The PARTNERNOMICS® Show - Wes Bush: Episode 70, Founder & CEO of ProductLed

Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Partner Nomics Show. Today we're joined by Wes Bush. So Wes is the founder and CEO of Product Led and a super cool company. I know a lot of you folks have probably heard of that but man, Wes is um, one of the foremost experts whenever it comes to product led growth, product led strategies and what it takes to be able to take your organization to be able to leverage product led growth or PLG as it's called. A lot of times whenever I think of plg, I think of it being exclusive to software companies or something that you know, you can easily download, do like a quick trial uh, of that or kind of have this free version. But as Wes shares with us, it's certainly not exclusive to software uh, companies. But I know I learned a lot from this episode and I hope you do as well. Here we go. Welcome to the Partner Nomics show where industry thought leaders discuss the hottest topics in partnerships, ecosystems and innovation. So today we're joining joined by Wes Bush. So Wes is the founder and CEO of Product Led. Wes, how are things going?

Speaker B: Things are going great. Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here and share more about Product led, product led growth, all things how you get to uh, scale more effectively with your product.

Speaker A: So Wes, I want to you know a lot of times whenever I uh, chat with folks I like to go more chronological order so our, our listeners can have an opportunity to learn more about you know, their background and how they got uh, the start into business. Um, what kind of things did you do or kind of what was the first foray into business? I know a lot of folks kind of jump in, get a sales role or get into marketing or product management, m maybe something like that to kind of cut their teeth. But what was uh, what was your first uh, jump into business?

Speaker B: Yeah, so for me it was uh, B2B software tech companies. That was where I initially started and I started doing demand gen digital marketing for the companies. And so at that time that's when like social media was booming and it's like, oh, we gotta get on those new channels and like make a presence. And so my first company I worked at was called Exonify and Elearning Space and really sales led, I would say like uh, selling to like chief learning officers. Quickly learned I was like, you know what, if you're going to market and be good at marketing, you have to love your audience. And so I started looking for something else and I then worked at this company called Vidyard which is really uh, an awesome kind of like video software, uh, company, you can record videos super quickly and easily. And so they were focusing on at that time, like marketers, like, hey, how could you use videos to really uh, create more demands for what you do? And it was awesome coming into that company because they're on just this like crazy growth tear growing from like 50 to 120 people in that one year. And so um, I was, it was, they were still sales led at that time. Like when I refer to sales led for everybody's context, this means like the only way you can sell your software is, is through talking to somebody. Like you gotta book a demo, goes through that whole process. Usually you talk to a sales development rep and then they pass you to your account executive if you're serious. And then great, you become a customer, you go through the customer success process. And so at that time like the, that was the playbook. That's why they got their venture backed funding and everything else to support that crazy growth. But it's back my ends. I was just always thinking, I'm like, know, is that how I buy uh, software? And I was looking at the tools I was using like Slack or Zoom, and I was like, no, it's so backwards. Like I'm spending, at that time I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting white papers and guides where it's like, download our PDF, get like the latest video marketing, uh, 2025 report and then we would send those leads to the sales team there, try and reach out to them and have this whole conversation and try and really create opportunity out of all of it. And I just would always talk to them, I'd be like, is that really, uh, do they like talking to you and everything? They're like, yeah, it kind of feels like we're bothering them in a lot of ways. And then um, luckily about like eight months into that whole journey, like we launched this uh, free product. And this was a simple chrome extension, super easy to use. Like three clicks, you could record a video, send it, and I'd be like, mark, you watch 50% of my video, what the heck? And it was so cool because I got notified. I'm like, oh, you actually watch 55% or 100%. And that really uh, just unlocked a quick aha, huh moment for people where they could easily see the product's value. Whereas before it would take, you know, a few weeks to a month to actually like connect the software, integrate it and showcase that value prop. But now in like a minute or two max, you could see that, um, that's when the growth just took off. Like we had like 100,000 users first year. And then since then like it's been used by million of people that have seen success with that and it's, it's helped them grow substantially faster than they could with the traditional sales LED model. And so uh, we refer that model as being product led. Ah. And so since then I've just started working with, you know, over 400 plus SaaS companies doing exactly this and we've helped them generate over a billion dollars in self serve revenue. And so um, that's my gym. I always feel like, you know, a lot of companies could benefit from being product led. And even if you are listening to this and you're not a software tech company, there's many ways to deploy a product led approach. Like even for us as a services company, you'll find on our website, all our IP is free, like all our books are free. Because if you want to DIY it on uh, product led, like do it please. Because our best customers are the ones where they figured this out. They've got started, they got like a million or 3 million in self serve revenue and they want to scale up to the next level and it's way more fun to work with them at that level. So um, yeah, that's the, the kind of foray into this world of product led growth, a bit of my background and just how we support companies.

Speaker A: So Wes, how do you kind of alluded to this a minute ago, but how do companies know if let's, let's say they are SaaS, how do they know what's kind of the qualifications for, for them to be a great candidate for product led?

Speaker B: Yeah. So conviction is a big thing that I think is super underrated for founders, but they have to have conviction that this is the right way for them to grow. It's not for everybody. Like I'll, I'll be the first to say, like I don't think every company should be product led. And like the ones where I remember always this Fun conversation with VMware and VMware for those that don't know, like it's very complicated. There's a lot that goes on to set it up. And I remember the sales rep being like, um, yeah, like you know what the thing I sell, it's kind of like a heart transplant. Like if this goes down there's like insane amount of people getting fired. Like there is, this is like the core infrastructure of the like these big, big multinational companies. And so I'm like, yeah, you probably wouldn't have a trial for that, right? And that salesperson is like, yeah, absolutely. Because it's actually like these five intricate solutions that he handcrafted and created this like, beautiful sol for people. I'm like, you're adding so much value. Don't stop. Like, the question you have to ask yourself is, is sales adding value or friction? Now if you're selling like, uh, let's say like ClickUp or notion or Zoom, where it's like 20 to 40 bucks per month or something like that, and let's say the only way you can sell it is if you talk to us. First off, the sales are up. The poor sales rep you're going to get is going to be like, oh my goodness, I'm not even making my like, quota, uh, ever. Because it's like the price is so cheap and it doesn't make sense. And then the people who are using that simple product, they're like, why? Please tell me a good reason why I have to talk to you. I just want to see what the product's like. And so, um, in those cases, like, that is something that's really important. Conviction, it's the right kind of product. Um, and so those other things, back to your question of like, what really qualifies you to be like, really great at doing product led? Like, you have to have uh, conviction that it's the right for your market. You should be interested in simplifying something in your space. You shouldn't be like, we're going to create the most complex solution ever and solve enterprise problems. It's like, no, no, we're going to democratize maybe this like complex thing, make it simple and bring it to all SMBs mid market companies and succeed in that. But, um, the biggest myth is it's one or the other. That was something that we actually, uh, promoted a lot because it was like creating awareness, uh, you know, the classic like the villain, sales led. What you want to be is product led, but at the end of the day it's about leveraged growth. Can you scale your revenue without scaling your headcount? And that's really what we're after. And I think product led companies do that uh, a little bit easier than a sales company. Because a sales company, you hire a sales rep, you're like, here's your quota, hit it. Um, and then you grow and grow by adding more people. Whereas, uh, this, it doesn't work that way. You can create a very profitable business with a lot less people.

Speaker A: So it's like whenever I think of uh, product LED growth and um, you know, opportunities. When I've jumped in with that, it's where I can try before I buy. Right. I like, you know, all the statistics play out. You know, it's 85%, I think it's over 85% now of buyers would prefer, even in software, prefer to make a purchase without ever talking to uh, a salesperson. They want like just fully autonomous buying experience. And hopefully the software, let's say in case of sas, the software is so intuitive that I don't need to go through hours of training. It's not so complex. Right. I mean it just, I know what it, I needed to do and it's logical and intuitive to go through that. Um, you know, is there. You mentioned earlier kind of what I pulled from it is. Yeah. If you have um, you know, an SAP or something that's an erp, something that is so super complicated, uh, that's probably not going to be a great fit. Uh, for product LED is um, but then also if it's super inexpensive, um, you know, how is, is there any correlations that you've seen from your experience of here's our software, here's uh, kind of our pricing tiers, if you will. Right. M. That's what product LED growth is about. Right. There's free trials or it's very inexpensive or it's free to, to get these kind of basic features. But then we're trying to have you uh, you know, coax you into going up the ladder, so to speak. Um, you know, what do you typically see when it comes to the types of software or the way that they offer it in different pricing tiers and packages? Um, how, what has your experience been in, in from a, from a product offering perspective of how to best leverage it to get people to go up to, to more significant packages.

Speaker B: Yeah. So a lot of this comes down to just even like I'll, I'll take the macro and then I'll answer the micro part of that. So the macro is like your capabilities need to be uh, quite different than a sales like company. So a sales like company you usually have like very good sales capabilities. And in a product like company, like what changes? Well, like product marketing becomes very important because at the end of the day it's like we have to like we got one shot to kind of communicate exactly what we do, set expectations. And so the difference is really interesting if you look at like a sales LED homepage versus a product LED one, like a product LED one where it's like the only call to action is like, try for free. Here's exactly what you get and everything else. And you should make a decision, yes or no on that page. A sales led once, like you piqued my curiosity, I need to talk to you to figure out the rest. And so it's very different. And then like you said on the pricing side, the sales company will usually not show it. And because they, they lose a lot of leverage or they'll claim, oh yeah, we gotta do value based pricing. It's everything that's fair for you and all that stuff. But um, product companies are like, no, you're probably not gonna sign up for something if you don't know what the price is. That's where, yes, you need to break down some of those plans. Now the microeconomics, uh, perspective of this is you got to be very intentional with what are those plants, what is included in each of those packages. And so, um, what I always tell my clients, and this is the part that's relevant for any industry is you need to get very clear on, okay, what is the core outcome that you promise in what you do. So, um, let's do a fun example. What's your favorite SaaS product?

Speaker A: Uh, my favorite SaaS product. Well, I certainly have ones that I use all the time. Um, let's just say LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Okay, cool. So for LinkedIn, um, let's say their end user success is to have you, um, build a world class network that allows you to, whether it's like hitting your and getting promoted or to, if you're a thought leader, like get seen and be heard, it's like to help you hit your career objective, whatever that is. So that's end user success. That's what they want. Now we got to break this down into three levels. So beginner level, it's free and this is for everyone. So like for us and services, like we want everyone to be successful with product led growth and, and to build wildly profitable product led companies. Beginner levels, like just DIY it, figure out what it is. Some beginner stuff like, hey, is it right for me? What's the best should do it? It's all free. And it should be because that's beginner problems at the end of the day. So when it comes to LinkedIn, it's like, well it should totally be free to create an account, post all that fun stuff, connect with people. Uh, we should give that for free for everybody. Now the pro plan, which is um, you know, or premium as they, they call it, like that is for People that they really want, like, they're like, whether they're networking to the tilt, they are connecting with prospects, they want to be able to be seen. Uh, and when they connect with people that are, um, you know, whether it's a high value prospect or a connection or something like that, they have inmails, they have these features that allow them to really stand out on the platform, not to mention just the gold badge, all that fun stuff. So that's really the premium plan. And now they have advanced, like recruiter stuff and more specific ones as well. But the logic remains the same. In any product led company or even marketplace like LinkedIn, there's always three levels. There's beginners, it's free, and that solves all of the beginner problems in your market. So if you think about, um, what you do at Partneromics, it's like, what are all those beginner problems that people struggle with that, um, before they think, hey, I really need a program, I need some assistance on this. Like, is partnerships right for you? Uh, what is the best approach to build, like, really good Win Win partners partnerships? And it's like, okay, yeah, yeah, I get it. I subscribe to your approach. And now the pro plan in your case, it's like, great. The next step is actually to, um, lean in and implement this inside your business. And so you need the tools, you need the support and everything else is provided there to help you become a partnership pro. And so that's the, the fun. And you can always have an advanced level as well for the people that are like the real keeners and everything else, whether we're talking about LinkedIn or you're talking about, um, what you do too at Partneromics, because that's the advanced level where it's like less than 2 to kind of 10% of people that ever reach that part in your market. But the beauty of that kind of funnel of like beginner problems, uh, intermediate and then advanced, is that when you do it right, you capture the majority of your total addressable market. Because there's so many people that struggle with those beginner problems, and then there's equally a great amount of people that struggle with the intermediate problems. Um, but they probably haven't heard about you. But if you can convert those beginner people into intermediate, um, then you have just 10x your business.

Speaker A: Yeah, like, you know, with, on the product LED or like even for us, right. We give away the partnering Foundations course three and a half hours. And certainly we want to be able to fix or at least kind of educate Folks on a lot of those beginner landmines, some of those basic foundational things of standing up or evaluating programs. But then it also gives us an opportunity to have thousands of evangelists, uh, out there as well. So as they're connecting and working within their ecosystems, um, companies and different folks, it gives them an opportunity to share about partonomics. So it uh, helps us as well. I imagine that, um, you know, you'd share that as well. I want to go back to something else that you had said, Wes, about. Um, you know, there's the traditional old school sales led and then, you know, in this case product, uh, led. Of course we've heard about partner led, ecosystem led. Right. There's all of these different kind of flavors and versions of how we go to market. But, um, yeah, I was pretty intrigued with what you're saying about, you know, from your website. Uh, you know, you can essentially go to somebody's website and kind of see what their dominant strategy is by the way that they structure their website. Um, is, is there a way to kind of do both? What if some, you know, in a company, a SaaS company out there says, hey, we, we want to leverage product led. Hey, we've, we've got our own direct sales motion that's worked, but we want to place another bet. We want to, you know, have this product LED engine with our software. You know, what, what does that look like? And have you seen clients that do it successfully and the ones that have done it, what's, how have they positioned their website and uh, you know, kind of the communication so that it flows for users coming in?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to make something kind of confusing for the first, but then I'll tie it all back together. So if you have a call and that's the only way people can buy from you, does that immediately make you sales? Like, what would you say?

Speaker A: Uh, no.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Like, it's um, there's ways of doing it where you're actually providing an insane amount of value. Like the reason for us as a services company, it's like, hey, we kind of have to talk to you if work together. And there's some things we will vet for sure, like any normal, uh, you know, person would want to do in a typical sales discovery process. Like it's just good, good stuff. Like we want to know you could, we could actually help you. But when we dig in, we're always looking for like, yeah, like done the operating that way, like, what are some things you could do? And like, we're coming up with our back of our heads. Like, what are, uh, the top three to five things you could do to kind of like add another million in ARR for your business? And so, um, that is providing a ton of value. Like, when you go through that with the founders and what that does, it just builds a ton of trust a lot faster than if you were like, yeah, let me get back to you and, uh, we'll just sell you the roadmap thing and go from there. It's not a transactional thing. And so I think if it's like completely transactional, like sales that just, um, right now, especially if you're selling mid ticket or low ticket, like, it just doesn't work that well. And so, yes, adding value makes sense. Now you can also have a free trial and be sales led. That's what a lot of people don't know. A lot of free trials. And I'm sure a lot of people listening will know this is everything when you sign up. For some of them, it is just focused on, hey, can you, um, like, pull out your credit card, sign up? And nothing is focused on, like, great. Um, here's how you can get to value real quick. It is like, yeah, you can click around, you can't really do much, and it's not that useful. So it's like, once again, they're treating it like it's a conversion engine. It's not a value engine. When it's like, hey, we're creating a ton of value goodwill. And yes, some of them will convert as paying customers. And so, um, to go full circle now about. Can you do both? Yes, absolutely. And the best companies do both. And when we talk to a lot of companies that have a very successful product led motion, one of the best things that kind of catches them off guard is like, we're like, wow, you're not reaching out to those, like, accounts that have, like, you know, 5, 10, 20 people that are all using it. Um, that's silly. Like, you should totally have somebody from sales, um, or even customer success, whatever you want to call it, I don't care. Uh, reach out and engage those companies and really try and expand them because there's something there, there's tangible value that you've given them, and then vice versa. We do have a lot of sales. Like, companies reach out to us and be like, you know, we. We have this new competitor and they're like, they have a product in motion. Um, we can't even compete at that. That level. We must have a product LED motion. And so that's another thing where it's like, great, we're going to make your product easier to use, get them set up for success and then um, the bigger accounts, like you can focus a lot more time on them because you're not spending all your time with the really small accounts that uh, even if you close them, it's, it's insignificant to you at the end of the day.

Speaker A: Yeah, um, Wesley, shift gears a little bit and talk about your guys implementer program and just kind of uh, what that is and some of your lessons learned. Uh, at partner Nomics, we also have a network, a global network of implementers. So it's been uh, fun, interesting and educational from our perspective putting that together. But love to just have you share what uh, you guys are doing with your implementer program.

Speaker B: Yeah, so it's still a pretty new implementation program. It started August of last year. But right now we're at uh, eight product LED implementers that are like just going in, implementing our, what we call the product LED system. So this is like nine core pieces of what we really do that makes up a uh, product LED business. So like things like we talked about like pricing your onboarding, what should you give away for free? What is, how does this connect to like your bigger business strategy? So there's a bunch more there, but they're all trained on those components of how to actually implement it. And what we do now like when a new client comes on board, we have a very simple roadmap Sprint where we go through and it's basically like one part audit, two parts like hey, like this is actually how we would help you if we're going to add another million in there are for your business. And that's like our kind of like minimum bar where it's like, hey, you're going to be paying like over 100 grand to work with us in a year. So we got to make sure this is like a 10x deal for you. And so we feel very confident offering that Sprint because it's like at the end of the day, um, we might say at the end too. Like I don't think we could really help you, but you should absolutely implement this. Ah, a lot of times though it's like yeah, hell yeah. Like this, it's not just one, it's like 10 million more we could add here. There's like, like you're, you're wasting so much opportunity. And we get excited about, they get excited about, we're like, great. Then the implementation program starts and that's where like each of the projects we work on is a different Sprint. So it's like, okay, we, we ra recognize uh, like, you know, you don't have good data. So if we don't have good data or something like that, it's like we got to install product analytics, we got to go through that part and then we have a dedicated Sprint. And so the implementation structure, we have a one head of implementation who is uh, kind of like the jack of all trades in a lot of ways. Like they're, they're very solid at all nine and sure they have like their, their areas where they go deeper than everything else, but then the other seven are um, either like, they usually have anywhere from in our ends, like five to kind of seven years of like product LED growth experience. So they're operators, they're not consultants. And we train them on like, hey, here's how to be a uh, quote unquote consultant in a way. Like, here's how to structure things. You have weekly meetings, this is how you show up. Um, bring energy, uh, like different soft stuff too of how to kind of engage, don't complicate things, make them simpler. Um, all the, the basic stuff. And yeah, that's, that's how it's structured right now.

Speaker A: Awesome. Uh, Wes, whenever a company, you know, jumps in and they do an engagement with you guys, I know there's uh, there's no such thing as an average customer, but I'm going to ask you to, to paint that picture. Um, you know what, what um, would a company expect to, you know, for the experience to be 3, 6, 9, 12 months into working with you or uh, one of your implementers?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, like you said, there's no like average one, there's two buckets. Essentially though, there's like sales led to product led companies and then there's like product led companies that need to really like scale up, get the foundations right to go grow from whether they're at like 3 mil to get to 10 to 20 million. Uh, interview. And so uh, at the beginning, it all does start with that roadmap sprint of like, great, we're going to assess, understand where can we actually add the most value. And then um, for like the sales LED or product LED ones, it's usually alignment that's the biggest piece. It's um, it's hard to change a company's direction. Like a uh, go to market motion is something so fundamental that like you don't want to mess with it if you don't have to. And so um, that's really where it's like we got to align the leadership on hey, what is the right approach to do this? And then by the end of like the third month it's like we've launched at least a few of these projects where it's shown some success. So we set up like the tracking, the AB testing and a lot of times the companies, they have never done this in the product. Like many people do AB testing and uh, stuff like on um, their website. But then it's like great, we have the data to know like is this working or not? And, and we add a ton of value for them to start thinking about like oh, we could test that that easily. We don't have to go to three developers.

Speaker A: What?

Speaker B: And so um, there's usually a few aha, uh, moments there, but by the end of the three months we're in a good rhythm. We have changed their pulse rate and there are expectations too on what could be tested and what can't. Um, but for sales at a product that usually it's still a little too early to be like okay, as it's like wildly paid off for itself. But on the product LED side we have had usually at least one experiment where it's like great, this is paid for the engagement so far and we have a uh, lot of other things in the pipeline that will 10 access value.

Speaker A: That's awesome man. Uh, Wes, how can you, if there's a founder out there, they maybe are, they're doing product led growth but they're like man, there's, there's gotta, there's more to this than what we're doing. They're willing to educate themselves on it. Or maybe it's um, you know, a SaaS founder or CRO, somebody that's wanting to dive into this for the first time. How can they connect with uh, your guys organization and kind of get schooled up a little bit. I know you've authored some, some different books and a lot of different resources for folks. How can they uh, find those?

Speaker B: Yes. So one thing I'm happy to offer, uh, your, your audience too and anybody listening here is uh, the free audiobook of the product LED playbook. So this is the, when I was writing this book was kind of unique about this is like I don't just like write like hey, here's exactly how to build a product LED business. And like it just came from my mind like in the beginning it's all like based on client work and then we implement it with clients again and we're like oh, let's throw at that. That approach isn't that effective and everything else. So it's the most tactical and strategic book you'll ever get when it comes to how to successfully build a product led business. And it's based on those 400 plus companies we have helped scale in adding that billion dollars in self serve revenue. So, um, that's my gift to you if since I know a lot of people here love listening to stuff. So it's, it's an honor book.

Speaker A: Awesome, man. We will, uh, we will put it, uh, in the post.

Speaker B: Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Speaker A: Awesome. Thanks for joining us for this week's episode of the Partner Nomics show. Don't forget to subscribe to get the newest episodes at thepartnernomicshow. Com.