Why product-led growth is the future | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Surveymonkey)

The dichotomy between Sales-Led Growth and Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a false one. For years, B2B companies have treated these go-to-market motions as binary choices, often pivoting aggressively from one to the other at the expense of their momentum. However, according to Elena Verna—who has led growth at SurveyMonkey, Miro, Netlify, and Amplitude—successful modern growth is not about switching strategies; it is about layering them. In a landscape where the end-user now holds the purchasing power previously reserved for the executive buyer, understanding how to integrate self-serve loops with enterprise sales is the single biggest differentiator for scaling companies.

Key Takeaways

• Growth is a layering game, not a switch: Successful companies do not abandon sales to go product-led, nor do they abandon PLG to go enterprise. They layer one motion on top of the other to amplify growth.
• The "Enterprise Trap" is common and avoidable: Many PLG startups accidentally crush their growth engine by over-pivoting to outbound sales after closing their first few large deals.
• Freemium outperforms time-bound trials in B2B: Time-bound trials often fail because enterprise adoption cycles are longer than the trial period. Freemium models allow users to adopt at their own pace.
• Product-Led Sales (PLS) will eventually box out traditional sales: The future of B2B sales lies in mining product usage data to identify hand-raisers rather than relying on cold outbound or marketing-qualified leads (MQLs).
• Hire internally for your first growth lead: External hires often try to "copy-paste" playbooks from previous companies. Internal hires understand the product's unique context and are better suited for the initial growth evolution.

The Consumerization of B2B Growth

Historically, B2B software was designed for the buyer, not the user. The primary goal was to satisfy an enterprise checklist—security, compliance, and data storage—often at the expense of usability. This dynamic created a generation of "cold" interfaces that employees were forced to use but rarely enjoyed. Today, that hierarchy has inverted.

The decision-making power has shifted from the executive suite to the prosumer. Employees now bring tools like Slack, Miro, and Amplitude into the workplace from the bottom up. Consequently, B2B companies must now adopt the engagement tactics of B2C giants. It is no longer enough to be efficient; products must be effective, habit-forming, and capable of generating delight.

If a company continues to build solely for the enterprise buyer, they leave themselves vulnerable to disruption by a product-led competitor that wins over the end-users first.

The "Layering" Strategy: Blending PLG and Sales

A common misconception in the startup world is that a company must identify as either product-led or sales-led. Verna argues that this binary thinking is a strategic error. The most robust growth models view these motions as sequential layers rather than replacement strategies.

The game is a layering game... never to switch. So in the most successful companies, whether they go from product-led to sales-led, or sales-led to product-led, they are able to execute both correctly and together.

Defining Product-Led Growth Correctly

To execute this layering correctly, leaders must broaden their definition of PLG. It is not merely an acquisition tactic. A truly product-led organization applies the philosophy across three pillars:

1. Acquisition: Can users find and start using the product organically?
2. Retention: Does the product activate users and build habit loops without human intervention?
3. Monetization: Can the product convert users to paid plans via self-serve flows?

Founders should prioritize being product-led in retention before anything else. If a product cannot activate and engage users habitually, pouring resources into product-led acquisition will result in a leaky bucket. Once retention is solved, companies can layer on sales teams to handle monetization for complex, high-value contracts while keeping the self-serve engine running for the broader market.

The Enterprise Trap: How Startups Crush PLG

There is a dangerous pattern that occurs when PLG companies begin to move upmarket. Verna outlines a scenario that plays out in roughly 80% of companies that start with a bottom-up motion.

The cycle typically looks like this:

• The company gains traction through self-serve usage and word-of-mouth.
• They close their first massive enterprise deal (often six figures) based on existing user adoption.
• Intoxicated by the high Average Contract Value (ACV), leadership pivots resources entirely to sales. They hire enterprise reps, invest in outbound demand generation, and shift the product roadmap to build features solely for buyers.
• The Result: The pipeline eventually dries up.

The mistake lies in forgetting the source of those initial enterprise deals. The first large contracts were closed because of a groundswell of individual usage. By diverting resources away from the self-serve product and user growth, the company cuts off the supply of internal advocates who fuel the enterprise pipeline.

To avoid this, companies must maintain their investment in user-centric features and PLG mechanisms even as they scale their sales teams. The goal is to expand, not replace.

The Future is Product-Led Sales

As the industry evolves, the "Product-Led Sales" (PLS) model is emerging as the dominant go-to-market strategy, potentially boxing out traditional top-down sales over the next decade. In this model, the product acts as the primary lead generation engine.

Instead of sales teams prospecting cold leads, they focus on product qualification. They analyze usage patterns—volume, velocity, and feature breadth—to identify accounts that are ready for an enterprise conversation. This shifts the role of the salesperson from convincing a skeptical buyer to assisting a user who is already receiving value.

Product-led sales focuses on pipeline creation that is usage as opposed to marketing qualified leads... You start with usage and that drives additional hooks into your growth model.

This approach drastically lowers Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) because the "lead" is a user rather than a buyer, and the intent data is behavioral rather than demographic.

Freemium vs. Free Trial: The Strategic Advantage

When deciding between a time-bound free trial and a freemium model, the latter is increasingly superior for B2B contexts. The fundamental flaw of the time-bound trial (e.g., 14 days) is that it imposes an arbitrary deadline that rarely aligns with the complex reality of enterprise adoption.

In a large organization, it may take weeks or months for a champion to organize a project, get approvals, or integrate a new tool. A 7-day trial expires before the user has a chance to experience the "aha" moment. A freemium model, or a usage-based free tier (like MongoDB’s free cluster), removes the anxiety of the ticking clock.

The Strategic Value of "Free"

Freemium should not be viewed solely as a conversion optimization tactic. It serves multiple strategic purposes:

• Indirect Monetization: Free users may never pay, but they generate content, invite others, and create network effects that attract paying users (e.g., Miro’s free editable boards).
• Innovation Breeding Ground: A large free user base allows companies to test adjacent use cases and discover new personas before committing to a paid roadmap.
• Commoditization Defense: If a core feature set is becoming commoditized in the market, offering it for free can act as a defensive moat against competitors.

Hiring Your First Growth Lead

For founders looking to establish a formal growth function, the instinct is often to hire a high-profile "Head of Growth" from a successful tech giant. Verna advises against this for early-stage companies.

Growth is an evolution, not a revolution. An external hire often faces a high rejection rate because they attempt to "copy-paste" playbooks from their previous company. A strategy that worked at a competitor or a different B2B tool is rarely directly transferable due to differences in product context and market dynamics.

Instead, founders should look internally. The best first growth hire is often a data analyst, a product manager, or an engineer who already understands the product's DNA and has a "growth mindset." This person can run the initial experiments and build a growth culture that is authentic to the specific company. External leaders are best brought in later to scale and optimize a model that has already demonstrated some product-market fit.

Conclusion

The transition to product-led growth requires a fundamental shift in how companies view their users. It is no longer about closing the deal at any cost; it is about proving value before the check is written. By avoiding the trap of switching entirely to sales, embracing the long-game of freemium, and leveraging product usage as the ultimate sales signal, B2B companies can build resilient, efficient engines that scale sustainably. The companies that win in the next decade will be those that respect the user as the ultimate decision-maker.