product-led growth

Brought to you by Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian’s new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams

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Oji Udezue is Chief Product Officer at Typeform and has held leadership roles at Twitter (Head of Product for Creation and Conversation), Calendly (CPO), and Atlassian (Head of Product for communication tools). He is well-known for bringing a product-led-growth (PLG) mindset to the companies he joins. Additionally, Oji mentors startups, is a Managing Partner at the Kernel Fund, and writes online about product management. In this episode, we discuss:

• Oji’s “Where to Fish to Land a Unicorn” and “Zone of Benefit” frameworks

• Why you need to find the “sharpest” problem

• How to operationalize continuous customer discovery

• Tips on optimizing onboarding flows

• Freemium vs. gated offerings in PLG

• Tactical strategies for making your product more viral

• The concept of “forest time” and how it can provide clarity in your work

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Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/episodes/. Today’s transcript will be live by 8 a.m. PT.

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Where to find Oji Udezue:

• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ojiudezue

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ojiudezue/

• Substack: https://substack.com/@ojiudezue

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Oji’s background

(03:38) Oji’s “Where to Fish to Land a Unicorn” framework

(05:26) Workflow quadrants

(09:30) How product people can push frequency 

(12:28) Oji’s “Zone of Benefit” framework

(14:49) How to find your ICPs

(15:33) ICPs at Twitter

(20:20) Oji’s philosophy on frameworks

(22:31) Oji’s upcoming book

(24:34) An explanation of “sharp problems”

(28:31) Signs your problem is “sharp enough”

(31:17) Discovery vs. continuous conversations

(35:08) Customer listening

(38:31) Onboarding fundamentals

(43:49) Activated user milestones

(45:47) The power of network effects

(50:15) An explanation of virality and how to increase it

(56:32) How to use “forest time” to zoom out and see problems in a new way

(1:00:53) Lessons from Oji’s time at Bridgewater Associates

(1:05:07) Why R&D teams need a larger system beyond Agile and design

(1:06:57) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• Where to fish to land a unicorn: https://ojiudezue.medium.com/where-to-fish-to-land-a-unicorn-in-b2b-saas-9bc93c96152c

• Coda: https://coda.io/

• Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/

• Finding high-frequency customers (use cases): https://ojiudezue.medium.com/finding-high-frequency-customers-use-cases-53773a753bb5

• Evernote: https://evernote.com/

• Industry PM conference: https://www.industryconference.com/

• Typeform: https://www.typeform.com/

• Build better products with continuous product discovery | Teresa Torres: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/build-better-products-with-continuous-product-discovery-teresa-torres/

• Pendo: https://www.pendo.io/

• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/

• Dan Hockenmaier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/danhockenmaier

• Seth Godin’s blog: https://seths.blog/

• A key ritual: Forest time: https://ojiudezue.substack.com/p/a-key-ritual-forest-time

• Principles: https://www.principles.com/

• Dot Collector: https://principlesus.com/dot-collector-real-time-feedback/

• The Halo Effect: . . . and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers: https://www.amazon.com/Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions-Managers/dp/1476784035/

• Dune: https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Penguin-Galaxy-Frank-Herbert/dp/0143111582

• Foundation: https://www.amazon.com/Foundation-3-Book-Boxed-Set-Empire/dp/0593499573

• Foundation on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/foundation/umc.cmc.5983fipzqbicvrve6jdfep4x3

• Unlox: https://unlox.it/

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

Naomi Ionita is a Partner at the venture capital firm, Menlo Ventures. She started her career in engineering in 2002, shifted to product in 2006, and built product growth and monetization teams starting over a decade ago as one of the first PLG leaders in B2B. She was an early mentor at Reforge and her expertise is in building full-stack growth teams and cultures, launching new products, and helping existing products monetize and retain their users. Consider today’s episode a master class on monetization and pricing. We talk about common mistakes made by founders, specific experiments for how to determine pricing, and why initial growth sometimes comes at the expense of revenue. Naomi also introduces the concept of the Modern Growth Stack, how AI will play a role in growth, and what she’s most excited about for the future.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-price-your-product-naomi-ionita-menlo-ventures/#transcript

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:

• Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life: https://miro.com/lenny

• Notion—One workspace. Every team: https://www.notion.com/lennyspod

• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny

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Where to find Naomi:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/npilosof

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomipilosofionita/

• Website: https://www.menlovc.com/naomi-pilosof-ionita

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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Referenced:

Disclaimer: Lenny is an angel investor in a few startups mentioned in this episode: Eppo, Endgame, Pocus

• Evernote: https://evernote.com/

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• The Van Westendorp pricing model: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccasadwick/2020/06/22/how-to-price-products/?sh=7e6077f855c7

• OpenView: https://openviewpartners.com/

• SaaS business model at Profitwell: https://www.profitwell.com/recur/all/saas-business-model

• Envoy: https://envoy.com/

• Invoice2go: https://invoice.2go.com/

• Gas: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gas/id1641791746

• Endgame: https://www.endgame.io/

• Pocus: https://www.pocus.com/

• Optimizely: https://www.optimizely.com/

• Eppo: https://www.geteppo.com/

• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/

• Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/

• Zuora: https://www.zuora.com/

• Metronome: https://metronome.com/

• Orb: https://www.withorb.com/

• Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price: https://www.amazon.com/Monetizing-Innovation-Companies-Design-Product/dp/1119240867

• Ask the Storybots on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80108159

• Madhavan Ramanujam on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/the-art-and-science-of-pricing-madhavan-ramanujam-monetizing-innovation-simon-kucher/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Naomi’s background

(06:21) Why Evernote wasn’t able to leverage the kind of growth that Notion did

(08:06) What founders get wrong when it comes to monetization

(12:34) Which features to include in a freemium product

(13:22) Day one vs. day one-hundred premium features

(15:35) Matching price to value for optimal segmentation

(18:50) When pricing should be revisited

(19:38) How to determine price, and why it’s a good idea to have a cross-functional pricing team

(23:06) How to restructure pricing holistically 

(25:58) How Envoy learned that they were undercharging

(28:39) The importance of experimentation 

(32:19) How to balance growth with revenue

(35:12) What is the modern data stack?

(36:45) The modern growth stack

(42:22) The importance of experimentation in the growth stack

(42:59) Platforms for billing and monetization

(46:13) Why a hybrid model of pricing tends to be most used in SaaS companies

(49:01) Leveraging AI 

(49:52) Lightning round

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

How do you get your first customers? YC Group Partner & former Head of Growth at Airbnb, Gustaf Alströmer, gives tactical advice to answer this question for all kinds of companies — whether you're B2B or B2C — and discusses why it's important for founders to do sales early on.
Apply to Y Combinator: ⁠https://yc.link/SUS-apply⁠

Work at a Startup: ⁠https://yc.link/SUS-jobs

• The origins of growth hacking [1:20]
• Brand building vs. growth hacking? [13:58]
• Where does growth fit into the organization?  [31:06]
• The cold start problem: growth hacking from 0 to 1 [36:47]
• What can't be measured? [47:53]
• How do you test and validate new channels? [51:38]
•  Do growth hacks always work, or at some point does it come down to product? [54:55]
• How do you allocate budget? [1:00:27]

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