channels. You don’t have to realize so much on Google or any other channel that is always expensive, and basically, you leave the business on the hands of someone else. The third point of this alignment would be to pilot some PLG initiatives. It’s not that you have to go from zero to 100. You can start small. My advice is always to test the activation and self-serve before scaling, because maybe your assumption is that your product is suitable for PLG, but sometimes it’s not the case as we saw before.

[00:09:27.400] – Pablo

Make sure that people can activate and self serve before you go wild with the PLG. The last of those four steps is to create a share OKR, so objectives. So product, marketing, sales, and customer success, they work towards the same goals. We talk about the North Star. There are all their campo metrics also matter. Again, if I have to put an example that everyone will know, probably HubSpot is a great example of company that actually shift from sales to PLG, even though, of course, they have an important part for sales. Back in the day, they aligned their teams around free sign apps converting into paid users. While rather than just the number of leads, which is the mistake that many of us got. Oh, let’s get leads on top of the funnel and they will convert at some point. No, of course, it’s better to have maybe less leads, but much better conversion if you want to grow your business and be successful.

[00:10:15.460] – Joran

I think you also mentioned in between lines, PLG probably helps you to reduce ad spend, to run less ads. Is that always a PLG is equal to a viral loop? You mentioned it at the beginning. Maybe first explain what is a viral loop and how can people leverage a viral loop when they do go for PLG?

[00:10:37.630] – Pablo

Absolutely. Viral loop is when basically you’re happy customers, they help you get other customers through referrals. Sometimes the referral is incentivative, others not. But in many cases, we will go through that not only with SaaS, but with other products. When we are happy with the product and we know that one of our friends or peers, they can get use of that, we get them there. In terms of how to to get there. That wouldn’t be actually my first step when it comes to implement the PLG. I think the first step to be nailing that activation. But of course, the benefit of Vida Loops is that the cost of acquisition is very low, even if you give some a referral incentive. And yes, you rely on not getting lots of money paid channels to get your customer. Also, it’s important in SaaS products where there is a team effort in of Slack, Miro for Netherlands, of Figma, where basically you got an inside user in a company, they see the value and they see the value of their team collaborating in that platform. That’s another kinds of viral loop, which is always internal of getting external customers.

[00:11:40.090] – Joran

I think the second one is a bit harder for people to do because not everybody has this viral loop, but especially the first one, by having users recommend you to others, is something everybody can do. Not to make it a sales pitch, but readytis does build an in-app referral program where basically it’s a free-me model. You can set up your in-app referral program for free, and you would only start paying when people start referring you. To your point, the cost of acquisition is very low. You can keep it even low by using a third-party platform to kick in this viral loop for your SaaS.

[00:12:13.240] – Pablo

Absolutely. There is another factor which is very important, which is psychology. I always love psychology when it comes to user experience and growth. If you get that referral from a friend or from a peer or colleague in terms of, Oh, this product is going to help you, you get much more trust that if basically you see an out on when you do a search in Google or in some. So obviously, that’s also an additional benefit to the Biden Loops.

[00:12:36.900] – Joran

When should people think about trading rate? When you sign up to a new tool, you’re probably not going to refer to your friend, right? You already mentioned the wow factor or time to value. Are there certain moments that if they come to the wow moment, they’re more likely to start referring you?

[00:12:52.510] – Pablo

Yeah, absolutely. I think on that data, it’s also very important to understand the pattern of those happy users. The way work with my clients is to identify spots where it’s a good time to ask them when they have a good experience to get a referral within the SaaS platform, but without causing friction, because sometimes you’re using a product, you like the product, it’s helping you to solve a problem, but you don’t really want to ask for a referral when people are in the middle of something. We use Slack as an example. They don’t ask you for referring other people. When you are in the middle of a conversation with a colleague, you have a pop-up, by the way, good to speak to Jordan, but why don’t you ask other teammates to join what it’s like? I would say looking for those moments where the data will tell you what are the best moments, where the user is happy, and it’s a good moment to ask for a referral. Other channels, mostly emails, are quite good because they are as sync so you’re not really hitting the flow or experience of the user. Again, that’s also quite good in terms of you are enjoying your product.

[00:13:54.000] – Pablo

As a user, you are enjoying this SaaS platform. Why don’t you tell other friends? Of course, that’s in terms of messaging, that’s a completely different conversation. There are different ways to encourage people to refer without the needs of giving them a £50 Amazon voucher or something like that.

[00:14:10.560] – Joran

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[00:14:53.870] – Pablo

I think this is quite frustrating for many companies because when the teams, they work on silos, that’s not really helping. Again, for PLG, it’s really important to get everyone under the same roof and the same mindset. The most common mistake when it comes to stakeholder alignment is not setting the clear success metrics upfront. To give you an example, I’m sure you saw lots of SaaS that they still work on leads, they still work on MQLs, or we need more leads top of the funnel. But what they should be tracking is activation, engagement, and the revenue expansion. Those are the things that will let you know whether people really like your product and your business is going somewhere. That for me is the main mistake I see across, especially before starting working with clients. But it has an easy fix if people are willing to do that. The fix is connected to the previous framework, get the marketing, the product, and the sales teams, and also customer success, tracking the same activation metric. Again, that requires quite a lot of internal education, but this is new. Otherwise, it’s no point to try to go into a framework which is not right if you apply it in the wrong way.

[00:16:03.630] – Joran

Yeah. Making these changes might take a bit of time. Seeing the results might take some time as well. How do you manage expectations internally?

[00:16:12.920] – Pablo

I love this question because when I have initial conversation with Sansas, Oh, so with PLG, we will reduce the cost of the sales straight away. I know, of course, it’s not the case. Usually, it takes between 6 and 12 months to optimize everything in terms of onboarding, monetisation, and self-serve roles. The solution, and that’s also what I do with my clients, is to have realistic milestones. Don’t get me wrong, realistic doesn’t mean that this is not ambitious, but make sure that there is a proper roadmap with milestones. For instance, in three months, we are going to reduce the onboarding time by X. In six months, we are going to increase the activation by Y %. Back to my previous point, you don’t need to go from zero to 100, especially if you come from a very cells-heavy model. You can start with a hybrid model, PLG and cells. Before fully committing to PLG. But again, the solution for the expectation is to have realistic milestones in place because that will motivate people to do their part for the different teams they work for.

[00:17:12.850] – Joran

I think that’s a really good point. You can start hybrid, so you don’t have to go all in because it is a big business decision you’re going to make. What is a big misconception a lot of SaaS companies have about implementing PLG from day one?

[00:17:29.720] – Pablo

You probably have this, Oh, if we build it, they will come, which sounds very motivational. I’m sure you have all these kinds of gurus in social media that, Oh, yeah, build it, and they will come, and lots of likes and so on. The reality is not like that. Back to the PLG framework. People, they think, Oh, we have a self-serve platform. That’s enough. We are a PLG-approving company. That’s not true. It’s not just self-serve. You really have to have an onboarding which is deliberate, and you have to build the habits and get strategies about that and also about retention. You have to do that in a very smooth and soft way. It’s not like, say, oh, Jordan, you try my product. Let me basically steer you into do this and do that. That’s not really the case. It’s basically do everything which is very intuitive and reduce in friction as much as you can. So, yeah, if we build it, that will come. Doesn’t really work for PLG.

[00:18:25.150] – Joran

Yeah. Nowadays, you have all these examples of all these AI tools which grew from zero to 5 million AR in a couple of months or something like that. Those are outliers. We see them all the time on LinkedIn, but there’s so many SaaS out there which isn’t the case. So indeed, building people will come. It’s not the reality for 99. 9 90% of the SaaS companies.

[00:18:46.870] – Pablo

Yeah, correct.

[00:18:49.320] – Joran

Let’s then talk about how to actually implement PLG successfully. If a SaaS founder now thinks, Okay, I still want to go for it, are there any specific processes, tools, frameworks you would recommend that is going to help them to set it up successfully?

[00:19:06.820] – Pablo

Sure. In terms of tools, definitely data is really important to understand what’s going on. I want to think that most of the SaaS that they look into the PLG model They are covered on this point. Tools like Amplitude, Amixpanel, they are quite popular, obviously, and they really do the trick. You don’t need more than that. You can track activation and engagement. In terms of framework, I would go, I think the mode framework, both in monetisation, onboarding, activation, time to value, is probably the most relevant for people that they want to adopt PLG. I also like Westboos, which is someone who is also, when it comes to PLG, one of the biggest experts you can find out there. He has the bowling Ola framework, which is basically focused on one activation step at a time. I think that’s also a good framework and you can obviously combine both. In terms of maybe how to implement the PLG and thinking of steps, probably I can think of, again, a simple framework with five steps. The first one is to find your activation metric, understand what kinds of action predicts the long-term retention. Now we are talking through a video platform.

[00:20:10.960] – Pablo

It’s not Zoom. It was Zoom, for instance, which everyone knows. The activation metric for Zoom is the first meeting host. That’s basically how they basically start the PLG process. The second step on this implementing framework would be to reduce the time to value to this famous aha moment and try to make sure that users reach the milestone within minutes. And also it’s quite ambition, but again, that puts apart the companies that they can be suitable for PLG from those that they need other kinds of framework. Then the third point will be maybe to have a self-serve onboarding flow. So You can minimize the friction by working a lot on the UI and the UX, but also at some point you can get hands-to support with some kinds of interactive guides. That’s a big conversation to have now. The four point, which unfortunately many companies, they don’t to this point is to introduce monetisation that you can convert users at the right moment. It could be based on usage. I think that’s the best way to do it. But make sure at some point users, they say, Oh, I need more of this product, and now I have to pay.

[00:21:12.470] – Pablo

So I’m ready to get my credit card behind this SaaS platform. The last one, and that’s why I said before, I wouldn’t start with viral loops for PLG. Once the other four points are comes on nail, then is when you can optimize for revenue expansion and virality. You can encourage upgrades, you can the correct referrals and so on. Again, if I have to think of an example that everyone that is watching this will understand, currently, which I love and a big fan, the free plan is really good, and I use it for some time. You get your hook, soon you get these upgrade triggers like team scheduling, integrations, obviously more than one calendar. Those are the ones that drive revenue.

[00:21:52.330] – Joran

But in the end, you use Calendly, you probably booked a lot of meetings, so it’s already embedded in your processes. You don’t want to change it. So At one point you think, Hey, I actually want to get access to these features. Then I decide to enter my credit card and pay for the tool.

[00:22:07.440] – Pablo

Yeah, absolutely. But that’s because you get the value out of it. Because if I want to stop using Calendly today, I can use many other tools, and some of them, they are for free. But as you say, the value I get from the tool, the cost that it has for my business, is worth enough for me to go into a subscription hub.

[00:22:23.600] – Joran

When we talk about implementing PLG, where do most companies struggle? And then maybe more from an organizational standpoint?

[00:22:31.660] – Pablo

Okay, I would say that we talk about alignment, especially failing to align sales. That’s one of the biggest struggles for many companies. On sales teams, traditionally, the tradition is that many sales teams, they resist PLG because they think that it will replace them, which is not the case. I think from the organizational point of view, that’s maybe the main struggle. I think as well, again, back to the alignment, the expectations are something that sometimes it hits the success of PLG. Again, that is due to a lack of alignment with the C-level suit with executive team. I think whoever is basically leading on this front have to be very open and frank in terms of what PLG is and have a realistic roadmap to get that. That’s from the organizational point of view, but also from the more practical point of view, I would say that when it comes to implement that PLG, not optimizing the onboarding is the number one mistake of companies. We talk about business when it comes to the proper implementation. If users, they don’t reach the moment fast enough, they leave and people think, Oh, no, but we are doing everything we can.

[00:23:36.020] – Pablo

But no, again, they have to go back to mix panel or amplitude, check the date, check also the user sessions, and understand why that’s not happening. The other big thing that I see that makes sense as platforms struggle with PLG is the lack of a strategy for monetisation. It’s like they get a lot of free users, they say, Hey, we got 500 users, so good, but okay, how many of them are paying? Many of them, they will be actually happy to pay for the platform. There is not a clear upgrade path. I think that’s very important. I think the ultimate objectives of PLG is to make a SaaS company profitable and successful. Again, we talk about I’ve given you examples before that they are successful because they really understood that that framework and they understood that they need an upgrade path to make sure that people that they are happy with the product, they put the credit card behind the wall. I say to fix all these One of the struggles is two things from the organizational point of view is make sure that everyone is aligned and no one feels that PLG is to replace them.

[00:24:37.740] – Pablo

A bit like you mentioned AI, AI is going to take my job or whatever. Plg is not going to take your job. I don’t think AI is going to take your job, but that’s not for me. From the operational point of view, it’s to treat PLG as a revenue engine and not as a lead generation tool or as a marketing tool, as unfortunately, some companies think that PLG is.

[00:24:55.700] – Joran

I think that’s a really good point. I treat it as a revenue engine. One thing you mentioned, when you go to PLG, at the beginning, you have a lot of users and not do monetisation quick enough. I think that’s probably also a mistake because then you can’t really identify who’s your ideal customer profile. Because in the end, that has to be somebody who’s going to pay you. As you mentioned, you want to become profitable, you want to earn money. But by not doing it quick enough, you won’t even know if somebody is actually the right user for you or not.

[00:25:25.580] – Pablo

A hundred %. I think, again, that goes to this paradox. Many companies that have this agency, Oh, we need to get as many leads as possible. We’re converting at some point, but let’s get many leads as soon as possible. Obviously, that’s not really helping if it’s the wrong leads. Back to the point we mentioned before is, if you’re still focusing on the top of the final in terms of leads and so on. Again, PLG is not the right framework for your SaaS.

[00:25:49.590] – Joran

You mentioned a little bit, you also have a lot of best practices with companies. You mentioned Kennedy, already you mentioned HubSpot. Any other best practices you can share and maybe even more regarding their cross-functional collaboration and, for example, also managing expectations between departments?

[00:26:08.890] – Pablo

Sure. I think, again, that’s a crucial point to make sure PLG works. I would say that it’s very important to have a check in terms of the cross-functional PLG activities. Again, nothing fancy about that, but I think a weekly check-in, and it can be not with a meeting, but it could a sync if the company has that culture and it’s good on that. So get the growth, the product, the marketing, sales, customer support, and the same proof, again, and make sure that everyone knows what happened last week, how are we tracking against the roadmap and the objectives, what is expected to happen this week, and also what obstacles we have on the way. That’s my first tip when it comes to best practice. Then the second, even though I’m banking a lot in this realm, share OKRs, like a key metrics around activation, retention, and expansion. Again, those OKRs, they have an owner, each one of those, but it’s not just the owner work to deliver on those, it’s all the other teams involved. They have their bit to make sure that the company is growing on those metrics. Then another one that Maybe it sounds small, but for me, makes the difference in some of the clients I work with.

[00:27:18.940] – Pablo

Have self-serve dashboards. Again, compared to five, six years ago, you have many tools. All the teams, they see the same usage data. Again, these days, you don’t really need to invest much time and money on this. You have lots of great tools like database, for instance, to build this or Google Studio or Looker. But you want to have dashboards where all the teams, they can see the same use data. Everyone speaks the same language. The reason for the self-serve I think the dashboard is for simplicity in terms of if you bring them people into complex SQLs, dashboards or whatever, people, they get lost. Also to encourage people to basically be aware of what’s going on. Because again, if I look like many years ago, companies, when they think of data, they think of maybe, Oh, let’s get lots of data, let’s go to dashboards or whatever. But you really have to focus on what really matters, what really moves the needle for yourself. Those are my three tips for cross-functional success in PLG.

[00:28:12.280] – Joran

Nice. I think data is going to be super important. I mentioned that make sure everybody sees the same data. It sounds so simple, but it’s probably not the case in many organizations.

[00:28:22.470] – Pablo

Yeah, exactly. That’s something that I come across many companies. We have a lot of data, but we don’t really know how to interpret it We don’t really know how to read it. Again, in 2025, that’s not a problem anymore. If you asked me 10 years ago, I would say, Yeah, you need a data scientist, whatever. But now you have lots of tools and it’s not that expensive as well. It’s definitely one of the places where I would put money if I was a SaaS founder.

[00:28:47.120] – Joran

What is a proper belief right now in the PLG space that you completely disagree with?

[00:28:53.270] – Pablo

I heard this a lot. Plg means that you don’t need a sales team. You don’t need sales. Suck your sales team or whatever. No, that’s not It’s true. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a salesperson, but the PLG actually doesn’t eliminate sales. It creates an iteration of the sales function. Again, it depends a lot on the company, but for many of the SaaS I work with, they still need sales for growth into enterprise. Again, talking thinking of companies that they are very complex. They require a lot of procurement steps. Also, you need sales to nurture some of the PQLs, those kinds of leads that come from the product, and to start and upsells. When I mean start and upsells, it’s mostly clients that they are maybe medium company companies, and they are in a normal plan, self-service plan, that some of them maybe they have an opportunity to move into a enterprise or more complex model. If I have to look for an example that probably everyone will get, Prashan, which is the company behind Jira and so on, I think they are one of the darlings of a PLG. But my understanding is half of the revenue still comes from deals that they come to sell.

[00:29:52.470] – Pablo

And that makes sense. If you think that everyone use Zira from smaller startups, also very complex organizations, they also use the product suit of atlecium. Of course, the sales teams, they have an important role there because they’re big contracts, lots of procurement, pitching, all of that.

[00:30:09.050] – Joran

Yeah. In the end, the product can actually maybe help them to segment, which are good leads for sales to follow up, like you mentioned, PQL, product qualified lead. You can even see what company sign up, what are the demographics, do they actually get value out of the tool? Then from there, sales can determine if they want to follow up with them.

[00:30:27.530] – Pablo

Absolutely. I think that the whole point is that there is a room for both PLG and sales in most of the SaaS because most of the SaaS are qualified for PLG. Let’s make this clear. It’s not that one is replacing the other or they are competing to the other. For me, it was quite… When I was still working in with app jobs, it was really good that we implement PLG and we got this smaller clients through the sales service platform because that also give more room for the sales guys to focus on those prospects and clients that they really make a difference and they really need some self-assistant.

[00:31:04.160] – Joran

Yeah. Isn’t that a misconception that if you go for PLG, your pricing is going to be lower? We already mentioned the freemium model, right? Self-serve. People enter the credit cards or they’re not always going towards the sales cycle with manual invoices, things like that. When does it make sense, though, to add that sales component to it? You mentioned enterprise contracts, bigger companies. Is there a moment where they should think about adding that sales team and when they shouldn’t be adding that sales team?

[00:31:34.120] – Pablo

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that the right moment is when also thinking when you see the customer profiles you got and you see that, again, they are part of big companies. We just see the usage that they have. I remember one client, they actually work on the education space and they got a lot of usage from one company that we thought it was a small company. But digging into that, we saw that it was not only the person using the platform, it was other parts of the team. Actually, they would much benefit from a plan that was more comprehensive and it basically covered the different kinds of roles that we think that education entity that was using it. I would say basically two things will tell you when the sales team makes sense is the data in terms of the usage, in terms of how your product is being executed by your users, and also the profile of the customers, which I want to think that the sales day will be on top of that. Of course, if you come from a way that we talked before, like going from sales into PLG, if you come from PLG into sales.

[00:32:31.110] – Pablo

Again, you don’t have to start big and also you don’t have to hire a massive sales team to start with. You don’t even need a full-time person. These days, you can get other fractional people like myself on the sales space, or you can get outsource platforms for that. But then is when It really makes sense to say, Hey, actually, I think there is an opportunity to jump on my revenue by getting a few big clients. But for that, I need a sales support. Basically, the data tells me on the usage that I’m not really covering that segment very well, so I need to get get counter support and get a strategy around that and test that.

[00:33:04.280] – Joran

Let’s start summarizing the PLG advice in one or two sentences. If you had to summarize your best advice on maybe even overcoming the PLG challenges, what would be your advice here?

[00:33:19.520] – Pablo

Okay, I will basically tell those sales companies that to offset server activation because if the users, they don’t reach that value or that moment fast enough, they will leave. So nothing else really matters. You lose them. So of self-rever activation, that’s my advice.

[00:33:34.810] – Joran

Love it. Cool. We’re going to start wrapping up the podcast, going into the two final questions, popular questions. You can take this more wider if you want to. When we talk about growing a BTB SaaS in general, what advice would you give a SaaS founder who is just starting out and growing to 10K monthly recurring revenue?

[00:33:54.540] – Pablo

Yeah, I can split it in two, maybe. Nail that onboarding flow, so make sure that the onboarding flow is spot marketplace, that the early adopters, that they reach the value fast. Also, make sure that with your initial customers, you identify those that they can be your Alice. When I mean Alice, I don’t mean all people that they will promote your company for free or whatever, but people that you can go in a regular manner to collect feedback and to understand if you want to iterate things or getting more insights of the value of the product, you can basically go to them in different formats, which could be qualitative or quantitative, ideally qualitative in this case interview. Nail your onboarding flow is the first half or the first part of my advice. Then one that maybe sounds a bit controversial, get 10 happy customers before you get 1,000 customers that they are average and they are signed up, but they don’t really know what to do with the product. So focus on the conversion rates, not just on the signups. If you get 10 happy customers, the next 100 happy customers will follow, the next 1,000, and so on.

[00:34:57.990] – Joran

Yeah. Just to be super clear with happy customers, you mean people actually enter their credit card at the end of the photo and start paying, right?

[00:35:04.210] – Pablo

Correct. You understand my definition of happiness.

[00:35:06.480] – Joran

Good. Indeed, don’t go for all these signups and not converting and then say you’re doing really well, you have all these users, but nobody is actually paying. Aim for that, getting that 10 happy customers in. Cool. Let’s say we pass 10K MRR, what advice would you give a SaaS founder who’s now on their way to 10 million ARR? A huge step. You can chop it up, you can do however you like.

[00:35:29.440] – Pablo

Yeah. I would say there are a few components here, and luckily, it’s a bigger company, so they will have the resources to do this. But I would say that optimized for that expansion revenue in terms of, we talk about wider loops, great notches and so on, that you have different ways to get there. But make sure that whatever you are building is helping you to drive that ARR over the 10 million at some point. Then, again, talking about optimization, the onboarding is never a finishing work. You can still optimize that. To keep an eye on your net revenue retention, because if it’s over 100%, that means that the growth is compounding and you are in the good place. Also, we talk about PLG loops, but there is also a PLG sales connection that I would definitely advise those companies. Make sure that you convert those high-intent for users into bigger deals. We talk about that in terms of understanding the data and the profile of your customers to see, okay, some of those users that maybe they are using the platform They have a level of usage that is not just for a paid plan, it’s potentially for a enterprise or more complex lab.

[00:36:38.560] – Pablo

I think we talk about HubSpot as a good example. In this case, you might remember in the early years, they had this content driving model, which now is under fire with all the AI and so on. But then they move into a premium-led PLG model, and that was very successful for them, but they also have this sales assistance for the bigger clients. Nice.

[00:36:58.150] – Joran

Again, PLG is not going We’re in the marketplace sales here. Nice. Let me try to summarize. When you are going for PLG, product becomes a growth engine. So reduce friction to the users on trying, paying, and upgrading to your product. When you should be going for PLG, you have clear time to value, user prefer self-serve onboarding, pricing which skills with usage. When you shouldn’t be going for PLG, you have a complex product, enterprise buyers, large contracts, long sales cycles. It probably won’t work for you. If you do fit the PLG motion, it is going to affect the entire company. If you want to implement it, define your North Star metric. It has to be aligned within the different departments. Educate your leadership team, pilot initiatives, test your assumptions, create clear OKRs for every department coming from the North Star metric. Mistakes people make here, not tracking the right metrics, expecting quick results. So build it and people will come. This is definitely not the reality. Plg will not replace the sales team. Big deals teams still need sales involvement. And a big mistake is lack of strategy for monetization. When we talk about best practices, create a timeline with realistic milestones.

[00:38:08.390] – Joran

You can start hybrid. Look at the frameworks, Mode framework or the framework from West Bush, Polling Alley framework. Ideally, minimize friction. So have self-serve sign up and again, go for that easy way for people to upgrade to your product. Leverage data, obsess over activation. Make sure everybody sees the same data and treat Lead PLG overall as a revenue engine, so leverage the data every way you can. For 10K MR, deal the onboarding flow. Users should reach value fast. Find users who can give feedback a lot and get 10 happy customers which are paying. 10 million ARR Keep optimizing onboarding, track NAR, create a PLG sales motion, so make sure that you feed the actual sales team from it.

[00:38:52.540] – Pablo

Yeah, you basically summarize it very well. Great skills for that.

[00:38:57.170] – Joran

No AI is being used here. If If you want to get in contact with you, Pablo, how can they do?

[00:39:02.510] – Pablo

Yeah, I’m active in LinkedIn. Just find Pablo Ascensio and the one in London, in the UK. Also, my website is 8percentgrowth. Com, so 8% growth. You can also see in the website was the reason why the business called that way. Those are probably the two best ways to be in touch with me. Also, I like to share a lot of insights on LinkedIn, so I’m happy as well to get connections. If people have any questions, happy to discuss it. I’m quite passionate about this topic.

[00:39:31.220] – Joran

Nice. We’re definitely going to add a link to your LinkedIn profile. Again, Pablo Ascensio. People can go to 8percentgrowth. Com, and we’ll link to the framework of West Bush and Mode in the description as well. For people listening, if you’re listening on Spotify, please leave us a review and answer the poll. Always happy to think what you thought of this episode. And Pablo, again, thanks for coming on.

[00:39:54.920] – Pablo

No problem. Can I just add one thing just to maybe summarize the conversation even in less time that you did, which you did very well. Yeah, sure. I would say that growth comes from users experiencing the value of the product. The growth doesn’t come from marketing or sales. It’s basically from those users being happy and seeing the value. I just wanted to reiterate that Love it.

[00:40:17.060] – Joran

You have to build a product people actually can get value from, and then from there you can grow it to wherever you want.

[00:40:23.020] – Pablo

Excellent. But yeah, thank you so much, Joran. It was a pleasure speaking with you about one of my passions. Yeah. Likewise. I’m about to catch up soon.

[00:40:30.110] – Joran

Cheers. Thanks, Pablo. Cheers. Thank you for watching this show of the Grow Your BDB SaaS podcast. You made it till the end, so I think we can assume you like this content. If you did, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. If you like this content, feel free to reach out if you want to sponsor the show. If you have a specific guest in mind, if you have a specific topic you want us to cover, reach out to me on LinkedIn. More than happy to take a look at it. If you want to know more about Reditus, feel free to reach out as well. But for now, have a great day and good luck growing your B2B SaaS.