Lauren Isford, Head of Self Serve Product at Airtable, shared her perspective on product led growth in an episode of the Product Podcast by Product School. Let’s discuss some of the takeaways.
Lauren started as a barista at Philz. Then, she became an analyst at Blue Bottle. Soon after, she landed a role doing Product Growth at Facebook. She was responsible for new user education and onboarding. Her staple project was releasing Reels in India following the Tik-Tok ban.
In the last 10 years, growth used to be a marketing function at startups. It was all about SEO / SEM, performance marketing, website conversion, and optimizing signup flow. However, Lauren explains, these methods cap out, claiming you can only setup so many perfect email campaigns before there’s diminishing returns to impact.
She calls it the “Leaky Bucket Problem.”
If there is no growth person deliberately understanding every step in the funnel, and prioritizing the user’s onboarding experience, that user will churn out on the other side. Lauren emphasizes how critical it is to illustrate the value of the product in an easy to digest manner.
Stepping back, let’s analyze Airtable’s business model. There’s two core teams: Product Revenue, and Enterprise. Product Revenue focuses on self serve and the success of users towards signup and payment. This includes lead acquisition and triaging that customer to the right experience (or paid tier of service). Enterprise takes over opportunities that need a bit more hand-holding. This team focuses on large accounts.
It’s worth highlighting that each business unit requires similar investment. Lauren notes “For many organizations there is a strong point of view that self serve is the revenue generating engine, or sales is the revenue generating engine, but the truth is they have to coexist and you’re leaving opportunity on the table if you don’t pursue both in parallel.”
It’s a trend in SAAS products to split into “self serve” and “white glove” teams. One team focuses on automation, the other on funding it.
It’s also a trend not building too many features at once. Lauren suggests doing a few things very well, and observe user dog food your product. Data can solve some problems, but not all, so be aware of how users progress through your product. And call your customers. Calibrate yourself to your users’ needs.
