#12 PLG - Important, but not a Silver-Bullet

I’ve been advising early-stage technology companies in some capacity since 2020. Most of them come looking to implement PLG.

Unfortunately, most of the discovery conversations went like this:

Them: Hey Nate, thanks for helping. Our SDR’s are not able to generate any pipeline through cold calls and emails. Can you help us implement PLG?

Me: Potentially, though I’m not sure blindly investing and implementing PLG is going to solve your pipeline issues.

Them: But we need to. Because of the lack of pipeline production, the board told us we must implement it. They said it is now industry standard and given our performance against our growth objectives, the executive team isn’t in a position to not do this.

After a few of these engagements, it was clear that investors were the bottleneck preventing a company from finding the right growth model for them.

“Industry standard” is becoming an ever-moving target. And when companies invest in “best-in-class” growth models too little too late and without results, the board forces blind implementation of another emerging growth playbook…probably after listening to a podcast about it.

They want it done quickly and without diagnosing the real issues or any market signal to determine whether it will work.

This buys executives a couple quarters to implement the new playbook. But when it unsurprisingly doesn’t work there is leadership turnover, and the company goes into a tailspin.

The Point: it is far more important to get a deep understanding of your buyer, and then construct the right GTM model to meet them. Investors can be helpful in making suggestions, but don’t take those suggestions as edicts - especially if they’ve never operated before.