♻️ Making that PLG motion work (☝️ actionable tips! )

Why you can't afford to over-engineer in PLG 🛠️ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ I stumbled upon two really great pieces on PLG by Kyle Poyar this week and decided I can't not mention them in our Product Rant: First, the PLG mistakes he listed on [LinkedIn](: [Image] [Image](Yes, I highlighted mistakes 4 & 7 for a reason - they are essentially two sides of the same [overengineering]( coin - we'll get to that soon) Then - his post on Product-Led Marketing, which [appeared in Lenny's Newsletter:Â]( [Image](I'll spare you the cliffhanger, the strategies were "Organic search/SEO" and "Product virality") Now, let's put two and two together: Product-Led often fails due to the *WRONG* allocation of resources Going back to the two mistakes I highlighted - how many companies actually think about the exact ROI of the features they decide to build? What I see most often is consistent with what Kyle mentioned in his post: SaaS companies don't test the real value of the new features they are building for the user, and the business value for their company, and they often don't monetize their new features. SaaS product teams are often building more than they should, favoring half-baked product launches of new features over Quality of Life improvements. Why? There are several reasons, mostly psychological: - pressure to catch up/one up competitors - especially from investors who unwittingly want to push for more lateral growth (if you've raised a lot - you may already be in the growth trap, where you can't choose to do one thing extremely well for a smaller niche than the incumbents - you need to chase their market share.) - hubris - wanting to be the best, first, the unicorn, the billion dollar blah blah - doesn't need much explanation, but I'd encourage you to read "[30 under 30-year sentences: why so many of Forbes’ young heroes face jail"]( - nerdy interest - the product managers/ founders who are building the product for themselves rather than their users - simply because of their intellectual curiosity. Yeah I know, I love doing things that are new and interesting too, it works the same way in marketing. But sorry to break it to you - every business activity has to have a business value. Otherwise it's just a hobby... Adding more and more features inevitably leads to product bloat - and is often the bane of new user activation. Remember - your users don't want more features, they want more value. And more value can be derived from Quality-of-Life improvements (e.g. adding better search, sorting and filtering functionality to existing features, adding missing integrations) or better onboarding. Meanwhile, a lot of SaaS product teams think that better onboarding = longer product tours. 🤦‍♀️ This just scares the hell out of your new signups, especially if you're utilizing the [freemium model.]( Have you heard of the [Hicks Law?]( Like, how do you feel when you go to a restaurant and they have 50 items on the menu...or when you're trying to pick a Netflix movie... The more options you give to your (new) users, the harder time they will have making any decision whatsoever. I keep repeating myself but I still need to hammer this home: don't show your new users all the different features of your product. Get them to their key activation point (different for different segments) with an interactive walkthrough: [Image] ...and then gradually introduce them to secondary features.  Questions to consider: The Actionable PLG Checklist 1. What if you had to ask yourself "how much will the users be willing to pay for this?" for every feature you build? 2. What if you had to change your pricing after every product launch? How are you going to monetize the new features you have just launched? How are you going to change your pricing to a) reflect the added value to your product; b) push more users for upgrades to unlock that added value? (= drive expansion revenue through the product = a pure PLG play.) 3. What if you had to change your onboarding flow after every product launch? How are you going to implement the new feature to your continuous onboarding plan - at which stage of the user journey are you going to introduce the new features? How? PLG isn't free. In fact - the engineering costs often tend to surpass the sales/marketing costs. So you need to be very careful not to put your resources into features nobody wants in the feature parity chase, spending your engineering resources on building onboarding flows when you could [use a product growth tool instead](, or investing in high-CAC channels that won't bring you positive ROI considering your ACV and churn rate.  If you wanna know which [onboarding mistakes]( are standing in your way to PLG success - we've got something for you: [Image](  And that's all for today. See you next week! [Image] Emilia Korczynska, Head of Marketing at Userpilot I'm a marketing manager obsessed with product growth. Wanna talk? Simply respond to this email! To make sure you keep getting these emails, please add emilia@userpilot.co to your address book or whitelist us. Want out of the loop? Don't remember you subscribed at all? We get it. 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