The Ultimate Guide to Adding a PLG Motion

"PLG, I always say, is actually fundamentally DLG, data-led growth."

"PLG,我一直说,本质上是 DLG——数据驱动增长(data-led growth)。"

"So, when you give away your free product, what you want to get in exchange are two things."

"所以当你把免费产品送出去的时候,你想换回来的东西其实是两样。"

"One is a broader reach because free product spread itself is lower barrier to entry."

"第一,是更大的触达——免费产品自身扩散,门槛低。"

"Two, you want to understand usage behavior of those free users. Which features do they use? And which features kind of correlates with a higher conversion rate, retention rate, all of that."

"第二,是搞清楚这些免费用户的使用行为:他们用了哪些功能?哪些功能跟更高的转化率、留存率这些东西相关?"

"If you don't have a foundation of data and an understanding of how to analyze those data, you're giving away a free product for nothing."

"如果你没有数据地基,也不懂得怎么分析这些数据,那你就只是在白送一个免费产品而已。"

"Welcome to Lenny's Podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products."

"欢迎来到 Lenny's Podcast。我在这里访谈顶级产品负责人和增长专家,听他们打造和增长当今最成功产品时拼出来的经验。"

"Today, my guest is Hila Qu."

"今天的嘉宾是 Hila Qu。"

"I've heard some listeners have been doing listening parties with this podcast where their team listens to an episode all at the same time over Zoom and shares their insights and lessons in a shared chat."

"我听说有听众组团听这个播客——他们的团队同时在 Zoom 里听同一集,然后在共享聊天里交流洞察和心得。"

"And I would say that this episode is a great candidate for that. It's incredibly packed with advice on how to start and optimize your product-led growth motion."

"我觉得这一集就是这种"团听"非常适合的素材。它密度极高,讲了怎么启动并优化产品自驱增长(PLG)动作。"

"We talked through common pitfalls that you probably run into, where to get started, Hila's favorite tools, what she recommends for an initial PLG-oriented team, how to audit your existing funnel, plus tangents on how to improve your activation and retention, and some foundational overviews of product-led growth and some of the core concepts associated with it."

"我们聊了常见的坑、从哪里起步、Hila 喜欢的工具、她推荐的初始 PLG 团队结构、怎么审计已有漏斗,顺便还展开聊了怎么提升激活和留存,以及 PLG 的几个底层概念。"

"Like I say at the end of the episode, this episode delivers tens of thousands of dollars in value, something you won't find for free anywhere else."

"正如我在结尾说的那样,这一集的价值是几万美元级别的,你在其他任何免费地方都找不到。"

"I am really excited to bring it to you. With that, I bring you Hila Qu after a short word from our sponsors."

"非常高兴把它带给你。下面先听一段赞助商的话,然后正式开始 Hila Qu 的访谈。"

"This episode is brought to you by Amplitude. If you're setting up your analytics stack but not using Amplitude, what are you doing?"

"本期由 Amplitude 赞助。如果你在搭分析栈但没用 Amplitude,那你到底在干嘛?"

"Anyone can sell you analytics, while Amplitude unlocks the power of your product and guides you every step of the way."

"卖分析工具的厂家很多,但 Amplitude 真正能释放你产品的力量,并在每一步都给你导航。"

"Get the right data, ask the right questions, get the right answers, and make growth happen. To get started with Amplitude for free, visit amplitude.com. Amplitude, power to your products."

"拿到对的数据、问对的问题、得到对的答案,然后让增长真的发生。免费开始用 Amplitude:amplitude.com。Amplitude,把力量交还给你的产品。"

"Today's episode is brought to you by Miro, an online collaborative whiteboard that's designed specifically for teams like yours."

"本期还由 Miro 赞助——一个专为你这样的团队设计的在线协作白板。"

"I have a quick request. Head on over to my Miro board at miro.com/lenny and let me know which guests you'd want me to have on this year."

"我有个小请求:去我的 Miro 看板 miro.com/lenny 留言告诉我今年想听我请哪些嘉宾。"

"I've already gotten a bunch of great suggestions, which you'll see when you go there, so just keep it coming."

"已经收到一堆很棒的建议,你过去就能看到。继续提就好。"

"And while you're on the Miro board, I encourage you to play around with the tool. It's a great shared space to capture ideas, get feedback, and collaborate with your colleagues on anything that you're working on."

"既然到了 Miro 上,顺手把工具玩一下吧。它是一个非常好的共享空间,可以捕捉想法、收集反馈,跟同事在任何手头的事情上协作。"

"For example, with Miro, you can plan out next quarter's entire product strategy. You can start by brainstorming using sticky notes, add reactions, a voting tool, even an estimation app to scope out your team sprints."

"比如你可以用 Miro 把下一个季度的整个产品策略规划出来。从便利贴 brainstorm 开始,加上表情反馈、投票工具,甚至接入一个估时插件给团队 sprint 定范围。"

"Then your whole distributed team can come together around wireframes, draw ideas with the pen tool, and then put full mocks right into the Miro board."

"之后整个分布式团队可以围着 wireframe 集合,用笔工具勾画想法,再把完整的 mock 直接贴进 Miro 看板。"

"And with one of Miro's ready-made templates, you can go from discovery and research to product roadmaps to customer journey flows to final mocks, all in Miro."

"用 Miro 现成的模板,你可以从用户研究、产品路线图、客户旅程到最终设计稿,一条龙都在 Miro 里搞定。"

"Head on over to miro.com/lenny to leave your suggestions. That's m-i-r-o.com/lenny."

"去 miro.com/lenny 留下建议,就是 m-i-r-o.com/lenny。"

"Hila, welcome to the podcast."

"Hila,欢迎来到播客。"

"Thank you, Lenny, for having me. I'm so excited."

"谢谢 Lenny 邀请我,我超期待。"

"I'm excited as well. I don't know if you know this, but you have the very unique distinction of having two posts in my top 25 most read post of all time in my newsletter, which are the two parts of your series on how to add a product-led growth motion."

"我也很激动。不知道你有没有意识到,你在我 newsletter 历史上"阅读量前 25"里独占了两篇——就是你那个关于怎么加 PLG 动作的两篇系列。"

"And so, I'm really excited to dig into product-led growth and help more people be successful product-led growth."

"所以我特别想深挖 PLG,帮更多人把 PLG 做成功。"

"Awesome. I should have made it three posts, three-part."

"棒。我当时应该写三篇、做成三部曲的。"

"I like that ambition. The more is more. Well, I think the next milestone is getting to the top 10. Get two into the top 10."

"我喜欢这种野心,多多益善嘛。下一个里程碑应该是冲进前十——你这两篇都进前十。"

"Okay. Maybe this podcast will be in the feed of the newsletter, so maybe we'll get there. No pressure, no pressure."

"好,这期播客也会发到 newsletter 的 feed 里,说不定能助一臂之力。压力别太大,压力别太大。"

"One question I want to ask you is anything come out of writing those guest posts? Has anything good happened as a result?"

"我想问你一个问题:写这些客座 post 之后,有什么收获?有发生什么好事吗?"

"I always take a very long-term view for writing. I enjoy writing myself. Spent actually 4 months on that one."

"我看待写作一直是长期视角。我自己也喜欢写。那一篇其实花了我 4 个月。"

"After it's published, I see a lot of sharers and people writing very long summary of it. That's always like a very encouraging."

"发出去之后,看到很多人转发,有人写很长的总结。这特别有成就感。"

"And also, many people I didn't expect reading it reach out to me, let me know, "Hey, I read that.""

"还有很多我没想到会读它的人来联系我,告诉我"嘿,我看了"。"

"For example, I think Ravi, he is also on your podcast. I didn't know him personally. One day, he's just like, "Hila, I read that. That's awesome.""

"比如 Ravi Mehta——他也上过你的播客。我跟他本来不认识,有一天他突然说"Hila,我读了你那篇,真不错"。"

"And a bunch of friends in VC, they read that. They told me it's great. I even have an advisory client kind of landed because of that as well. So, it's awesome."

"VC 圈也有一批朋友看了,告诉我很棒。我甚至因为这篇 post 拿下了一个咨询客户。所以这事真挺值的。"

"Amazing. It makes me really happy to hear all that. I was also curious — we're going to get into the details of all of the stuff you wrote about and even beyond what you wrote about, but is there anything your thinking has shifted on having written that series in terms of PLG?"

"太棒了,听到这些我特别开心。我还有点好奇——一会我们会深入你写过的那些内容、甚至延伸出去的话题——但单就 PLG 这件事,写完这个系列之后,你的看法有什么变化吗?"

"I wouldn't say it's shifted completely because I always believe you don't need to be a PLG purist, meaning there are kind of people who are like, "PLG is the future. It's only saying you don't need sales, right?" I was never like that."

"我不会说立场完全变了——因为我一直觉得,你没必要做一个"PLG 原教旨主义者"。有些人会说"PLG 就是未来,你都不需要销售团队",我从来不是这种立场。"

"But recently, by working with a few of my clients, I witnessed in reality like many startups actually are having both. They have a PLG motion, they have a sales team as well."

"但最近我接了几个客户,亲眼看到现实里很多 startup 其实是两个动作都做的——一边跑 PLG,一边也有销售团队。"

"PLG motion is perfect for lowering the barrier for more people to try, broader the reach. It's a kind of a volume kind of game."

"PLG 这套动作非常适合降低门槛、让更多人试用、把覆盖面拉开——它本质上是个走量的游戏。"

"And then the sales motion, you can have very targeted list of big customers you go after. You close them and it's a big order, usually revenue, a very strong foundation for your company."

"销售那边呢,你可以拿一份非常聚焦的大客户名单去打。把它们 close 掉就是大单,通常是公司收入很稳的地基。"

"And I've seen actually like a lot of my clients have both. They try to get the benefit of both from their early stage and it's super cool."

"我看到我很多客户从早期就同时跑两套,想把两边的红利都吃到——这做法挺酷。"

"Is this simple way to think about this trend that eventually everyone will need to do both? It's not one or the other. It's just both and it's just a matter of when you add the other?"

"那有没有一种简洁的说法是:这个趋势最终所有人都要双修?不是二选一,而是两条都要——只是先后顺序的问题?"

"I would think so, because if you are like let's say if you are in a sales motion-dominated kind of traditional B2B software industry, your competitors will be adding PLG, right?"

"我觉得是。因为如果你在传统的、销售主导的 B2B 软件行业,你的竞争对手迟早会加 PLG。"

"As soon as they added, they will have a benefit of attracting more end users and the end users become advocates to the employer, to the clients, and you lose that."

"他们一加上,就会拿到一个红利:吸引更多终端用户,而这些终端用户会变成给雇主、给甲方推荐的传道者。这部分你就丢了。"

"And if you're only in PLG, somewhere else may go after the big customers. It takes time for PLG to go to the big customer and close them, right? So, you lose a little bit time there as well."

"反过来,如果你只跑 PLG,别人会去抢大客户。PLG 要触达并 close 一个大客户是需要时间的,所以你在这边又要丢一点时间窗口。"

"I think eventually you need both."

"所以我觉得长期看,两套你都需要。"

"Cool. That's kind of the way I've been seeing it. Like I did a few series on traditional product-led growth companies, Slack and Figma all those guys, and they all add sales teams eventually."

"我也是这么看的。我之前写过几个系列,讲传统的 PLG 公司——Slack、Figma 这一票——他们最后都加上了销售团队。"

"Like LastPass was famous for being product-led only. And so, like everyone ends up adding sales team."

"LastPass 之前以"纯 PLG"出名,现在也一样——大家最后都补上了销售。"

"I think more recent trend is sales-led enterprise-y products are all just realizing they need a product-led growth component. So, it's kind of what I've been seeing, too."

"更近一点的趋势是反过来:那些以销售为主的企业型产品都在意识到自己需要一个 PLG 组件。我看到的也是这样。"

"Yeah. Exactly. But, I would say it is easier if you have PLG from early on. If you're pure sales-led, you try to add PLG, that's the harder thing to change, basically."

"对,完全是这样。不过我要补一句:从早期就有 PLG,事情会容易得多。如果你本身是纯销售型,再回头加 PLG,改起来要难很多。"

"Interesting. To set a little foundation before we get into a lot of this stuff, it actually would be helpful just to explain like what is product-led growth — just simply, because people hear this term a lot and it'd be helpful just to understand it broadly and then also just like why is it so popular?"

"有意思。在深入之前先做一点铺垫——很有帮助的是把"什么叫 product-led growth"简单讲一遍。这个词大家听得多,我们先把它在大面上理一下,然后再聊它为什么这么火。"

"Why does everyone want a product-led growth component to their business?"

"为什么大家都想给自己生意里加上一个 PLG 模块?"

"Just use a simple example. In B2C product, when you think about Facebook, when you think about a lot of the products you use every day as a consumer, it's always by default product-led growth because there's no sales team — the LTV of the product doesn't support that."

"举个简单的例子。在 C 端产品里——你想想 Facebook,想想你日常用的那些消费者产品——它们天生就是 PLG,因为根本没有销售团队,产品的 LTV 也支撑不起销售。"

"I think PLG, the term, become popular because traditionally in B2B world, sales is the main motion. You need a sales team to close the deal. After the contract is signed, the end users can now finally use it, right?"

"PLG 这个词之所以火,我觉得是因为传统上在 B2B 世界,销售是主动作:你要靠销售去签单,合同签完了,终端用户才能开始用产品。"

"But, nowadays, it's not necessarily case. You can have your B2B SaaS product develop in a way to allow end users to try before you buy. So, that's the reason I think this is becoming more popular."

"但现在不一定了。你可以把 B2B SaaS 产品做成让终端用户"先试后买"的形态——这就是我觉得 PLG 越来越火的原因。"

"The fundamental driver behind this is the user of B2B softwares are also human. It's the same human using B2C softwares, and we're already trained to use product, try, before we make any decision, and we demand that in B2B as well."

"再深一层的驱动力是:B2B 软件的用户也是人。是同一个会用 C 端产品的人。这群人已经被训练成"做决定前先试用产品"了——他们在 B2B 上也要求同样的体验。"

"So, like it needs to happen and more and more companies are capturing that trend, basically. And they're trying to utilize that as an entry point to either disrupt existing B2B players or build something really awesome for end users."

"这件事就必然会发生。越来越多公司在抓这个趋势,把它当作切入点——要么颠覆已有的 B2B 玩家,要么直接给终端用户做出真正好用的东西。"

"So, that's why it's becoming more and more popular."

"所以 PLG 越来越火。"

"To pull on that thread a little bit more even, to help people visualize a product-led growth product, what makes it product-led?"

"再往下拉一拉,帮听众脑子里能想象出一个 PLG 产品——到底什么让它"product-led"?"

"Like there's a self-serve component. What other attributes or just kind of common elements of something that's product-led versus sales-led, let's say."

"比如要有自助的成分——还有什么属性、什么共通要素,能把"product-led"和"sales-led"区分开?"

"Yeah, definitely. I think maybe we can use a product as an example. Like think about Zoom."

"当然。可以拿一个具体产品举例——比如 Zoom。"

"How me or you, maybe everyday users, how we get to know Zoom is not necessarily through a sales team call me cold or email me cold and introducing me this, showing a demo of Zoom, and I get to know Zoom, right?"

"你我这种普通用户,怎么知道 Zoom 的?——并不是有销售电话或者冷邮件来找我,演示给我看,我才认识 Zoom 的。"

"It's because like maybe Lenny, you hosted a webinar, I joined, and I get to just use this software already without even knowing it's Zoom."

"而是比如说 Lenny 你办了一场 webinar,我参加了,我已经在用这个软件了,甚至都没意识到这就是 Zoom。"

"And then afterwards, I may one day think about I want to do this myself, and I just do that and then sign up, and I already create a host a webinar."

"过段时间我可能想"我也办一场",就直接去注册,自己当主持人开个 webinar。"

"And I can pay if I need a paid plan, or I can use a lot of more advanced features when I, let's say, hit the 40-minute limit. I can already click that and then pay and become a paid customer already."

"如果我需要付费版,自己付钱就行;比如碰到 40 分钟的限制,我也可以直接点一下、付了款,就变成付费客户了。"

"So, I think the key properties of a PLG product — think about it should have a very low barrier to entry. Usually, it has a free version, free trial. You don't need get approval from your boss to use it."

"所以 PLG 产品的关键属性,大概是这几条:第一,入门门槛非常低,通常有免费版或免费试用,你不需要老板批准就能开始用。"

"You can use it today. And then, it has some sort of a self-service checkout flow. If you need a better version, you can buy yourself as well."

"今天就能上手用。第二,有某种自助结账流程,需要升级的时候你自己就能下单。"

"And this product, basically, the free product will spread on its own in some way or another."

"第三,这个产品——尤其是免费版——会以某种方式自我扩散。"

"Okay, perfect. I think that was really helpful."

"完美,这段非常有帮助。"

"I think we dive in to some of the meat of the discussion that we have planned, and where I thought it'd be fun to start is the common pitfalls that people fall into when they're trying to add a product-led growth motion."

"我们进入正题。我觉得有意思的起点是:大家在尝试加 PLG 动作时,最常踩的坑是什么。"

"So, what are the most common ways people fail when they're trying to figure out product-led growth?"

"做 PLG 时,人们最常以哪些方式失败?"

"First of all, as I mentioned, you need to have some sort of vehicle, right? A lot of the companies, if you go to their website, especially B2B companies, you will see the biggest CTA is called "book a demo"."

"首先,你得有某种"载体"。很多公司,尤其是 B2B 公司,你去它们官网,最大的那个 CTA 就是"Book a Demo"。"

"Like they don't have anything else. The first step for you to do is submit a form and basically explain yourself to this company: I'm from this and this company, and I want to use the tool. Can you come back to me and allow me to see a demo of your product?"

"除此之外没有别的。你能做的第一步就是填表,介绍自己:我来自某某公司,我想用这个工具,能不能联系我、给我演示一下产品?"

"That means the entry point to PLG is cut off. Instead, the first step is you need to either have a free product, free trial, some sort of low barrier entry for anyone who stumbles upon this product to give it a try."

"这等于把 PLG 的入口直接砍掉了。正确做法是:第一步你得有免费产品、免费试用,或者某种低门槛入口,让随便撞进来的人都能试一下。"

"A lot of companies don't have that. That's the first, I would say, hurdle or pitfall."

"很多公司根本没有这个。我会说这是第一道坎、第一个坑。"

"And especially if you're sales-led, and you already have all those things figured out, you try to go to add PLG. It's not as easy as just say add a kind of free trial CTA on your website."

"特别是,如果你已经是销售型,体系都建好了,你想往上叠 PLG——这远没有"在官网加个免费试用 CTA"那么简单。"

"You need to build this free experience. You also need to convince your sales team, your existing product team, your marketing team, hey, let's try this out."

"你得搭起一整套免费体验,还要去说服销售、说服已有的产品和市场团队"我们来试试这套"。"

"Because before this process is super clean. Like everyone only get only selected featured leads, right? And sales work on those."

"以前流程很干净,大家只拿到筛选过的精选线索,销售去打那些。"

"But now you need to allow more people in, and there need to be more understanding of their behavior, data. The process need to change."

"现在你得让更多人进来,要更深地理解他们的行为和数据,整个流程要改。"

"So, like it's actually a whole process. So, I would say that's first one."

"这是一整套工程,不是单点。我把它算第一个坑。"

"And along with that is some companies didn't think it through thoroughly, and they are just kind of saying, "Oh, PLG is cool. Let's do PLG.""

"跟它并列的另一个坑是:有些公司没认真想清楚,就那种"哎呀 PLG 挺酷的,我们干"的状态。"

"And then, they maybe spend 3 months build kind of some sort of a very basic free trial, and then they think that's it."

"然后花 3 个月搭一个非常基础的免费试用,就觉得"完事了"。"

"They think the leads will come, conversion will come, self-service revenue will come. It's not that easy. It's not that simple. It is definitely an entire motion."

"他们觉得线索会自动来、转化会自动来、自助收入会自动来。没有那么容易,也没有那么简单——这绝对是一整套动作。"

"So, I would say you need to commit to it. Maybe you can do some thinking, collecting some data, build your conviction, but to a certain point, you need to commit to at least a year or even 2 years roadmap to build this entire thing out and change the process internally sometimes as well to support that."

"所以你必须真正承诺。前期可以想一想、收点数据、建立信念,但到某个时刻你要承诺一条至少 1 年、甚至 2 年的路线图,把整套东西搭出来,有时还要改内部流程来支撑它。"

"The last one, I would say, a lot of times the companies committed. They want to do this, but they don't know the right way, or they don't have the foundation. They don't have the expertise of PLG."

"最后一个坑:很多公司其实有 commitment,他们想做,但不知道正确做法,也没有地基,没有 PLG 的专长。"

"Their internal team, they're really good at sales, or maybe really good at as the traditional motion, but they don't have this part of expertise and foundation."

"他们内部团队可能很会销售,或者很擅长传统打法,但 PLG 这一摊的专长和地基,他们没有。"

"A common thing I see is that company want to do PLG, and they have no usage data at all. And they're like, I was doing PLG, but broader reach, because free product..."

"一个很常见的现象是:公司想做 PLG,但完全没有用量数据。他们自我安慰说"我们做 PLG 嘛,是为了更大的触达,因为产品免费……""

"You want to understand the foundation of data and understanding — you are giving away a free product for nothing. Like you are really not being able to utilize all of that to build your PLG motion."

"——但你没有数据地基和分析能力,等于在白送一个免费产品。所有这些原本能拿来支撑 PLG 动作的素材,你根本没用上。"

"So, I think data foundation and expertise in terms of how do I design that user journey? That journey is very different from the sales user journey. Like those are sometimes missing in companies when they just begin to do this."

"所以数据地基,加上"怎么设计这条用户旅程"的专长——这条 PLG 旅程跟销售旅程非常不一样——这两样在刚起步的公司里经常都缺。"

"And in those cases, I think it's super helpful to maybe either find someone who have done this as advisor, or hire someone, like you need to have that expertise in-house or through advisor to support your PLG motion."

"这种情况下,要么找一个做过的人当顾问,要么直接雇一个,反正得有这种专长——要么内部有,要么外部顾问支撑。"

"This is great. We're going to talk about the data piece more in-depth later, but on the commitment piece, I thought that was really interesting."

"这段太棒。数据那一块我们后面会展开,但你说的 commitment 这点我觉得特别有意思。"

"I imagine many times founders or leaders think they have commitment, and then they realize maybe not so much."

"我猜很多创始人和高管自以为有 commitment,真做起来才发现可能没有那么有。"

"Are there any kind of flags that tell you that, oh, they're not actually committed to working on this for year or 2 years, whatever it takes?"

"有哪些信号能让你看出他们其实没准备好为这事投入一年两年?"

"The red flags I've seen, basically — sometimes they first of all think about PLG equals launch a free version or launch a free trial."

"我看到的 red flag,大概几类。第一种是他们脑子里"PLG = 上一个免费版/免费试用"。"

"Like they made this assumption in their head, "Oh, I already have a product. I already have a software that's working, customers are using. Now, if I add a free version, if I open a free trial, that's it. Like that's basically a PLG, and I will have conversions. I will have people becoming product-qualified leads just because I have it.""

"他们的假设是:"我产品已经有了,客户在用。我再加一个免费版、开个 free trial,完事——这就叫 PLG,我自然会有转化,自然会有 PQL,只要我开放了就行。""

""Hey, I opened this for you. Just come and use it and then convert." I think that's one red flag, basically."

""嘿,我都给你开了,你来用、然后转化就好。"——这就是第一类 red flag。"

"They are not thinking about the entire thing through, understanding the implication. Not only the free product, it's really just a start. You need to think about how to activate, how to design the upgrade path, how those new growth teams work with sales and marketing teams, all of that."

"他们没把整件事想通透,没意识到背后的含义。免费产品只是起点。你还要想怎么激活、怎么设计升级路径、新的增长团队怎么跟销售和市场协作——这些一整套。"

"The other one is they don't have a dedicated team. They just basically assign one person to this thing, right?"

"第二类是没有专门的团队。基本上就找一个人扛。"

"They imagine, "Hey, you already have this. It's not that big of a deal. You can just figure this out by borrowing resources from everywhere, and try to coordinate all the stakeholders from sales, marketing, product." Like that person needs to be a magician in order to be successful."

"他们想得很轻巧:"反正东西都有了,你就找各方借点资源、协调销售、市场、产品的人手就行。"——那个被指派的人简直得是魔术师才能成功。"

"And I think the third thing is they are really doing this because it's trendy. They didn't think about the deeper strategic reason why this is a good fit for their business."

"第三类是他们做 PLG 只因为时髦。没真正想过这件事为什么跟自己的业务是好搭配。"

"Do you have a product that's relatively low complexity, doesn't require a lot of customization for the customer to see value? Like time to value need to be relatively short, or you can figure out a way to make it short."

"你的产品复杂度是不是不高?客户看到价值用不用一堆定制?Time to Value 是不是已经比较短,或者你有办法让它变短?"

"And then, do you have a lot of potentially end user SMB business? They are interested in the solution. They want to try it out."

"你的目标客户里是不是有相当一批 SMB / 终端用户?他们对这种方案有兴趣、愿意自己试一下?"

"If you do not have both, if you, for example, develop a software for the airfly companies, like Boeing, or defense companies, like only three target customer exist in the entire world, you probably don't want to do PLG, right?"

"如果两边都没有——比如你给航空公司(像 Boeing)或者国防公司做软件,全世界目标客户就三家——那你大概率不要做 PLG。"

"So, like think deeper about the fit, and then commit. And I would say those are the red flags."

"所以先把适配度想透,再做 commitment。这就是我看到的几类 red flag。"

"Okay, so on that last point, I thought that was really interesting. We talked about how every company probably should add a product-led growth piece, but I think what you're also saying is actually not every company."

"最后那点我觉得特别有意思。我们之前说几乎每家公司都该加一块 PLG,但你这里又说,其实并不是每家。"

"There are some companies, like defense contractors, are probably going to be sales-led."

"像国防承包商这种,大概率会保持销售主导。"

"I think it's a spectrum, right? I would say the defense company, defense software company, is a pretty extreme example."

"我觉得这是一条光谱。国防类公司或国防软件公司,是一个比较极端的例子。"

"And of course, in those case, I don't think it makes sense. But I think majority of B2B software I've seen, you've seen, we've used, even some more complicated ones, like Salesforce used to be this example of like sales motion, right?"

"在那种场景里 PLG 当然没意义。但我看到、你看到、我们一起用过的大部分 B2B 软件——哪怕是 Salesforce 这种以前完全是销售型的代表——"

"They are the pioneer of SaaS, and they do this so well, but they begin to add look into kind of self-service portal and all of that."

"它们是 SaaS 的开创者,销售做得极好,但现在也开始研究自助门户之类的东西。"

"And even a lot of the bigger players are looking into that. So, I think majority of the B2B software, probably they are in the middle of the spectrum rather than the defense company."

"很多更大的公司也在看 PLG。所以大部分 B2B 软件,其实是落在这条光谱的中段,而不是像国防公司那样的极端位置。"

"You kind of shared some of the attributes of what allows you to be product-led like quick time to value. If you have this in your head, what are some of those bullet points of what you need to figure out for it to be successful potentially as product-led?"

"你刚才说到一些"成为 PLG"的属性,比如要有很短的 Time to Value。如果你脑子里有清单,能不能列一列,要做成 PLG 你必须搞定的几条 bullet?"

"The first thing is that you are able to have a vehicle, right? Have a free version, have a free trial, sometimes it's an open source product."

"第一,你得有一个"载体"——免费版、免费试用,或者有时候是开源产品。"

"A lot of developer products start as an open source product. It has its constraints, but it's also a great kind of vehicle for PLG."

"很多开发者产品就是从开源起家的。开源有它的局限,但作为 PLG 的载体非常好。"

"Or you can build, if none of those are option, you can build a really realistic kind of experience. For example, I remember Amplitude. They are pursuing PLG now, but they used to have a lot of barrier."

"如果以上几种都不行,你也可以做一个"很拟真"的体验。比如 Amplitude——他们现在在做 PLG,但以前门槛挺高。"

"Like as an end user, it's hard for me to put that code into my product and see my data, right? But they build a really realistic interactive demo that's getting closer to PLG."

"作为终端用户,我没那么容易把埋点代码塞进自己的产品再看到自己的数据。但他们做了一个非常拟真的交互 demo,已经在向 PLG 靠拢。"

"So, it's not PLG, but it's getting closer and you can already see the value and play with it yourself. So, that's the first step, have a vehicle."

"严格说不算 PLG,但已经在那条路上,你已经能自己看到价值、自己玩起来了。第一步:有载体。"

"The second step is time to value. Basically, just because you have this vehicle doesn't mean people will come and use it and see the value."

"第二,Time to Value。光有载体不等于人就会进来用、就会看到价值。"

"So, you need to figure out how do you give your users a warm start and help them get started."

"你得想清楚怎么给用户一个"温启动"(warm start),帮他们顺利上手。"

"I was talking with a company today. They just realized like we have this tool and when people come into the free trial, they are asked to do some action. But nobody know how to do that."

"我今天刚跟一家公司聊。他们发现,用户进到 free trial 之后,系统要求做某些动作,但没人知道怎么做。"

"Like they may not have everything ready to take that action. So, we're like, "What about we give them some sample video or sample action they can try?""

"用户可能根本没准备好做那个动作所需的素材。我们就讨论:"要不给他们一个示例视频、一个能直接试的样例动作?""

"It's not the same as they do it themselves, but it's better, it's getting closer and after that you can ask them to try the thing on their own and they need to do more work."

"虽然不等于他们自己亲手做,但更接近真实体验。等他们看完样例,再让他们自己做,需要付出的工作量他们也能接受。"

"So, kind of think about all the ways you can reduce time to value. It doesn't need to be this big aha moment in the first 5 minutes, but at least give them some mini aha moments."

"想尽办法缩短 Time to Value。不一定要在 5 分钟内让他们体验一个超大的 aha moment,但至少要给一连串"小 aha"。"

"Third thing is think about from there, if they get aha moment, if they want to buy, you need to have this self-checkout flow ready, self-service flow."

"第三,他们体验到 aha、想买的时候,你得准备好自助结账的流程、自助服务流程。"

"It's the foundation. You have it, it doesn't mean they will buy immediately, but it at least gave them this option to do that themselves."

"这是地基。有了不代表他们一定立刻买,但至少给了他们"自己下单"的选项。"

"And the fourth thing — between this activation usage aha moment to this conversion moment, actually there's a big gap."

"第四件事:从激活、使用、aha,到真正转化,中间其实有一段很大的 gap。"

"And what is the gap? How you can understand the gap? How you can guide people along that journey is basically you need to have a very good grasp of data."

"这段 gap 是什么?怎么理解它?怎么把人引导过这段旅程?——本质上需要你对数据有非常好的掌握。"

"You need to have the foundation to understand their usage, their behavior, and then you can design a user journey in the product, in email, in all those tools to guide user to the next step."

"你得有数据底座去理解用户的使用情况、行为模式,然后才能在产品里、在邮件里、在各种工具里,设计一条用户旅程,把用户往下一步引。"

"So, like have a very strong data foundation there. I would say I think those are the main thing."

"所以数据这块要扎实。我觉得主要就是这几件事。"

"And there are other things like your pricing need to be relatively simple."

"还有一些别的,比如定价要相对简单。"

"If your pricing is super complicated, whenever they try the product, they love it, they have a self-checkout flow, but in order to decide how much they need to pay, they need to send your sales some information, you need to do a quote, then that's broken, right?"

"如果你定价超级复杂——用户试用过、喜欢了、自助流程也有,但要决定付多少钱还得给销售发一堆信息、销售再去出 quote——这条流程就断了。"

"Or they're already confused about this process. So, that is another important thing as well."

"或者他们直接被这个过程搞糊涂了。所以定价简单是另一个关键。"

"Cool. So, just to summarize, I took notes on this. Kind of the things that you got to get right if you want to add a product-led growth component."

"我整理一下我刚才记的笔记——要加 PLG 必须搞对的几件事:"

"There needs to be something free and self-serve that you can just start using on your own. There needs to be a quick time to value. There needs to be a self-serve checkout experience."

"第一,要有免费的、自助就能上手的载体;第二,Time to Value 要短;第三,有自助结账的体验。"

"You need a data foundation. I really love the way you phrased it where like one of the benefits of product-led growth is the data component that will help you understand what to build and how to monetize these folks."

"第四,要有数据地基。我特别喜欢你刚才那句:PLG 的一个红利,就是它带来的这部分数据,能帮你判断接下来要做什么、怎么对这些用户做商业化。"

"And then the last piece is pricing — that's simple that people understand."

"最后一块,定价要简单,人能看懂。"

"Yeah. Just imagine you are building a — you're selling something on e-commerce side. You need all of this, right?"

"对。你就想象你在做电商、卖东西——这些你都要有。"

"Just in order for the B2B buyer to buy your software in PLG motion, you need to make all those available to him."

"B2B 买家想在 PLG 流程里买你的软件,你必须把这些全部备齐给他。"

"It doesn't mean if you build this, it will happen, right? The data experimentation, a lot of that needs to be there to support a lot of iteration and make this work."

"但搭好这些不代表事情就成了。还得有数据、有实验,去支撑大量迭代,才能让它真正跑起来。"

"Awesome. Okay, so we've been going in a lot of directions. We started with pitfalls and things you'll run into that may set you off track, but let's zoom out again."

"好,我们前面跑了不少方向。从坑、从那些可能把你带偏的事说起,现在再退一步,从大处看一看。"

"Let's get into just say you're convinced we need to invest in adding a product-led growth motion to our product. What's the first step that you recommend for people to go down?"

"假设你已经被说服了,认定要给自己的产品加一套 PLG 动作。你建议第一步往哪儿走?"

"I think the first step actually I would recommend founders and leaders to just understand what's PLG funnel, what's sales-led funnel, what's SLG funnel."

"第一步,我建议创始人和团队负责人先搞清楚:什么是 PLG 漏斗,什么是 sales-led 漏斗(SLG funnel)。"

"Because when I began to work on PLG at GitLab, it was not that clear to me, right? There's a lot of things you can read, but they're not all super clear. What is PLG? Like how is that different?"

"我自己在 GitLab 刚开始做 PLG 的时候,这件事其实并不清晰。市面上文章很多,但都不算讲得透:什么是 PLG?它跟别的有什么不一样?"

"And through working on that myself, I begin to develop this conviction and this clear picture."

"通过亲自上手做,我自己才慢慢建立起信念和清晰的图景。"

"The biggest difference from SLG and PLG is that the sales funnel traditionally works like — you have marketing team working on the top of funnel, bring visitors, and then they need to have a process to turn the visitors into leads."

"SLG 和 PLG 最大的区别是:销售漏斗的传统跑法是——市场团队管漏斗顶层,把访客带进来,然后要有一套把访客转成线索(lead)的流程。"

"And leads is something that is basically very popular and widely used in the B2B business. You go through some qualification process and leads needs to be from your target customer, target industry, the company need to meet certain size."

"Lead 是 B2B 里非常常用的概念,要走一遍 qualification:目标客户来源、目标行业、公司规模要达标。"

"But they also need to show interest, and how marketing team historically gauges interest is how much they interact with your marketing campaigns. Do they open email? Do they read three white papers? Do they go to this webinar, right?"

"同时还要展现出兴趣。市场团队过去衡量兴趣的方式,就是他们跟你的 marketing campaign 互动有多深:开邮件没?读了三份白皮书没?参加 webinar 没?"

"Like that's how they gauge interest and for each positive action you did as a buyer, they add some points to you. And once you reach certain points, you become this marketing qualified lead."

"这就是衡量方式。买家每做一个正向动作,就给你加分,分数到了一定阈值,你就变成 MQL(marketing qualified lead)。"

"Basically, those are the better ones we filtered through that process. And we give that to the sales team and sales team has more process, but then they choose some of them, work on them and they close some of them."

"这就是我们筛出来的"较好的"那一部分,交给销售团队。销售还有自己的流程,会再挑一批去做、close 掉一部分。"

"So, that's kind of traditionally B2B sales-led motion works."

"这就是传统 B2B 销售型动作的样子。"

"And then product-led funnel is different. It's much more similar to B2C."

"PLG 漏斗就不一样了。它跟 B2C 更像。"

"Basically, you can still have people visit your website and they sign up for free version or free account or free trial."

"用户照样来你官网、注册一个免费版/免费账户/免费试用。"

"The most important thing, the biggest difference is now you want them to use the product. You can still send all the marketing emails, but those are supplemental. Those are kind of trying to get them to the product to use, to try."

"最关键的差别是:现在你希望他们去"用"产品。你照样可以发市场邮件,但那只是辅助,目的是把人导到产品里用、试。"

"And the usage, product usage is almost like the leading indicator for success for PLG."

"产品使用本身,基本就是 PLG 的成功领先指标(leading indicator)。"

"Whereas in the sales funnel, it's almost like how many do you get and do they interact with the marketing campaigns, right? Which in the old days, it's what you have because nobody can access your product unless the contract is signed."

"而销售漏斗里看的是数量、看他们有没有跟 marketing campaign 互动。以前只能这样,因为合同没签前没人能用到产品。"

"But nowadays, that's almost like artificial barrier. It's not there, right? You can totally build a product in a free version to let people use."

"但现在那其实是个人为壁垒,完全可以拆掉——你完全可以做一个免费版让大家上手。"

"So, usage becomes so important and that's the biggest difference."

"所以 usage 变得超级重要,这就是最大的区别。"

"From the usage, then you have two potential conversion paths."

"从 usage 出发,你有两条潜在的转化路径。"

"One is that if this product is not that expensive, the price point fits in most companies' budget, some companies may just use their credit card and they buy a license, right? That's awesome."

"第一条:如果产品不贵、价位在大多数公司预算之内,有些公司直接刷信用卡买 license 就行,这太好了。"

"You then don't even need sales team to be involved. And it's very similar to the B2C product, e-commerce product buying process."

"销售团队都不用介入,跟 C 端电商产品的购买体验很像。"

"And it's awesome, right? Like because it's automated, you don't need to have more sales team involved, it's low cost, it's efficient. It can happen on its own every day. Like it will just add up to your revenue."

"这条路特别爽:全自动,不需要再加销售,成本低、效率高,每天都在自己发生,持续给你叠 revenue。"

"And then the other potential conversion path is where the product usage is high, but also this customer, this potential prospect, fits into your ideal customer profile, right?"

"第二条路径是:产品使用量很高,而且这位用户/潜在客户正好命中你的 ideal customer profile (ICP)。"

"It's from a Fortune 500 company or it's from a target industry that you know they need your solution."

"比如来自 Fortune 500,或者来自你的目标行业,你知道他们就是要你这种方案。"

"Then this customer worth more of your time and you should actually — even if they may want to buy on their own, you may want to still have your sales team or have your customer success team to reach out to them to understand a little bit more of the situation, give them some white glove service."

"这种客户值得你多花心思——哪怕他们本来准备自己下单,你也要让销售或客户成功团队主动联系,多了解他们的情况,提供"白手套"服务。"

"Hopefully, you can even close a bigger deal than if they would have bought on their own, right? So, that's another path. I call that PQL, PQA-like sales path. And that stands for product qualified lead, product qualified account."

"运气好的话,最终能 close 一个比"他自助买"更大的合同。这条路我叫做 PQL/PQA-like sales path——product qualified lead / product qualified account。"

"So, the first step is for you to understand those two funnels."

"所以第一步,就是搞清楚这两条漏斗。"

"And then think about if you want to add PLG, right? What is this journey? What are the steps along that funnel you need to establish for your product in order for your user to be able to convert in that funnel."

"接着再想:如果你要加 PLG,这趟用户旅程是什么?你产品里要建立哪些漏斗节点,才能让用户在这条漏斗里转化下去?"

"So you talked about these two funnels. One question is — are they basically the same for almost every product? Or should you try to figure out what's really unique about my funnel?"

"你讲了这两条漏斗。我有个问题:这两条漏斗在几乎所有产品里大致一样,还是你得专门去研究"我自己的漏斗"哪里独特?"

"And then second, is there an example of a product they can think about — like here's the sales-led funnel for them and then here's the product-led version of that, just to make it a little more real?"

"第二个问题:有没有一个具体的产品例子——"这是它的 SLG 漏斗,这是它的 PLG 漏斗"——让人能落到具体场景里?"

"Maybe I can give an example first and then we can talk about the other question."

"我先给一个例子,之后再回到你那个问题。"

"So, I can use GitLab as an example since that's where I'm most familiar."

"就拿 GitLab 当例子吧——这是我最熟悉的地方。"

"GitLab actually have an enterprise sales team, very strong sales team from the very beginning. But the company also we started out from open source product."

"GitLab 一开始就有非常强的企业销售团队,但公司本身是从开源产品起家的。"

"Maybe describe what GitLab is for folks that aren't super familiar with it."

"先给不熟悉 GitLab 的人介绍一下,这家公司是干什么的。"

"Yeah, so GitLab, we are a developer platform, DevOps platform. Basically, engineer teams, developer teams, they use this product to manage their entire DevOps process from storing their code, managing the version control, releasing, CI/CD, security scan, all of that."

"好。GitLab 是一个开发者平台、DevOps 平台。工程师、开发团队用它来管理整个 DevOps 流程:存代码、做版本控制、发布、CI/CD、安全扫描,全在里面。"

"Like it's an all-in-one platform for that team."

"对那个团队来说,它是一个一体化平台。"

"So, for the sales-led motion, right? Like I mentioned, the teams will — our marketing team were working bringing a lot of visitors to our website and they sign up for a free trial, free accounts."

"那么 sales-led 动作怎么跑?像我前面说的:市场团队把大量访客带到官网,他们注册免费试用、免费账户。"

"And then we have this lead nurturing and lead scoring process to surface which are the good ones for our sales team."

"我们再用 lead nurturing 和 lead scoring 流程,把里面"好的"那批筛出来,给销售。"

"And our sales team, we have SMB, we have mid-market, we have enterprise. And they each took their buckets of leads and work on them and close them, they become revenue."

"销售团队分 SMB、mid-market、enterprise 三档,各自拿到自己那一桶线索,去 work、去 close,变成 revenue。"

"And then how the product-led funnel work for us is — someone, maybe as a developer, I heard about GitLab, I go to website, I see, "Oh, I can actually sign up for a free account.""

"再看 PLG 漏斗在我们这儿怎么跑:某个开发者听说 GitLab,跑到官网,发现"哦,我可以注册一个免费账号"。"

"I may use it for my personal project. My company may be using another solution, but I have some side project I'm doing as a developer, I want to use GitLab to host that. And I did that, right?"

"我先在个人项目里用。公司可能用的是别的方案,但我作为开发者有个 side project,我想用 GitLab 放它,我就用了。"

"So, you begin to see this individual users having some usage. But nothing to do with his company."

"于是你开始看到一个个人用户在产生使用量,但跟他公司一点关系都没有。"

"And then maybe this person's employer, they're like, "We want to look into some other solutions. We have way too many point solutions for each step of DevOps. Now we want to potentially consolidate them. So, what are the options?""

"然后这位的雇主某天说:"我们想看看别的方案。我们 DevOps 各个环节散落了太多单点工具,想整合一下,有哪些选项?""

"And this engineer raised his hand, "Hey, I have been using GitLab for a very long time, I really like it. I think we should check them out.""

"这个工程师举手:"嘿,我用 GitLab 用了挺久,挺喜欢的。我们应该看看他们。""

"And then this team — maybe this engineering manager or CTO, depending on the size of company — they're like, "Okay.""

"于是团队里——可能是工程经理或 CTO,看公司大小——说"行"。"

"He went to their website and he signed up for a free trial because that allow him to test some more advanced features. It's 30 days and this person already has this knowledge, right?"

"他去官网开了 free trial,这样能试一些更高级的功能。30 天,而且这个人已经懂怎么用了。"

"This person already set up the foundation with the free version and they started a free trial. They used their 30 days to do a proof of concept."

"他之前用免费版已经把地基打好了,然后开始 free trial,用 30 天做 PoC。"

"The entire company is already using it for part of their process. And they're like, "Oh, awesome. I tried this feature, that feature, that feature. It's a great tool. It can support our workflow and I'm pretty sure we should be able to get ROI from this product.""

"整个公司在部分流程上已经用起来。他们觉得"挺好啊,我试了这个、那个、那个功能,工具不错,能支撑我们的 workflow,我挺确定我们能拿到 ROI"。"

"And then in this case they're like, "I only need five seats. It's cheap. I will just go to the pricing page, I check out the pricing and buy from there.""

"这种情况下他们说"我就需要 5 个 seat,挺便宜,我直接去 pricing 页,看一下定价就在那买了"。"

"Or like in some cases this is a bigger company and we see this bigger company is using our product. Our sales team gets that data signal, they may send an email or reach out and say, "Hey, I saw you are checking out. How can I help?""

"还有些情况是大公司,我们看到他们在用我们的产品,销售拿到这个数据信号,发邮件或直接联系:"嘿,我看到你们在用,我能帮上什么吗?""

"And that may start a sales conversation eventually becoming a contract from there."

"这就可能开启一场销售对话,最终走到签合同。"

"Great. Thank you so much for sharing that example. Maybe a last question on this first step of mapping out the funnel — do you recommend people just get in front of a whiteboard and just sit together and like, "Here's what it would be potentially if we added a product-led growth motion.""

"特别好,谢谢你分享这个例子。关于"画漏斗"这第一步,我还有一个问题:你建议大家就直接搬个白板,坐下来一起画"如果加 PLG 大概长这样"吗?"

"Yes. Yes. And I think it's not that — the devil is in the details. Just mapping out the big steps is not that hard, right?"

"对,对。但 the devil is in the details——魔鬼在细节里。把大致几步画出来其实并不难。"

"You think about I have a marketing side already. I can build a free version and then they use the free version and I build a checkout flow and that's it. That's the story, right?"

"你想:"我市场那一摊已经有了,我做个免费版,大家用免费版,再做个 checkout flow,完事。"——剧本就是这么个剧本。"

"But that's the first step. If you don't even have those components, building like mapping out the funnel will allow you to see I'm missing checkout flow, I'm missing free version. Like you already identified that."

"这是第一步。如果你这些组件都没有,把漏斗画出来会让你看到"我缺 checkout flow"、"我缺免费版"——你就已经把缺口识别出来了。"

"But the devil is in the detail one layer down. How do you design this experience for each of the steps?"

"但魔鬼藏在再往下一层:每一步的体验你具体怎么设计?"

"What do you say on your marketing side, right? To drive free sign up. In the free sign up, how do you guide them to use the three most important features?"

"市场那边你怎么说话才能把人导成免费注册?免费注册之后,你怎么引导他们用上三个最重要的功能?"

"In the checkout flow, which payment options do you offer so that customers from everywhere can buy very smoothly?"

"checkout flow 里你接哪些 payment 方案,才能让全球客户都顺畅地买下来?"

"So, that's the next layers of detail that's actually has so many opportunities for optimization, maximization and all of that."

"这些下一层的细节里,藏着大把的优化、放大空间。"

"That's actually a really good segue to the next question which is — okay, mapped out the funnel, what do you do next?"

"刚好引出下一个问题:漏斗画完了,接下来干什么?"

"If you don't have the foundational components, you need to build all of that. But if you kind of have something, if you already have this funnel exists, right? It's just not working perfectly. At least but it's working, it's there."

"如果地基的几个组件都没有,先把它们搭起来。但如果你已经有点东西、漏斗已经存在,只是跑得不漂亮——至少它在运转。"

"I think the next step is you need to pick a starting point. Like where do you want to focus first to drive the maximum impact."

"下一步就是挑一个起点:你想先聚焦哪儿,以拿到最大杠杆?"

"Personally, I'm a big fan of finding leverage. Like I think doing growth is always about finding leverage."

"我个人特别迷"找杠杆"这件事。在我看来,做增长永远是在找杠杆。"

"If you can always find the area that with relatively small investment can give you the biggest results, that can be such a kind of momentum can empower you through future experiments and more work."

"如果你总能找到那种"小投入换大结果"的领域,那种势能会带着你穿过后面的实验和更多工作。"

"And just finding leverage is a beautiful thing in my mind. So, I always want to do that."

"找杠杆这件事,在我心里美得不行,所以我一直要做。"

"So, when I think about pick a starting point, one thing I actually do with a lot of my advisor clients as a first step is we do a full funnel audit. Full PLG funnel audit."

"挑起点的时候,我对很多咨询客户做的第一件事就是:跑一遍完整的 PLG 漏斗审计(full PLG funnel audit)。"

"Think about we go through me as a kind of end user go through the entire journey. Pretend I'm interested, semi-interested, I want to buy from the website."

"过程就是:我以终端用户身份把整条旅程走一遍。假装我感兴趣、半感兴趣、想从这个网站买东西。"

"Does that attract me? Is it super clear the value proposition? And then from there going through the sign up of the free account or free trial, is that smooth?"

"网站能吸引我吗?价值主张清晰吗?从那进入免费账号或免费试用的注册流,是不是顺?"

"And when I begin to use the product, do I get to my aha moment fast or I'm very confused and frustrated and abandoned at that moment?"

"我开始用产品的时候,是不是很快就体验到 aha,还是迷茫、挫败,直接 abandon?"

"And from there if I think this is good, right, I hit my aha moment, I want to buy — can I even buy?"

"如果我觉得"挺好,体验到了 aha,我想买"——我真的能买吗?"

"You will never believe like when I do this audit, there are so many low-hanging fruits usually in this process."

"你绝对想不到,每次我做这种审计,通常都能找到一堆唾手可得的优化点。"

"For example, one client, when I go to the checkout flow, the checkout form is so confusing, they ask a bunch of questions that only let's say UK customer need. Everywhere else they don't need to answer, but they ask the question anyway and I as a US-based person is very confused and I drop off at that point."

"举个例子,有个客户的 checkout 表单巨乱:问了一堆只有英国客户才需要回答的字段。其它地方的人根本用不上,但都要填。我一个美国人填到那一刻就迷了,直接弃单。"

"And then there are other things like the aha moments. I don't know what to do when I land inside the product for the first time, I'm super excited and ready, but I don't know what to do."

"还有像 aha moment——我第一次进到产品里,我兴致勃勃、准备好了,但不知道该做什么。"

"Like I'm so lost and confused. That's usually a pretty big focus area and opportunity area. Like just getting your users to aha moments. They already overcame so many hurdles here, but don't just turn down them and they leave because it's so confusing."

"完全迷路。这往往是个非常大的发力点和机会点——把用户带到 aha。他们已经过了那么多坎,别在最后一脚因为产品太混乱就把他们劝退。"

"Might be helpful just to explain an aha moment. I know people hear this term a lot. What's a simple way to think about what is an aha moment?"

"先解释一下"aha moment"挺有帮助的——这个词大家听得多,但简洁地说,什么叫 aha moment?"

"I think it as a moment — as a first time a user experiences the value of your product."

"我把它定义成:用户第一次体验到你产品价值的那一刻。"

"So, it is — it gets popular because Facebook has this example from the early growth days like you add I think 10 friends in 7 days, you hit your aha moment."

"它之所以火,是因为 Facebook 早期增长有个经典案例——7 天内加到 10 个好友,你就触达 aha moment。"

"But there are many layers under that. The reason why Facebook used that to define its aha moment is because in early days, if you add these friends, you begin to form some connection, you can see interesting feeds, you can interact with your friends. And that's social interaction, it's the core value of Facebook."

"但底下有很多层。Facebook 之所以用这个,是因为在早期,你加完这批朋友,就开始有了连接,能看到有意思的 feed,能跟朋友互动。这就是社交互动——Facebook 的核心价值。"

"And Facebook believes by looking at a lot of data, if you meet that data metric criteria, it's very likely you will hit that aha moment."

"Facebook 看了大量数据后认为:你只要命中那个指标阈值,就大概率会触达 aha moment。"

"But I think for a lot of especially we're talking about many SaaS products, B2B software, the value of such product is usually either you see a workflow can be supported by this, it can save your time, it can save your money, it can help you make more money, or it just meets a pain point that you never get to solve on your own without a software product."

"但对很多 SaaS 产品和 B2B 软件来说,价值通常是:你看到某条 workflow 能被它支持,它能省你时间、省你钱、帮你多赚钱,或者它能搞定一个你没软件就搞不定的痛点。"

"So at GitLab we actually did a bunch of analysis. We're trying to understand what is the aha moment for our new users."

"在 GitLab 我们做了一堆分析,想搞清楚新用户的 aha moment 到底是什么。"

"We ended up have something along the line of two users, two features used in the first 14 days."

"我们最终的定义大致是:头 14 天内,2 个用户用了 2 个功能。"

"So, kind of it's very similar to Facebook's format, but deep down because we are a platform, we are a team product, two users is talking about the team components."

"形式上跟 Facebook 很像,但内在逻辑是:GitLab 是个平台、是个团队产品。"两个用户"对应的是"团队属性"。"

"Whatever the first user is trying and using, that is so valuable, he or she is confident to invite another coworker to come in."

"第一个用户用得很爽,自信到敢叫同事一起进来——这本身已经说明价值出现了。"

"That itself is very valuable action and indicates this first user is seeing value."

"这个动作本身价值就很高,说明这个第一用户看到了价值。"

"And if together they use two or more features, that means they're seeing the collaboration, the platform components of the product."

"如果他俩还一起用了 2 个以上功能,说明他们看到了协作、看到了平台的属性。"

"And within the first 14 days because it has to be reasonably quick, but not unrealistic because it we're a complicated product. We're not Facebook. We're not Zynga or a game app. Like it's hard for you to figure it out in the first day."

"为什么是 14 天?因为既要够快,又不能不现实——我们是复杂产品,不是 Facebook、不是 Zynga 那种游戏 app,第一天就摸清楚不太可能。"

"It's a very important concept for any PLG company to figure out because that's often the biggest opportunity area I see."

"对任何 PLG 公司,搞清楚自己的 aha moment 都非常关键——这通常是我看到的最大机会区。"

"Aha moment and activation is often interchangeable. So, those are kind of two things you'll hear."

"aha moment 和 activation 经常可以互换使用,两个词你都会听到。"

"And just to reframe what you say. So, GitLab's activation slash aha moment milestone was two users using two features in 14 days."

"换个说法对一下:GitLab 的激活 / aha moment 里程碑是——14 天内 2 个用户用了 2 个功能。"

"And I imagine the way you got to that was you looked at at what point does retention improve if they got to a certain milestone, right? Is that roughly how you figured it?"

"我猜你们当时的做法是看"如果用户跑到了某个里程碑,留存会不会提升"——大致是这么得出来的吗?"

"Yeah, exactly. So, there are how you can get to that. First of all, our growth team actually we did some brainstorming."

"对,完全是。具体做法是:首先我们增长团队做了一轮 brainstorming。"

"We think about what are the potential actions or behaviors that indicate they're getting value. We ideally want to do something like they maybe successfully merge their first PR or they successfully run their first pipeline."

"我们想:有哪些潜在动作或行为能体现用户拿到了价值?理想的候选是——成功 merge 第一个 PR,或者成功跑了第一条 pipeline 等等。"

"Like there are some potential high value actions we can think of. We just list all of them."

"我们把所有能想到的高价值动作列出来。"

"And then the next step is we did a correlation analysis to understand — hey, those are the 10 high value actions we believe. We want to look at if a new user did this action, what's the maybe 90-day conversion rate? What's the 30-day retention rate?"

"下一步做相关性分析:我们相信这 10 个是高价值动作。如果一个新用户做了某个动作,他的 90 天转化率多少?30 天留存率多少?"

"Because we look at both. Sometimes you only look at retention or you only look at conversion, it doesn't give you the full picture."

"我们两个都看。只看留存或只看转化,看不到完整画面。"

"So, we look at — if you did this action, let's say if Lenny, you're trying our product, you are able to successfully merge the PR in your first 30 days, does that improve your likelihood to convert? Does that improve your likelihood to retain?"

"我们逐个看:如果 Lenny 你在前 30 天成功 merge 了一个 PR,会不会提升你转化的概率?会不会提升你留下来的概率?"

"And we compare across those 10 high value actions, compare with the average. And we begin to see, oh, some actions actually if you do that, it lifts your conversion, lifts your retention much bigger."

"我们把这 10 个动作和平均水平比较,会发现:有些动作如果用户做了,转化和留存的拉升明显更大。"

"And those are the candidates for potential aha moments."

"这些就是潜在 aha moment 的候选。"

"And from there, the reason why we ended up not picking one single action — for some products actually you can pick a single action. If one action really stands out, I don't know, for Airbnb in your days probably is you book a hotel, you go there, you are so happy, you leave a high star review. That's the key action for this platform."

"我们最后没选单一动作的原因是——有些产品确实可以只选一个。如果一个动作非常突出,比如 Airbnb 早年大概就是"你订一晚住进去开心了,留五星评价",那就是这个平台的关键动作。"

"For GitLab, we have so many different workflow components. Teams are here for different reasons. Some are here for security, some are here for CI/CD. So, that's why we ended up combining two actions — it can be any of the two high value features."

"但 GitLab 包含太多不同 workflow 组件,团队进来的目的也各异:有的为安全,有的为 CI/CD。所以最后我们选了"组合":任意两个高价值功能都算。"

"The next step is actually you need to launch some experiments to try to get more people to do those high value actions. And you then see, do I see higher conversion? Do I see higher retention?"

"接下来一步是:你必须做实验,推动更多人去做这些高价值动作,然后看转化、看留存是不是真的提了。"

"Because in data you are only isolating correlation. You are not proving causation. You just saw people who are doing this are more likely to convert, but it doesn't mean if you get people to do this, they will convert."

"因为数据里你只是看到了相关性,没有证明因果。你看到"做这些动作的人转化率高",不代表"让别人也做这些,他们就会转化"。"

"So, experimentation is the step you will finally validate that."

"用实验来最终验证因果——这是必不可少的一步。"

"Hila, this is amazing. It's like a mini podcast on activation. We should do another one just on this."

"Hila,这段太精彩,简直可以单独再开一集做激活专题。"

"And then in the show notes I'll link to a couple posts that I've written with a bunch of advice on setting activation milestones and improving them. I forget if you've contributed to that post or not, but if not, we should add some of these stories."

"show notes 里我会附上我写过的几篇,关于怎么设激活里程碑、怎么改进。我不记得你有没有给那篇贡献过素材,没的话我们以后把这些故事补上。"

"But let's get back to our core. We have enough to talk about on just product-led growth."

"先回主线——PLG 本身就够我们聊的了。"

"And so, just to summarize the audit that you do, I wrote some notes as you were talking. And maybe we can keep going from that point."

"我边听边记了笔记。先帮你总结一下你做的审计,然后我们从这个点接着往下走。"

"What you look for when you're auditing a product to see where they need where they may pick a starting point. What I wrote down is — one, are you just excited to try it? Like is the landing page pulling you in?"

"你审计的时候在看什么、判断起点在哪。我记下来的有:第一,你想试一下吗?着陆页是否能把你拉进去?"

"Two, can you actually use it on your own and just try it?"

"第二,你能不能自己上手就试起来?"

"Three, do you get to the aha moment where you're like, okay, I get it. I'm excited."

"第三,你能不能走到 aha moment,内心是"哦,我懂了,我兴奋了"?"

"And then can actually buy this on my own. Is that roughly the audit? Is there anything more to that?"

"第四,你能不能自己买下来?——审计大致就这几步对吗?还有别的吗?"

"Exactly. And I also look at their initial first few emails they send to me because sometimes the email magically can help a lot."

"完全对。我还会看他们最初发给我的几封邮件——有时候邮件能起到神奇的拉动作用。"

"Like if I'm frustrated the first time I'm trying a product, I'm frustrated. I'm like I will give up."

"比如我第一次试某个产品很挫败,心里想"算了我放弃"。"

"And then in the night I saw an email, I'm like, oh, maybe I just click the CTA and give it one more try. And that time actually I figured out and I get to the aha moment."

"结果晚上看到一封邮件,觉得"嗯,我点一下 CTA 再试一次"。这次反而搞明白了,触达 aha moment。"

"So, I also look at the email, that first initial emails."

"所以最初几封邮件,我也会审。"

"And then when I map this out, I ask the company to give me the data at very high level for each of the steps. How many people are on your website? How many people go through sign up? How many people hit this aha moment?"

"画完图之后,我会找公司要每一步的高层数据:你网站有多少访客?多少人完成注册?多少人到达 aha?"

"We need to define that. Usually a lot of discussion — how many people get to the aha moment? How many people started self-checkout and be successful?"

"这本身要先定义,经常会有不少讨论:谁算到达 aha?谁算开始 self-checkout 且成功?"

"And then between my experience from a user perspective and the data, we usually immediately begin to see, oh, this is the biggest opportunity."

"等我自己作为用户体验过 + 拿到数据,通常很快就能看出"哦,这是最大的机会点"。"

"Usually activation and conversion are two of the common starting places."

"通常激活和转化是两个常见的起点。"

"You probably know Ahrefs as one of the leading all-in-one SEO tools used by companies like Facebook, Uber, Shopify, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and thousands more."

"你应该知道 Ahrefs——它是顶级的一体化 SEO 工具之一,Facebook、Uber、Shopify、LinkedIn、Pinterest 还有上千家公司都在用。"

"But Ahrefs is not just for big companies. With their new Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, you can optimize your personal website like a professional for free."

"但 Ahrefs 不只服务于大公司。他们新推出的 Ahrefs Webmaster Tools,可以让你像专业人士一样免费优化个人网站。"

"You can scan your website for over 100 common SEO issues that might be hurting your performance in search engines, plus get advice on how to fix those errors."

"它能扫出 100 多个常见的 SEO 问题——这些问题可能正在拖你搜索引擎的表现——并给出修复建议。"

"You can have it automatically browse your website's internal and external links and get actionable insights from your backlink profiles, and you can learn what keywords your website ranks for and see how you stack up against your competitors."

"它会自动浏览你网站的内外链,从 backlink profile 里给出可执行洞察,还能告诉你网站排上了哪些关键词,跟竞品比怎么样。"

"Visit ahrefs.com/awt and start improving your website's visibility. That's ahrefs.com/awt."

"去 ahrefs.com/awt 开始提升你的网站曝光度,就是 ahrefs.com/awt。"

"Okay, so let's get into that then. So, you've done this audit. What other advice do you have for folks to figure out where they should start and invest in that part of the product to help launch product-led growth?"

"OK 我们就接着这个聊。审计做完了——除此之外,你还会怎么建议大家判断"该投在 PLG 的哪一块"?"

"You can do an audit like this yourself, right? Just imagine you, if you are B2C user trying to buy a product, you want it to be easy."

"这种审计你自己就可以做。想象你是一个 C 端消费者要去买东西——你希望整件事轻松。"

"Ideally PLG for B2B can be that easy as well. So, go through that process and identify where is confusing, where do you get stuck?"

"理想情况下,B2B 的 PLG 也该这么轻松。把这趟流程走一遍,识别哪儿混乱、哪儿卡住。"

"If you find that you have a problem with activation, meaning if you enter into the product, you're like, "What do I do? I don't know what should I do," and maybe I just left — then if that's the biggest opportunity, activation, then you need to think about find the right aha moment metric as the first step as we just talked about because that's the success, that's the goal post."

"如果你发现激活有问题——进到产品里"我该做什么?我不知道做什么",然后就走了——而且这是最大的机会,那就按我们刚才说的,先找对 aha moment 指标,因为它就是你要的成功标尺、goal post。"

"And then design a product experience to help more people to get there."

"然后再设计产品体验,把更多人推到那个 aha 点。"

"And I usually think about — do is better than show is better than tell. Meaning, you want to remove all the frictions and somehow give them a warm start, give them some sample template, give them some sample thing they can play with initially in that very moment."

"我自己常用一句口诀:do > show > tell——让他自己做胜过给他看,给他看胜过给他讲。意思是把摩擦全削掉,给他一个 warm start——一个 sample 模板、一个能立刻玩起来的样例。"

"And you can supplement that with your email to bring them to the product if they don't do that."

"如果他没动,邮件作为补充把人再拉回产品里。"

"So, that's activation. If activation is okay, but your conversion, your self-checkout flow — usually there are also rooms for improvement."

"这就是激活。如果激活还行,但 conversion / 自助结账有问题,这块通常也有不少优化空间。"

"Many companies I work with, when I try to buy, I cannot even find a way to buy. Like it's that hard to find where do I click to start this checkout process?"

"我合作过的很多公司,我想买的时候连"在哪买"都找不到——开始 checkout 的入口藏得难得离谱。"

"Or they may have some frictions in the checkout flow where it's not localized. One company, when I look at their data, they found that India has very low success rate, which is expected, but we begin to say is because the payment solution they choose actually doesn't support that market well, and they added another payment solution immediately they're seeing much better success rate."

"或者结账流里有未本地化的摩擦。有个客户,我看数据,印度的支付成功率非常低——本来就低,但我们追下去发现是他们选的支付方案在那个市场支持得不行。加了一个第二支付方案,成功率立刻明显改善。"

"And if they're already in the checkout, you don't want to lose any of them, right? Just take, do 100 experiments to get to as much higher commercial impact as possible because you don't want to lose any of them."

"他们都已经进结账流了,你一个都不该丢。跑 100 个实验,把商业影响拉到最大——一个都别让他们溜走。"

"So activation conversion usually are two great place to start."

"所以激活和转化通常是两个非常好的起点。"

"And then from there, I would say think about your PQL/PQA motion, which is the other conversion path."

"再往后,可以想 PQL/PQA 动作——另一条转化路径。"

"Product-led sales motion: how do you set up the structure, the foundation so that you can know what are some data signals to tell you those are better leads, and what are some customer criteria in terms of size, segment you should set up, how do you get those data, and then how do you hand this to your sales team, how they can close using this knowledge."

"也就是 product-led sales:你怎么搭结构和地基——什么数据信号能告诉你"这些是更好的线索"?客户的规模/分层标准怎么定?数据怎么拿到?怎么交接给销售?销售拿到之后用这些信息怎么 close?"

"That's another very big opportunity area. That's a bigger effort compared to those two low-hanging fruits."

"这是另一个很大的机会区,但比前两个低垂的果子更费劲。"

"And the last thing I would say — product-led acquisition is a great place to start if your product is a collaboration software."

"最后一点:如果你的产品天生是协同软件,product-led acquisition 是个非常好的起点。"

"Think about Airtable and Figma, right? As part of my workflow, I invite my team to join. I spread this out."

"想想 Airtable 和 Figma——使用流程本身就要求我"邀请团队加入",产品自己就在扩散。"

"If you have that use case, you can build that into a product, that's awesome. That's very powerful."

"如果你有这种用例,把它做进产品,就太好了——这是非常强大的引擎。"

"So there's a lot there. So let me try to summarize what you just shared. So you have a self-serve product. You've kind of gotten to a point where you can sign up and try something for free."

"信息量很大。我帮你总结一下:你已经有一个自助产品,用户可以注册、免费试用,这一步走到了。"

"And then you do this audit of like where along this journey do we think the biggest opportunities lie in the most leverage lies. And you have these four buckets of opportunity."

"然后做一个审计——在这条旅程上,最大的机会点和最大的杠杆在哪儿?机会分成四桶。"

"Acquisition, which is like top of funnel. Do you want to double down and invest there first?"

"第一桶,Acquisition——漏斗顶层。你要不要先在这投?"

"Or activation, which is like help people see the value more quickly?"

"第二桶,Activation——帮人更快看到价值。"

"Bucket three would be — you call the conversion, which essentially like help them buy it more efficiently."

"第三桶,Conversion——你叫它"转化",本质是让买的过程更顺畅。"

"And then there's like a bucket of retention of just like keeping them around longer, which I don't know if you mentioned this, but I know you're just like that's probably not where you want to start. So it's even not worth chatting about too much."

"还有一桶 Retention——把人留得更久。我不太记得你是不是提了,我印象中你的意思是"这通常不是起点",所以也没多聊。"

"Cool. And so the question basically a founder product team has to decide is where which of these three buckets do they go in on when they're trying to add product-led growth? Acquisition, activation, or conversion?"

"OK,所以创始团队/产品团队要决定的就是:加 PLG 时,先压注哪一桶?获客、激活,还是转化?"

"It'd be cool maybe just like one example of each of these three buckets. Like what's a product that did a good job here?"

"如果能给每一桶一个产品例子就太好了——这块谁做得好?"

"And then you also talked about how to know which one to start with. Maybe just like again just a quick summary of like you should probably start activation if you have something like that."

"你也讲了怎么判断从哪起步。能不能再 quick 一遍——如果有这种条件,通常应该从激活起步。"

"You should probably start with activation. Activation is actually a common good starting place for most B2B software because usually B2B softwares are not designed to really get you to use quickly historically."

"通常该从激活开始。激活之所以是大多数 B2B 软件的好起点,是因为历史上 B2B 软件就没被设计成"让你赶紧用起来"。"

"A good example — all the best PLG companies, they do an awesome job. That's almost like my criteria to see whether this is a great PLG product or not."

"举例:最强的几家 PLG 公司,这块都做得非常牛。我自己几乎用这点当标准来判断"这是不是一个好的 PLG 产品"。"

"Think about Miro as an example. If you go through their activation — the sign up to usage — they ask very limited questions, very targeted."

"看 Miro。走一遍他们的激活——从注册到用上——问题问得很少,而且非常聚焦。"

"They drop you — they ask you about your use case. What are you here for? Are you here to do a brainstorm session? Are you here to develop a roadmap?"

"他们直接问用例:你来这是干啥?来 brainstorm?来做 roadmap?"

"And they quickly gave you templates to get started. Just like in maybe 5 minutes, you finish the entire journey from go to the website and sign up, answer a few questions, and you're already using the template the product provided to do the thing you want to do."

"然后立刻给你模板。大概 5 分钟,你就走完了从访问网站、注册、回答几个问题,到用产品提供的模板完成你本来想做的事这整条旅程。"

"That's time to value. That's a success. I think that's a really great standard for all the PLG B2B products to follow."

"这就是 Time to Value 的胜利。我认为这是所有 PLG B2B 产品都该追的标准。"

"So that's activation is usually a good place if you don't know where to start. Like do that."

"所以"不知道从哪起步"的时候,默认从激活下手。"

"And then conversion I would say is a place again worth investing, but there are two layers."

"转化也是值得投的地方,但分两层。"

"One is the self-checkout flow. Just do some experiments there. You can actually go to any e-commerce website. Like I don't know, go to Lululemon, go to Amazon. Make your conversion process as easy as theirs. That should be your goal."

"第一层是自助结账。在这跑些实验。你可以去任何电商网站——比如 Lululemon、Amazon——把自己的转化过程做得跟他们一样轻松。这就是目标。"

"The consumers shouldn't be confused about complicated pricing, where to find — like all of that."

"消费者不该被复杂定价、"按钮在哪"这些事搞迷糊。"

"So that's always a place worth investing testing more because that's revenue so close to be added into your book."

"这是一个永远值得继续投入和测试的地方,因为这里离收入入账只差一脚。"

"And then the PQL/PQA part, the other more complicated path, I would say that's something you want to figure out activation and self-checkout a little bit first, and you want to have some reasonable user number, and then invest there."

"另一条更复杂的 PQL/PQA 路径,我建议先把激活和自助结账搞顺一些、积累到合理的用户量,再投入。"

"Otherwise it can be a little bit jumping too fast and jumping too too ahead."

"不然容易跳得太快、太靠前。"

"And the acquisition to invest if you have a collaboration workflow. You have some inherent internal viral components in your product."

"获客层面,如果你产品里本来就有协同工作流、有内生病毒成分,值得投。"

"Think about Figma, think about Calendly even, right? This product is so easy. You can build something to allow it to spread on its own."

"想想 Figma,甚至 Calendly——产品本身就这么轻巧,你完全可以把"自我扩散"做进产品里。"

"Okay. I'm hoping that was really helpful because I think a lot of people are like, "Where do I start? What do I do to help start moving down this road of product-led growth?""

"希望这段对大家有用,因为很多人都在问"我该从哪起步?走 PLG 这条路第一步怎么走?""

"And like what I'm hearing generally is just activation is probably where you want to focus, which is essentially getting people to your value quicker."

"我听到的总结是:大概率聚焦在激活,本质就是把人更快地带到价值。"

"And what's cool about that, we had a podcast with Lauryn Isford from formerly Airtable now Notion talking about all the ways to do that."

"很巧,我们之前有一期跟 Lauryn Isford(之前在 Airtable,现在 Notion)聊了一期,讲怎么做这件事的各种方式。"

"And interestingly, one of the biggest levers for retention and moving retention is often onboarding and improving activation. So win-win."

"有意思的是,推动留存的最大杠杆之一,往往就是 onboarding 和激活——所以这是双赢。"

"Yeah, definitely. And I would talk a little bit about retention expansion if you think that's helpful."

"对。如果有用,我可以稍微聊一聊留存和扩展。"

"Sure. Let's chat."

"当然,聊一下。"

"Yeah, I didn't talk about that in the post, and there are people asking, "Hey, do you plan to write another post on this specific topic?""

"我那篇 post 没写这一块,有人来问"你打算单独写一篇讲这个吗?""

"So the reason why I didn't cover too much retention expansion is as you mentioned, it's not a usually a first place to start."

"我没多写的原因,就像你说的——它通常不是起步的地方。"

"I call retention the messy middle. It's actually a messy part of the entire funnel."

"我把留存叫做"messy middle"(乱糟糟的中段)——它确实是整条漏斗里最乱的一段。"

"Activation and conversion, those are fast. Those are sometimes shorter time span, right? You have a lot of leverage, and you can test there quickly."

"激活、转化都跑得快,时间窗口短,杠杆多,实验也能快速跑。"

"And the acquisition is a very big leverage. You need to get more users always."

"获客也是个非常大的杠杆,你永远需要更多用户。"

"Retention is super important, but it's a little bit messy. It's over a very long period of time. And your customers can be at any given moment, they can be retained or not."

"留存极其重要,但乱在哪?它的周期非常长,客户在任何时刻都可能"留下"或"没留下"。"

"Like if they just cancel or they just decided not to use anymore, you already lost them. So it's a very messy part."

"他们一旦取消,或者决定不用了,人就跑了。所以这段非常乱。"

"But how I think about retention, there are two steps. One is how to build a habit in their usage pattern so that they're using this maybe every week, every day."

"我自己思考留存分两步。第一步:怎么在用户的使用习惯里建一个"习惯"——让他每周用、每天用。"

"The key to do that is first of all, your product needs to have a high enough frequency. Like if you're using this once per month, it's not likely you can build this into a habit."

"做这件事的关键,首先是你产品本身的使用频率要够高。如果一个月才用一次,几乎没办法形成习惯。"

"Like, before GitLab, I worked at Acorns. We started as an investment app, and the whole thing is kind of passive investing."

"在 GitLab 之前,我在 Acorns。我们一开始是一个投资 app,核心是被动投资(passive investing)。"

"Passive investing, you bought some ETFs, and then you basically don't even need to check, and you just keep adding money, and it will grow, and after 10 years is awesome. It's actually the right investment philosophy."

"被动投资是这样的:你买点 ETF,基本不用看盘,持续投钱,十年后挺爽——这其实是正确的投资哲学。"

"But when I worked as a head of growth, it made a big challenge for me because — think about set it and forget it, they don't even need to go to back to the product to be successful."

"但作为增长负责人,这给我出了个大难题——"设好就不管"(set it and forget it):他们甚至不需要回到产品里也能成功。"

"And that makes it very hard as a head of growth to drive engagement, drive retention. I don't even know whether they're retained or not if they're not coming back, right?"

"作为增长负责人,这让推参与度、推留存都很难——他们要是不回来,我都不知道他们到底算不算"留下"。"

"I can only gauge some other indicators."

"我只能去看一些别的间接指标。"

"So I think one thing I would say about building habit is think about how to build those habit features or collaboration features into your workflow already, into the product already."

"所以"建习惯"我会这么说:想办法把习惯类功能或协作类功能直接做进 workflow、做进产品本身。"

"That is the reason they can retain fundamentally. If it's high frequency, if it involves collaboration with other people, if it's part of their workflow."

"这才是用户能留下来的根本原因:高频、有协同、嵌进了工作流。"

"So that's the first step. You can obviously use a lot of loops to reinforce that. You can send them an email if they take certain action and get them back to repeat that action."

"这是第一步。当然你可以用很多 loop 去强化:用户做了某个动作就发邮件,把他叫回来重复那个动作。"

"But fundamentally, you need to build that into your product."

"但根本上,这些东西必须做进产品。"

"And then the next part around retention is — I actually think extension is part of retention. Basically, you already have a steady usage flow. You are using this habitually, like every week, every day."

"留存的下一部分,我其实把扩展(extension)当作留存的一部分。前提是你已经有稳定的使用流——他每周、每天习惯性地在用。"

"What are the right moments to prompt you to think about maybe buying more."

"那合适的时机是什么?能让他考虑买更多。"

"And there are three buckets of product-led extension. The first one is upgrade to a higher tier. The second one is buying more seats, buying more licenses. The third one is if you have some sort of consumption add-on component, just consuming more."

"product-led extension 分三桶。第一,升级到更高 tier;第二,加 seat、加 license;第三,如果你有某种按消耗付费的加项,就是消耗更多。"

"Like for GitLab, you can go from bronze tier to silver tier, you can go to a higher tier, and then you can buy more seats. And you can also buy more CI/CD minutes to consume."

"在 GitLab,bronze tier → silver tier → 更高 tier;可以加 seat,也可以买更多 CI/CD 分钟数。"

"Those are all the different moments. How you can do that is really understand data, understand usage, and trigger a lot of the right conversations at the right moment to the right person."

"这就是不同的扩展时机。要做好,核心是真的理解数据、理解 usage,然后在对的时机、对对的人,触发对的对话。"

"And, a lot of similar tactics you're using for activation conversion can be beautifully applied in expansion because it's almost a combination of getting people to the aha of that feature, use that feature, try that feature, getting them to convert."

"你做激活/转化用的那套战术,在扩展里同样适用——本质上就是"让人感受到那个功能的 aha、去用它、去试它、最终为它付费",一整套组合。"

"You're leaving all these gold bricks that I have to resist not follow getting off track with because there's so much that like a whole retention is its own conversation we could have."

"你这一路扔下来一块块金砖,我都得忍住不去追,不然话题就跑偏了——留存完全可以单开一期。"

"Maybe just one question along those lines. What's something that you've launched that had a tremendous impact on retention? Is there an example of just like wow, that really had a big impact?"

"就沿着这条线问一个问题:你上线过的、对留存有巨大影响的东西是什么?有没有那种"哇,这个真的很猛"的例子?"

"You're talking about frequency maybe, but what comes to mind?"

"你刚提到频率——你脑子里冒出来的具体例子是什么?"

"I can share some of my example at Acorns. I think there are two things."

"我分享在 Acorns 的两件事吧。"

"One thing is actually very similar to what you just said. When I was asked to work on retention, I did a bunch of analysis."

"第一件其实跟你刚说的很像。当时让我做留存,我先做了一堆分析。"

"The biggest leverage for me is actually activation. So I ended up doing a tons of experiments in activation."

"我发现最大的杠杆其实是激活。于是我反过来在激活里跑了大量实验。"

"I identified what are the features for users to take experience value quickly so that they are more likely to retain."

"我去识别:哪些功能能让用户最快感受到价值,从而更可能留下来。"

"For us, it's a feature called recurring investment, which makes sense in hindsight, but at that time nobody was caring about that."

"对我们来说是一个叫"recurring investment"(定投)的功能。现在回头看挺合理,但当时没人关注它。"

"We have some other very cool investment features called round-up investment. So nobody was really paying a lot of attention to this."

"我们当时还有一个叫"round-up investment"(凑整投资)的功能,看起来挺酷,大家注意力都被它吸走了。"

"But when I look at data, I saw recurring investment has a high correlation with retention."

"我看数据发现,定投这个功能跟留存的相关性非常高。"

"So I did a lot of work trying to get more people to set this up, which has been a great success actually in a very short period of time."

"于是我做了大量工作去推用户把定投设置起来,短期内就拿到很好的结果。"

"And then from there, I would say we begin to add more use cases that has a higher frequency."

"接下来,我们开始往里面加更多高频用例。"

"Like I mentioned, if you only come here once per month to check your investment, it's very hard to retain you. We don't have any lever to engage with you as well if you're not in the product."

"我刚说了,如果你一个月才回来一次查投资,我很难把你留住——你不在产品里,我连可以拉你的杠杆都没有。"

"So we ended up adding IRA account, retirement account. We ended up adding spending account, like a debit card, more high frequency use cases."

"于是我们陆续加了 IRA、退休账户,加了带 debit card 的消费账户——这些更高频的用例。"

"Those use cases come with higher frequency and better retention by nature."

"这些用例天然就更高频,留存也更好。"

"So now you change the problem from how do I improve retention to how do I drive adoption of higher frequency use cases."

"于是问题就被改写了——从"我怎么改善留存"变成"我怎么推高频用例的渗透率"。"

"So I did again a bunch of experiments how to drive more adoption of retirement account."

"我又跑了一堆实验,推高退休账户的渗透。"

"Once you have a retirement account, IRA, there are tax consequences, all of that, it's very hard for you to leave."

"你一旦开了 IRA / 退休账户,涉及税务后果等等,要走人就很难。"

"So you flip the question into again an adoption / activation problem in that case as well."

"于是又把这个问题翻转成了渗透率 / 激活的问题。"

"Amazing. Thank you for sharing those. Oh man, there's so many other things we could talk about retention, but we have enough to talk about on product-led growth."

"太棒,谢谢你的分享。留存我们还能聊很多,但 PLG 本身已经够我们聊的了。"

"So there's two other areas that I want to touch on. One is data and infrastructure and what people should know about how to set that up for success."

"我还想聊两块。第一块是数据和基础设施——想成功该怎么搭。"

"And the other is hiring your team and how to build out your product-led growth team."

"第二块是招人 / 怎么搭你的 PLG 团队。"

"So starting with the data piece, maybe just as a big picture — what are the buckets of data and infrastructure people should be thinking about that they're going to have to invest in or should start thinking about early?"

"先从数据这一块开始。从大处看,有哪些数据和基建的"桶",大家迟早要投、应该早点开始想?"

"I think there are two big buckets. The first bucket is product usage data."

"我觉得有两个大桶。第一桶是产品使用数据(product usage data)。"

"A lot of B2B software, they're really lacking in that because when you sell via sales team, you don't need to know so many details, so granular usage data, all of that."

"很多 B2B 软件这部分特别欠缺,因为以前靠销售卖,你不需要那么细的颗粒度数据。"

"The second bucket is I call this customer 360 database, because product usage data is one component. In order for your PLG motion to be successful, you also need to connect that with your marketing team's marketing campaigns, your CRM, your Salesforce — like who are the customers, prospects, what their stage."

"第二桶,我叫它"customer 360 database"。产品使用数据只是其中一块。要让 PLG 动作成功,你还得把它跟市场团队的 campaign、CRM、Salesforce 串起来——客户/潜客是谁、当前在什么阶段。"

"So those ideally need to be connected so that you have a 360 picture of your customer."

"这些理想情况下要打通,你才有客户的 360 度画像。"

"If I have Airbnb as a potential target account, do I know there are users from Airbnb that are using my product? Which features are they using? And do I send any marketing campaigns to each of them? Do they respond?"

"假设 Airbnb 是我潜在的目标客户——我知不知道 Airbnb 内部已经有人在用我产品?他们用什么功能?我对他们发过什么 campaign?他们有没有反馈?"

"All of those ideally need to be connected, but in reality it's like all over the place. It's all in its own tools in most of the B2B companies."

"这些理想上都要连起来,但现实里到处都是散的——在大部分 B2B 公司里,每样东西都待在自己工具里。"

"What are just some tools that you think people should check out, start with maybe? What's like Hila's recommendations on a initial stack or areas to explore in terms of tooling?"

"你建议大家了解或起步用哪些工具?能不能给一个 Hila 推荐的初始 stack,或者值得探索的工具方向?"

"I say there are two pieces. One is infra, the other piece are some tools that are kind of secondary."

"我把它分成两块:一块是基建(infra),另一块是相对次要的辅助工具。"

"So from infrastructure perspective on data tool, my first tool usually is some sort of a data hub — Segment, right?"

"从数据基建的角度,我最先推的工具是某种数据中枢——比如 Segment。"

"The next one is some sort of product analytics tool. Think about Amplitude. I know PostHog is actually a pretty popular one. It's an open source product analytics tool. There are Mixpanel, Pendo, all of that."

"接下来是某种产品分析工具。Amplitude;PostHog 我知道挺火,是个开源的产品分析工具;还有 Mixpanel、Pendo 等等。"

"So have some sort of data hub data collection tool and have some sort of product analytics tool. That's the data infrastructure."

"一个数据中枢/采集工具,加一个产品分析工具——这就是数据基建。"

"And then you need to have an experimentation tool because like I said, you cannot just imagine you build everything and everything works perfectly."

"你还需要实验工具——我前面说过,不能想象建好了一切就能完美运转。"

"So you need either like Optimizely. I know Amplitude has some experimentation components. Eppo is a new and upcoming one. Like you need some tool to allow you to do experimentation."

"比如 Optimizely;Amplitude 也带实验模块;Eppo 是个新起的工具。总之你得有个工具支撑实验。"

"The third piece, that's pretty essential, I counted in the infra, is some sort of lifecycle marketing tool."

"第三块,我也算在基建里,是某种生命周期营销工具(lifecycle marketing tool)。"

"I know many B2B companies, they use HubSpot or something like that for their email marketing, but those are usually lead nurturing."

"我知道很多 B2B 公司用 HubSpot 之类做邮件营销,但那些基本上是 lead nurturing。"

"And it's very different from lifecycle marketing tool, meaning you need to connect with Segment, Amplitude, you know what customers are doing in your product, you design your email, your in-app, your push notification based on their behavior at the right moment to the right person."

"这跟生命周期营销工具差别很大:后者需要跟 Segment、Amplitude 打通,知道客户在产品里干了什么,然后基于行为,在对的时机、向对的人,设计邮件、in-app、push。"

"And you measure success by do they take the right action in the product, versus the lead nurture email marketing tool is do I get them to read article, open the email, I add 10 points to their lead score."

"成功衡量的标准是"用户在产品里有没有做出对的动作";而 lead nurturing 工具看的是"他读了文章吗?开邮件了吗?给他 lead score 加 10 分"。"

"So data tool, experimentation tool, lifecycle marketing tool — those are the infra."

"所以数据工具、实验工具、生命周期营销工具——这三样就是基建。"

"And then from there, there are a lot of PLG tools you can add on top to make your day-to-day much easier."

"在这之上,还有很多 PLG 工具能让你日常工作轻松很多。"

"For acquisition, you need to have some sort of lead like a data enrichment tool. Think about ZoomInfo, Clearbit."

"获客上,你需要某种数据 enrichment 工具——比如 ZoomInfo、Clearbit。"

"Because the biggest difference between B2B and B2C is that you still need to know about their company. You want to know this person, but you also want to know this person's company, right? That's a very important thing."

"因为 B2B vs B2C 最大的区别是,你还要了解他所在的公司。你不仅要知道这个人,还要知道他公司——这件事很关键。"

"And you can design your journey differently based on that."

"基于这些信息,你的旅程就可以被设计成不同分支。"

"For activation, a lot of my clients are finding a lot of value in tools like Appcues, Userpilot — tools that allow you to build onboarding flow quickly in a product without engineering resource."

"激活方面,我很多客户都觉得 Appcues、Userpilot 这类工具很值——能让你在产品里快速搭出 onboarding flow,不需要占用研发资源。"

"So you need to do some initial integration, but as soon as you did that, a marketing manager, a PM, or someone can just build some customized onboarding step-by-step flows themselves."

"前期做一次集成,之后市场经理、PM 或其他人就能自己搭定制化的逐步引导流程。"

"I think that's quite neat because you need to test a ton in that area."

"挺整洁的——因为这一块要测的东西太多。"

"And in terms of conversion, I would say there are many product-led growth, product-led sales tools. I think those are great if you want to build out your PQL/PQA conversion path. Think about Endgame, Pocus, Toplyne, Pace — there are a couple of them."

"转化这一块,有不少 product-led sales 工具,如果你要搭 PQL/PQA 转化路径,它们很好用——Endgame、Pocus、Toplyne、Pace,有好几家。"

"Wow, amazing. That was an awesome list and really well structured. Is there anything else along the data or infrastructure piece that you want to touch on before we move on to hiring and team?"

"天哪太棒了,这份清单组织得非常清晰。在转到招人/团队之前,数据和基建这块你还有要补的吗?"

"I just want to go back to the point as I mentioned — product-led growth is data-led growth deep down."

"我想再回到一开始那句:product-led growth 底层其实就是 data-led growth。"

"So in most of the situations when I see a company want to get started, where they are really missing or they need to invest more is data."

"我看到大多数想起步的公司,他们真正欠缺、需要加大投入的就是数据。"

"So if you identify you have a gap in this area, don't feel bad as well. A lot of B2B companies are in the same shoes."

"如果你发现自己这块有缺口,别难过——很多 B2B 公司都一样。"

"And if you can invest the time, money, the team, the tool to figure this out, the benefit of this — the data collection, usage, understanding usage data — cannot only power your PLG motion, it can really power your entire product team, even your customer success team."

"如果你愿意投入时间、钱、团队、工具把它搭起来,好处不止 PLG。数据采集、使用、理解,可以驱动整个产品团队,甚至客户成功团队。"

"Now you gave them the ingredients they need to develop the next feature based on not only what their top customer asked for, but also what way it's used."

"你给了产品团队真正的素材——下一个功能不光基于头部客户的请求,也基于产品实际怎么被用的。"

"Like your customer success team can take a much deeper view in understanding what the clients are using rather than just talk with the executives from the client and get a rough sketch of the situation."

"客户成功团队也能更深地看到客户用了什么——而不是只跟客户高管聊,拿一份粗略的概况。"

"So, it is an area worth investing and every B2B company should be investing in."

"所以这是一个值得投、每家 B2B 公司都该投的地方。"

"I'm trying to channel what listeners might be thinking right now, and I imagine some people might be like, what if I pick the wrong tool? Like I'm kind of stressed, I have to do all this research, I'm kind of worried about starting because it'll set me up for failure later."

"我帮听众问个问题——可能有人会想:我选错工具怎么办?我得做一堆调研,我有点焦虑,担心起步选错以后就麻烦了。"

"Which of these buckets do you think is most important to get right right from the beginning? And any advice on how to just avoid messing that up?"

"在哪一桶上最该一开始就选对?有没有避免踩坑的建议?"

"To get started, I would say probably a product analytics tool is the first step and maybe like the data hub such as Segment."

"起步阶段,我会说"产品分析工具"是第一步,再加上像 Segment 这种数据中枢。"

"So, if you have Segment and particle tools like that, it allow you to plug into so many different tools. You can basically try all the different tools, and if it doesn't work, you just flick a switch, you can try another tool."

"如果你有 Segment 这种工具,它能把你接到一堆别的工具上。你可以挨个试,如果某个不合适,拨个开关就能换下一个。"

"So, there's a benefit there, but it is expensive."

"这是个好处,但代价是它贵。"

"So I know companies may just go right into the product analytics tool. I would say it's hard to get it wrong completely, right?"

"我知道有的公司直接上一个产品分析工具就行。我会说,完全选错的概率其实不大。"

"In order for a product analytics tool to be meaningful, the first step is you need to collect the data. You need to do some instrumentation. You need to have the foundation, because it's garbage in, garbage out."

"因为要让分析工具有意义,第一步你得采集数据、做埋点、把地基搭起来——garbage in, garbage out。"

"If you send a bunch of garbage data into your product analytics tool, your analyst will be just even more confused. It's like he doesn't know whether to trust the data, what to use."

"如果你把一堆垃圾数据塞进分析工具,分析师只会更困惑——不知道该不该信、该用什么。"

"So a lot of companies I work with, the first step is maybe not looking into tool, but do an audit of your data instrumentation situation to understand how many of the key actions are tracked? Is the format correct? Is the data right? What are the gaps?"

"我合作的很多公司,第一步不是挑工具,而是先做一次埋点审计:有多少关键动作被埋了?格式对不对?数据对不对?缺口在哪?"

"And you may need to do some reinstrumentation, reformatting, and things like that before you even plug into a product analytics tool to make it useful."

"你可能要做一波重新埋点、重新整理格式之类的工作,然后再接进产品分析工具,才能让它真正派上用场。"

"For someone that may want to do that audit, is there thing you would point them to or, I don't know, blog, course, something to help them understand if they're doing it right, or is it like bring Hila on and you need someone like you to help them through it?"

"想做这个审计的人,你会指他们去哪——博客?课程?某个资源?还是说基本上得请你这种人来带?"

"No, you can bring me, but you don't have to bring me. I think if you search on Google like just "data dictionary" or "product usage data audit", a lot of companies published template and spreadsheet you can use. I can even send you a few after."

"可以请我,但不必非请我。你 Google 搜一下"data dictionary"或者"product usage data audit",很多公司有公开的模板和表格。我事后甚至可以给你发几份。"

"And then you can just go through basically the key idea — go through your product experience, identify the key actions, and go through your data instrumentation and see do they match."

"核心思路就是:走一遍你的产品体验,把关键动作识别出来,再对照你的埋点,看是否对得上。"

"And the success of this is you identify the gaps, and eventually you want to establish something called a data dictionary."

"做这件事的目标就是把缺口找出来,并最终建立一份"数据字典"(data dictionary)。"

"Like I basically do that for a lot of my clients, and the data dictionary will include here are all the key actions, what's the event name for each of those, and what are the properties and things like that."

"我给很多客户做的就是这件事。数据字典里会有:所有关键动作、每个动作对应的事件名、有哪些 property 等等。"

"But you now know, hey, I have this action tracked, this is the name. If I have a new product manager analyst, they can all refer to this, and everyone know this thing means the same definition rather than people are interpreting differently."

"于是你知道"这个动作被埋了,事件名是这个"。新来的 PM 或分析师都能查这份字典,大家对同一个东西的定义一致,而不是各人解释各人的。"

"So, that's a very important part to success even before the tooling."

"这件事,在挑工具之前,就极其重要。"

"Awesome. It also reminds me a previous guest, Crystal Widjaja, has an awesome post on why most analytics efforts fail, and she talks a lot about this — of how to set your events up for success. So we'll link to that as well."

"也让我想起之前一位嘉宾 Crystal Widjaja——她写过一篇关于"为什么大部分分析项目失败"的文章,讲了很多怎么把 event 设置好。show notes 也会附上。"

"Maybe one last thing here. I'm trying to think about what would screw people up most, and it's probably not having a data warehouse and ETL sorts of tooling in place because that feeds a lot of this. Is there anything you want to add there about just the importance of a data warehouse and how to set that up?"

"最后一个问题:我想想什么最容易把大家坑了——很可能是没有 data warehouse、没有 ETL 这一套,因为这些是底座。你对 data warehouse 的重要性以及怎么搭,有什么想补的吗?"

"Some of the early stage companies I work with, when they just get started in the very beginning, they don't have data warehouse. They just basically have their product and they have some sort of Google Analytics or Amplitude, and that's it. It's pretty wild, but it's working, and they can get to some place from there."

"有些早期公司刚起步的时候,根本没 data warehouse。就是产品 + Google Analytics 或者 Amplitude,完事。挺野的,但能跑起来,也能走到一定程度。"

"But as soon as you begin to have data users, it's time to get serious to establish a data warehouse, have some ETL solution."

"但只要你开始有"数据使用者",就该认真起来,搭一个 data warehouse、加一套 ETL 方案。"

"There are like — I think there are the most common best practice ones like AWS and things like that. There are also some startups that are doing this, and you can utilize as well."

"业内最常见的最佳实践就是 AWS 这类;也有不少 startup 在做这个方向,可以用。"

"But again, as soon as you become a serious business, you should invest in that. Otherwise it's pretty wild and it's pretty fragile as well."

"再说一次,只要你认真做生意,就该投入。不然挺野、也挺脆弱。"

"And when you say AWS, you mean Redshift, I imagine?"

"你说 AWS,指的是 Redshift 这种吧?"

"Yeah."

"对。"

"Cool. Awesome. Okay. Final area that we have time for, which is awesome, which is around building your team. So, maybe just two questions here."

"OK,最后一块——团队怎么搭。两个问题:"

"What is your advice for starting the initial team investing in PLG? Like how does that usually look, and what do you think people should do?"

"第一,初期投入 PLG 的团队,你建议怎么搭?通常是什么样的形态?你建议人们怎么做?"

"And then later, how does that evolve over time?"

"第二,之后这个团队会怎么演化?"

"How I see most companies started is the founder or the leadership team realize that they need to do PLG, and they build a conviction."

"我看到大部分公司起步是这样:创始人或者领导层意识到要做 PLG,逐渐建立起信念。"

"They want to — maybe initially there isn't even a dedicated team, but they did something here and there, they decided to invest in this."

"他们想——一开始可能连专门团队都没有,东一榔头西一棒槌地做了点事情,然后决定要投入。"

"And a common place to start is to hire a head of growth, or it can be a lead growth PM, but someone who is relatively — has a little bit experience in this area."

"很常见的起步是招一位 head of growth,或者一个 lead growth PM——总之是这个领域有一定经验的人。"

"And then they begin to build this core growth squad as the first growth team."

"然后基于这位负责人,搭出第一个 core growth squad(核心增长小分队)。"

"I think that's a very common place to start."

"这是非常常见的起点。"

"The other place to start that's less common, but I also seen happening in reality, is maybe they will start a cross-functional, almost like a tiger team."

"另一种没那么常见、但现实里我也看到过的,是搭一个跨职能的小队,叫做 tiger team。"

"Because if the initial focus area is let's say they want to do product qualified lead, or basically add that funnel, that involves not only product team, that involves data team because you want to know what are the usage patterns that indicate this is better leads."

"如果初期聚焦点是做 PQL,或者补上那条漏斗——它不光涉及产品团队,还要数据团队,因为你要找出哪些 usage pattern 表示"这是好的 lead"。"

"You also need to bring sales team in because they need to work on those leads to close them."

"你还要把销售团队拉进来,因为他们要去做这些线索,把它们 close 掉。"

"So, if that's the initial starting area, a cross-functional tiger team is also possible and option."

"所以如果初期聚焦是 PQL,搭一个跨职能 tiger team 也是一个选项。"

"But the most common way is hire a head of growth, usually a growth PM, and then start a team with engineering, design, data to support that core growth squad."

"但最常见还是:先招一位 head of growth(通常是 growth PM),再配上研发、设计、数据,把核心小分队撑起来。"

"And the main difference between these two — one is dedicated, we are going to dedicate full-time people to helping us grow. Like we talked about earlier, let's say they're going to focus on activation, and that's their whole job."

"两者的核心差别是:第一种是专职的——我们决定让一拨人全职做增长。比如刚说的,他们就盯激活,这是他们全部的活。"

"Versus tiger team is basically they're borrowing resources from other teams, and this is kind of like a side project for them."

"tiger team 则是从别的团队借资源,对这些人来说算个 side project。"

"Yeah, a little bit for a period of time. So, it's temporary."

"对,一段时间内是这样,所以它是临时的。"

"Usually the cross-functional team, the tiger team, is a little bit prior to full commitment."

"通常这种跨职能的 tiger team,是在"还没完全 commit"之前的状态。"

"They're pretty much committed, but they still want to try this out and get a final conviction, and then they begin to dedicate resources."

"他们基本是 commit 的,但还想再试一下、把最后的信念建立起来,之后才开始正式投入专职资源。"

"And you asked about what's the — how do they evolve from there? Before we actually get there, maybe one more quick question. Which would you recommend — like when does it... Imagine you recommend a dedicated team if you can do that. When would it make sense to go the tiger team route?"

"在聊它怎么演化前,先快一个问题:如果资源允许,你大概率推荐专职团队。那什么情况下走 tiger team 这条路更合适?"

"One situation I would recommend is that if the initial focus area is like I said, product qualified leads, the sales conversion path."

"一种我会推荐 tiger team 的情况,就是我刚说的——初期聚焦是 PQL、销售转化路径。"

"Because if you think about you have a head of growth or core growth PM, that person usually has a growth PM background and he's in the product organization."

"因为如果你有一位 head of growth 或核心 growth PM,他通常是 growth PM 背景,坐在产品组织里。"

"And they're awesome if the initial focus areas are activation, conversion — those involve a lot of experimentation."

"如果初期聚焦是激活、转化(实验密集的领域),他们能力非常匹配。"

"Activation, conversion are relatively confined. It's something the growth PM and engineer, design, data they can work on."

"激活和转化相对自洽——growth PM 加上工程、设计、数据就能搞起来。"

"If your initial focus area, you feel like my biggest pain is actually do this PQL thing, it is a little bit harder for the growth PM to socialize all those cross-functional resources because he need to get pretty deep into data."

"但如果你最大的痛点其实是搞 PQL,这件事对 growth PM 来说就更难——他要深入数据。"

"He needs to have a counterpart in sales, even in marketing. So, in that case, I think it is possible that maybe you start a tiger team."

"还要在销售、甚至市场那边找对位的人。这种场景下,起一个 tiger team 是合理的。"

"You can combine both, right? You can have a growth PM dedicated, but have some tiger team to be working with him or her on this PQL project as well."

"你也可以两个一起干——专职的 growth PM 加一个 tiger team,共同推 PQL 项目。"

"Got it. And I like this term tiger team, by the way. I haven't heard that before. That's the — sounds like a lot of fun. Very dynamic."

"懂了。顺带说一句,我喜欢 tiger team 这个词,以前没听过,听着挺好玩、有动感。"

"Okay, cool. And then yeah, what happens next after you have this initial team?"

"OK,接下来呢?有了初始团队之后会发生什么?"

"Once you have this initial team, it's important to give them the resources they need and give them an initial focus area. Give them support and a little bit time, allow them to try things out and get some early wins."

"有了初始团队后,关键是给他们资源、给他们一个起步聚焦点,给支持、给一点时间,让他们试一试、拿到一些 early win。"

"And early win is the biggest thing, I would say, for whenever you start a new growth team, try to look for some opportunity, try to get some early wins in whichever area you choose."

"early win 是最重要的事——任何新增长团队起步时,先在你选定的领域里找机会、尽快赢一两场。"

"And from there, if you get some of the wins, the team has some momentum, there are more confidence from the organization in PLG. It's time to potentially expand and formalize."

"赢了几次之后,团队有势能、组织对 PLG 也有信心了——这时候就该考虑扩张、正式化(formalize)。"

"So, fundamentally, I think you should not only think about a PLG team, you should think about a PLG org. Because PLG is a motion. It's cross-functional by nature. It's not just a product team or growth team."

"从根本上,我觉得你想的不该只是"PLG 团队",而是"PLG org"。PLG 是一种动作,本质是跨职能的,不只是产品或增长团队的事。"

"Eventually, you need to get to the place basically there is a head of growth product. That's the center of the PLG org."

"最终,你要走到这样的格局:有一位 Head of Growth Product,他是 PLG org 的中心。"

"But there's also need to be a head of growth marketing. That's his or her counterpart in marketing organization. And then, head of product-led sales. That's the counterpart in the sales organization."

"还要有一位 Head of Growth Marketing——市场组织里对位的人;以及一位 Head of Product-Led Sales——销售组织里对位的人。"

"Exactly how they sit is different company by company. The most common way is head of growth product reports to product org, head of growth marketing reports to marketing, head of product-led sales reports to sales."

"具体的汇报关系每家公司不同。最常见的是:Head of Growth Product 报给产品组织,Head of Growth Marketing 报给市场,Head of Product-Led Sales 报给销售。"

"But they have some sort of very strong collaboration because they are working in the same motion and same funnel."

"但他们之间要有非常强的协作,因为他们跑的是同一个动作、同一个漏斗。"

"That's the next step, think about this org. Once you have those counterparts in product, in sales, in marketing, the next step is think about what are the metrics they own to make sure you can manage this funnel, this motion in a data-driven way."

"接下来再考虑这个 org 的指标:每个人 own 什么 KPI,这样你才能用数据驱动地管理整条漏斗、整个动作。"

"Because the PLG metrics are very different from SLG. The top of funnel is more about high-quality sign-ups. You don't want a lot of traffic, you want free sign-ups, free trials, but they need to meet certain quality bar."

"PLG 的指标跟 SLG 非常不同。漏斗顶层看的是"高质量的注册",不是流量越多越好——免费注册、免费试用要达到一定的质量门槛。"

"It's not just like anyone, right? And then, the head of growth product, his or her top KPI is about usage, activation. Activated teams is a very very common metric."

"不能随便谁都算。Head of Growth Product 的核心 KPI 是 usage、activation,"activated teams"是非常常用的一个指标。"

"And then, maybe number of PQLs. If that's another — you want to get those teams to certain usage threshold, basically."

"另一项可能是 PQL 数量——本质就是"把这些团队推到某个 usage 门槛之上"。"

"And then, the head of product-led sales, he will be focused on converting those PQLs into revenue. So, he will focus a lot on conversion rate, efficiency, and maybe revenue."

"Head of Product-Led Sales 则盯着把这些 PQL 转成 revenue。他主要关注转化率、效率,还有 revenue。"

"Got it. And you're sharing a lot of org design verbally in the post, which we'll share obviously in the show notes. You can actually see a diagram of what these look like to help kind of make it super clear."

"明白。你 post 里讲了很多 org design,show notes 会附——读者可以直接看图,会更直观。"

"I have maybe just one more question. Going back to the initial team, what are the functions you recommend they have on this MVP PLG team?"

"再问一个问题:回到初始团队,你建议 MVP PLG 团队里要有哪些职能?"

"The most important one is head of growth PM to be the lead, right? Head of growth, director of growth, lead growth PM."

"最重要的是 head of growth PM,作为 lead——head of growth、director of growth、lead growth PM,叫法不重要。"

"And then, the growth PM, as you know probably very well, growth PM — he's a PM but has a much stronger skill set in analytics, experimentation, very data-driven, think about metrics."

"growth PM 你大概很熟——他是 PM,但在分析、实验、数据驱动、看指标方面要比一般 PM 强很多。"

"The growth PM's way of working is similar to other product manager, but his KPIs is actually more similar to the sales and marketing org. He's very focused on the conversion rate, the journey, the funnel versus feature specifically itself."

"growth PM 的工作方式跟普通 PM 接近,但他的 KPI 更像销售和市场——盯的是转化率、用户旅程、漏斗,而不是某个具体功能本身。"

"And then, the other functions you need to have for sure — I would often say actually a data analyst needs to be the very first hire."

"其他必备的职能里——我经常说,数据分析师其实应该是第一个雇佣。"

"Sometimes even try to find a growth PM who can do end-to-end analysis. If you're really small, you can't find that type of unicorn person."

"有时候可以试着找一位能做端到端分析的 growth PM。但如果你公司很小,这种独角兽人才不好找。"

"Or even before hiring growth PM, hire analyst. I would actually go as far as that. Because without insights, without a lot of foundation, your experimentation, your effort is really directionless."

"在招 growth PM 之前先招分析师——我会说到这个地步。因为没有洞察、没有数据地基,你的实验和努力都没有方向。"

"So, growth PM, analyst, and from there, definitely you need some dedicated engineer, you need a designer."

"growth PM、分析师之后,你肯定还要有专职工程师、设计师。"

"Designer can be somewhat not dedicated in early days, but engineer needs to be — some sort of a user research support as well. It doesn't need to be dedicated, but those are the core growth squad."

"设计师早期可以不完全专职,但工程师要专;再加上一些用户研究的支持(不需要专职)——这就是核心增长小分队。"

"Okay, real actual last question here. For the growth PM, in your experience, are they most often coming from within the company already and they kind of shift to this role, or do you recommend they find someone externally?"

"真的最后一个问题:你经验里,growth PM 一般是公司内部转岗过来的多,还是建议外部找?"

"That's an excellent question. I have seen both. I actually recommend if you can find someone internally — maybe he's a PM, he wants to do growth, or he is an analyst who wants to become more like a product role."

"好问题。两种我都见过。如果能从内部找,我其实更推荐——一位想转做增长的 PM,或者想偏产品方向的分析师。"

"I even have one client, the head of growth I work with used to be a head of investor relations. He reports to the CEO and the founder. He's very analytical. He hasn't been a PM before."

"我甚至有个客户,我们合作的那位 head of growth 之前是 head of investor relations(投资者关系负责人),报给 CEO/创始人,非常会做分析,他之前都没当过 PM。"

"But he can socialize the resource within the company to launch experiments in product, in marketing, in all of that. And I as an advisor come in, guide him in the area he's not familiar with, and we actually drive pretty good results together."

"但他能在公司内部把资源调动起来,在产品、市场各处推实验。我作为顾问介入,在他不熟的领域带他,我俩一起做出挺不错的结果。"

"So, I think prefer hiring internally if possible. If not, if you really don't have anyone internally with that knowledge or with that interest, you can look outside."

"所以可能的话,优先从内部招。如果内部确实没人有相应知识或兴趣,再去外部找。"

"I would say map the initial growth PM hire to your starting point. Like if we already decided activation, right? It's the biggest focus area, try to find some PM growth PM with that experience."

"建议:第一位 growth PM 的画像要对齐你的起步聚焦点。比如你已经定了激活是最大方向,就找有激活经验的 growth PM。"

"And if like the conversion is the focus area, acquisition focus area, try to find someone with that experience."

"如果聚焦在转化或获客,就找有对应经验的人。"

"I love that advice. We've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got actually seven questions for you, the most ever we've had for a lightning round. Are you ready?"

"这个建议真好。我们到了激动人心的闪电问答环节——我准备了 7 个问题,是这个环节的历史新高。准备好了吗?"

"I'm ready."

"准备好了。"

"Okay. What are two or three books that you recommend most to other people?"

"第一个问题:你最常推荐的 2、3 本书是什么?"

"The first one is called the Almanack of Naval. I don't know whether you read that one. I really love that one. That's kind of a life-changing book for me."

"第一本是《The Almanack of Naval Ravikant》。不知道你读没读过——我太喜欢了,对我来说是改变人生的一本书。"

"Do you have a favorite Navalism that comes to mind?"

"你最喜欢的"Navalism"(Naval 的金句)是哪一句?"

"I learned finding leverage from him. He talked about there are four types of leverage. It can be your writing, it can be code, it can be capital, it can be team."

""找杠杆"这件事是从他那学的。他讲过四种杠杆:写作、代码、资本、团队。"

"So, the reason why I invest a lot in writing is like I felt like that's my leverage. And I love that."

"我之所以在写作上投入这么多,就是因为我觉得那是我的杠杆。我超爱这个观念。"

"The second book is called How Women Rise. I really love this one. I gifted this to a lot of my female team members, and I really learned a lot from them."

"第二本是《How Women Rise》。我非常喜欢。我把这本送给了团队里很多女性同事,我自己也学到很多。"

"And the third one is my book. It's called 硅谷增长黑客实战笔记. It's all in Chinese. If you don't read Chinese, you cannot read it."

"第三本是我自己的书——《硅谷增长黑客实战笔记》。全中文。不读中文就读不了。"

"But I heard my friends told me if you are launching email campaign, if you are doing experiments, have this book by the side will help with conversion rate. Just by its appearance."

"但我朋友跟我说,做 email campaign、做实验的时候,把这本书放在手边,光是它在那儿,转化率就会涨。"

"That's amazing. Is there an English translation, or is it only in Chinese right now?"

"太牛了。有英文版没有?现在只有中文版吗?"

"Only in Chinese, so you have work."

"只有中文,所以你有活儿要干。"

"I see. All right, there's an advantage there if you can speak Chinese, your email conversion go up."

"懂了。看来会中文还是有红利的——你的 email 转化率会更高。"

"Favorite recent movie or TV show?"

"下一个问题:最近最喜欢的电影或剧集?"

"I watched a movie, it's a sci-fi movie from China, it's called The Wandering Earth II. It's by the famous author Cixin Liu. He's the author of Three Bodies. I don't know whether you heard of him."

"我看了一部中国的科幻片,叫《流浪地球 2》。原作是著名作家刘慈欣,《三体》的作者——不知道你有没有听过他。"

"Oh my god, I love that book. It is awesome."

"天哪,我超爱《三体》。太棒了。"

"It's really cool. I really highly recommend it."

"特别酷,强烈推荐。"

"I have to go check that out. Oh my god. I heard they're bringing Three-Body Problem to Apple TV or Netflix. There's like a show coming."

"我得去看。听说他们在把《三体》搬上 Apple TV 或 Netflix,有剧在做。"

"Yes. I look forward to that as well. I've watched many versions already kind of filmed. It's not novels that are easy. That's the problem. It's so hard to do well."

"是的,我也很期待。已经看过好几个改编版本——这小说不好拍,这是问题所在,真的太难拍好了。"

"Oh man, I'm not optimistic, but I'm excited anyway."

"我不太乐观,但还是挺期待。"

"Favorite interview question that you like to ask?"

"下一个:你最喜欢的面试问题?"

"When I interview growth PMs or analysts, I will always ask: what is the experiment you launched that has a very unexpected result? And what did you do after that?"

"面试 growth PM 或分析师,我必问的一题是:你做过的、结果非常意外的实验是什么?之后你做了什么?"

"What do you look for in an answer there that makes you feel like they are strong?"

"你在答案里找的什么,会让你觉得这位候选人很强?"

"First of all, they have to be launching a lot of experiments to get a very unexpected answer."

"首先,他得跑过很多实验才会有"特别意外"的结果。"

"Many people remember their success for interview, right? They prepare that very well. I don't want to ask like what's your successful experiment."

"很多人面试时都记得自己的成功案例,准备得很充分。所以我不问"你最成功的实验"。"

"Secondly, I want to know just like why it's unexpected. That reveals the deep level of their thinking, how deep they are thinking."

"其次,我想知道"为什么意外"。这能暴露他的思考深度。"

"If they should expect that based on what they described, then they are not thinking deep enough, they are not understanding customer enough."

"如果按他描述的设定,本来应该能预料到——那说明他想得不够深、对用户理解不够。"

"And what they do afterwards is also awesome. Like how do you face a failure or unexpected result? What are the clues you can pursue? What are the actions you can take? How do you learn something out of it?"

""之后做了什么"也很有意思:面对失败或意外结果,你怎么处理?能顺哪些线索?能采取什么行动?你能从中学到什么?"

"I love it. What's a favorite recent product you've recently discovered that you love?"

"赞。最近发现的、你特别爱的产品是什么?"

"I would say like similar to everyone, ChatGPT, but also Lululemon yoga pants."

"跟大家一样:ChatGPT。不过还有 Lululemon 的瑜伽裤。"

"Amazing. Great. What's something relatively minor you've changed in your product development process that has had a tremendous impact on a team's ability to execute?"

"棒。下一个:你在产品开发流程里改过的"相对很小"的一件事,但对团队执行力影响巨大——是什么?"

"I added basically a section in the doc, in the ticket spec. Ask the PMs to write the success metric ahead of time, as well as adding which of the growth lever this is helping. Is this contributing to acquisition, activation, retention, monetization?"

"我在文档/ticket spec 里加了一个 section,要求 PM 提前写出成功指标,并标注这件事推的是哪个增长杠杆——获客、激活、留存,还是商业化?"

"And it forced them to sometimes think through deeply, why are we even doing this? Sometimes they ended up not doing that. By just writing it down."

"这件事强迫他们偶尔深想一下"我们到底为什么要做这个?"。光是"写下来"这一动作,有时就让他们最后选择不做了。"

"I love that. Next question, I know you're big on children's books. Do you have a favorite children's book?"

"赞。下一个问题:我知道你很喜欢儿童读物,你最爱的儿童书是?"

"My favorite children's book is called Someday. I recommend everyone to check it out. It's talking about how our children used to be our baby, become our kids, and when they are taller and more stronger than us, and they will remember us."

"我最喜欢的儿童书叫《Someday》。强烈推荐每个人看看。书里讲的是:我们的孩子曾经是小宝宝,长成了小孩,当有一天他们比我们更高、更强壮,他们会记得我们。"

"Aw. Yeah. I'm going to need to check that out now."

"哇,我得去看一看。"

"And final question, I know you're big on growth concepts. You have all these frameworks and concepts, and so what is your favorite growth concept?"

"最后一个问题:我知道你迷增长概念——你脑子里那么多框架和概念,你最喜欢的"增长概念"是哪一个?"

"I would say North Star metric because I find it's not only valuable to growth, it's valuable to just everything."

"North Star Metric(北极星指标)。我发现它不光对增长有用,对任何事都有用。"

"When I think about what do I want to do with my career, does that fit my own personal North Star metric?"

"我想职业选择的时候——这个选项符不符合我个人的北极星指标?"

"When I think about how I want to raise my kids, I think about what's the North Star metric for successful education or for my kid because it forced me to think long-term."

"我想怎么养孩子的时候——"成功的教育"或"我孩子"的北极星指标是什么?——这逼我用长期视角去想。"

"It forced me to think about what's valuable to me, to them, not only by the society standards, ARR revenue, like salary, right?"

"它强迫我去想:对我自己、对他们,真正有价值的是什么?——不只是社会标准里的 ARR、薪水。"

"And also what's my vision for myself and for my kids."

"也是在问:我对自己、对孩子的愿景是什么?"

"I love that. It reminds me of a recent guest where she always asks, "What are you optimizing for?" Whether she's talking with her kids or her husband or her team. Similar concept."

"特别好。这让我想起最近一位嘉宾,她不管是跟孩子、丈夫还是团队,都会问"你在 optimize for 什么?"——很相似的概念。"

"Hila, this was incredible. I think we've shared tens of thousands of dollars of value and it will probably lead to millions of dollars of revenue for a lot of companies."

"Hila,这一期太精彩。我们今天分享的价值是几万美元级别的,而对很多公司来说,可能会变成几百万美元的 revenue。"

"And it's everything I hoped it would be. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing so much wisdom."

"和我预期的完全一样,谢谢你来,也谢谢你分享了这么多智慧。"

"Two final questions, where can folks find you online if they want to reach out and learn more, and how can listeners be useful to you?"

"最后两个问题:大家想联系你或者了解更多,可以去哪儿?听众怎么对你有帮助?"

"Yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn. Just search Hila Qu, H-I-L-A Q-U, you can find me."

"LinkedIn 上搜 Hila Qu(H-I-L-A Q-U)就能找到我。"

"I have a personal website that's under development, but I contracted to my kid, to my 12-year-old, so he needs to wait until summer, and hopefully this summer he can finish it."

"我个人网站在做,但我把它"外包"给了我 12 岁的孩子,得等到暑假——希望这个暑假他能搞完。"

"Like if you're a founder, you're looking for a growth advisor, feel free to hit me up. I'm always happy to just have a free call with founders and leaders, get to know more people."

"如果你是创始人,在找增长顾问,随时找我。我一直乐意跟创始人和团队负责人免费聊一次、认识更多人。"

"And I'm a growth nerd, so I always want to growth nerd about growth anyway."

"我本身就是增长 nerd,反正我永远愿意跟人聊增长。"

"Amazing. Hila, again, thank you so much for being here."

"太棒了。Hila,再次感谢你来。"

"Thank you. Bye, everyone. Bye."

"谢谢。大家再见,拜拜。"

"Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app."

"谢谢你的收听。如果你觉得这一期有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或者你喜欢的播客 app 上订阅这个节目。"

"Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast."

"也欢迎给我们打个分、留个评——这对其他听众找到这个播客真的有帮助。"

"You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode."

"所有过往的剧集和节目介绍都在 lennyspodcast.com。下一期见。"