20Growth: Inside Dropbox, Salesforce & Heroku's Product-Led Growth Engine; What Works & What Doesn't | Why Startups Doing Paid Under $100M ARR are not PLG | Why PLG is a Business Model, Not a Go-To-Market Motion with Adam Gross, Former CEO @ Vimeo

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Adam Gross is one of the masters of product-led growth (PLG). Most recently, Adam was Vimeo's interim CEO. Before Vimeo, Adam was CEO of Heroku, which he joined after selling his startup, Cloudconnect in 2013. Additionally, Adam has held executive leadership roles at Salesforce and Dropbox, and has been an active angel investor & advisor to companies, including Buildkite, Cribl, and Tailscale.

In Today’s Episode with Adam Gross We Discuss:

1. PLG Tactics from Dropbox, Heroku and Salesforce:

• What were Adam’s biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce? How did it shape his growth mindset?

• What did Adam learn about customer acquisition at Dropbox?

• What would Adam most like to change about growth today?

2. Product-Led Growth: The Fundamentals:

• What is growth? What is it not? What do founders get wrong about growth?

• Why does Adam think PLG is not for everybody?

• What do most great PLG businesses have in common?

• How are value propositions segmented in PLG? How can startups transition from individual to enterprise clients?

• Why does Adam think startups doing paid acquisition sub $100M aren’t actually PLG?

3. The Secrets to Optimizing Growth Channels:

• What are the most common reasons fast-growing companies plateau?

• How does Adam advise founders on diversifying channels?

• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when scaling into enterprise?

• How should startups do effective product marketing in horizontal products?

• What is emotive & strategic marketing? How should startups balance both?

4. How Angel Investing Changes How You View Companies:

• What are Adam’s top 3 pieces of advice for founders?

• What does Adam mean when he says you are either hiring a poet or a librarian?

• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when hiring?

• What was Adam’s biggest investment miss? What did he learn from it?