Laura Schaffer: prediction

Transcript context

…Between the AI like SLG and PLG. Yeah, for me they're two sides of the same coin. Product growth and sales. It's all to me, very thematically the same stuff. The difference is that with growth, you are selling with your product, and with sales you're selling with person like one-to-one. And so companies need to be employing both of those forces to optimally convert their audience. We're in a world where people are expecting both. They're expecting to be sold by your product and sold at the enterprise level. And large companies buy by human beings. It's going to listen to their specific needs and really break it off for them. And if you only have one, you're going to miss stuff. So absolutely, I think you want those two forces together working well. And obviously there's different stages, things work differently in different spaces, but I think when it comes to Amplitude, I think there's a huge opportunity here. I think the key is, and that the challenge for companies that have done the sales thing and are trying to crack into the PLG thing really comes down to how you fundamentally are approaching that space. And again, your users and where they're at and the psyche of where they're at, I think a lot of companies will say, "Well okay, hey, we're going to do this PLG stuff. Let's take that sales enterprise whatever offering that we have and let's chop it up a bit and cut access here and cut out this feature here and we're going to slap this plan out and we're going to put a price on it and we'll maybe have hours of debates over whether it's like 10 99 or $104 or 75, and eventually someone will win that battle and slap it on and then [inaudible 01:00:54]." And anyway, the discussion of the focus is a lot around the product. What are we going to do with this product? How are we going to crack it open and shift shift it in and then give it to these people, these users, these visitors? And what it's missing, I think is, and a lot of times it's easy to miss, is that when we're doing PLG and we're shifting from sales to PLG, we need to reset. We need to recognize that, again, this is sales, sales via the product. What does a good sales rep do when they're engaging? They understand what the problem is of the person in the space they're talking to. So we need the same thing here. What are the unique problems of people who are coming into our self-serve space? And I think when it comes to a company like Amplitude, a lot of the folks that will be looking to address via the PLG motion, there's a number of things we want to achieve there, but one of the primary things is to tap into the SMV market market and really give them a really startups and give them a space to land and to grow. And again, you have to think what are the challenges and unique problems that they have because we're going to be using our product to settle them. We need to meet them where they're at with the problems that they've got. o think what are the challenges and unique problems that they have because we're going to be using our product to settle them. We need to meet them where they're at with the problems that they've got. And I think one of the things that I've observed from being in all these startups and advising some startups is I very rarely... I don't think I've ever come across a startup where they have the right number of analysts for their needs. In fact, a lot of them don't have any. And so what that means is that the CEO is being an analyst to create their dashboards for the board and the product manager is being an analyst to figure out what the heck's going on and creating their boards for their product. And that's happening all over the place is that people are in their roles and they have to be an analysts too. And I think that that's a problem that especially younger companies and early stage companies have. And so when they connect their psyche, what are they caring about? What are they thinking about when they're sending it for product analytic product or something? They're looking for something that's going to help them feel reassured they're going to be able to actually get to the bottom of the right metrics, create the reports that show things the right way. What's the best way to show churn? There's got to be a best way so many people are doing it. Guess what? Yes, there are some really good ways to do it and there are some really successful ways to set up dashboards for the board. People have done that too. There's a lot of that knowledge that exists in one of those frameworks that exist, benchmarking. Are these numbers even good? And so, one of the hypotheses that I have is that if we take that perspective and we understand that that is the problem, that there's a number of things that we can do to really change the way that self-serve experience works to help convert people and show them how Amplitude can make them that powerful. But the thing that I think sticks across all companies, not just amplitude making the shift, is just that, that when you're doing this, do not think this is a copy paste, but chop it for parts thing. Don't start with your product when you're building at your strategy, start with your customers, your users, your prospects, the people who are going to be coming into yourself or flow. Make sure you are understanding how their problems differ because they do from the people that you're addressing at the sales led side. And then make sure that you're orienting your experience of product around those people. It's interesting that you almost have to start again as a product company, as a product because you may need to solve completely different problems that eventually lead to the same place. But it's interesting what you're saying that you may end up targeting analysts or PMs. I know Amplitude or has always focused on PMs, but-…

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