Wes Bush

ProductLed

We help SaaS founders and their GTM teams build & scale successful product-led businesses that become the obvious choice in their markets.

Learn more👉 productled.com

CEO & Founder

ProductLed Podcast

Each week I interview a top product-led leader and unpack "how" they built a successful product-led business.

Host

Product-led coach helping founders scale from 6 to 8-figures in product-led revenue. Author of the bestselling book, Product-Led Growth.

Over the last 8 years, I’ve worked hands-on with 400+ SaaS companies, helping them unlock $1B+ in self-serve revenue through Product-Led Growth (PLG).

Yet, right now, the failure rate for product-led companies is still far too high.

I’m on a mission to change that because I believe the world needs more product-led companies where you can try before you buy. 

This approach builds trust faster than any sales pitch ever could—after all, 97% of buyers prefer it. But, let’s be real, PLG isn’t easy.

That’s why I’m here to help in three ways:

➡️ Is PLG is right for you?

I wrote the bestselling book, Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself, to help you determine if PLG is the right strategy for your business. 

You can read it for free at ProductLed.com/Book—my treat!

➡️ What’s the best approach to scale up PLG?

After two years of research and working with hundreds of companies, I discovered the 9 essential elements that separate PLG success stories from the rest. 

I break it all down in The Product-Led Playbook.

You can grab a copy at ProductLed.com/Playbook, or watch my free masterclass to see the entire process in action: ProductLed.com/Masterclass

➡️ Ready to scale up?

If you’re ready to scale and need hands-on help, our ProductLed Implementers are here. They aren't consultants—they are experienced PLG operators who want to roll up their sleeves and work alongside your team to help you address your biggest growth bottleneck, whether that's getting more users to sign up, upgrade, or get to value.

Since we only work with a handful of clients at a time and guarantee growth, you must apply to work with us at ProductLed.com

Let’s turn your product into a growth engine and scale your business the product-led way. 🚀

We help you build a successful product-led business.

Start with our free ProductLed Masterclass 👉 productled.com

OpenAI used a 50-year-old pricing method to nail ChatGPT Pro's $20/month price.

It's called the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Model.

Here's how it works:

Instead of guessing at pricing, OpenAI surveyed their waitlist with 4 simple questions:

1. "At what price would ChatGPT Pro be so expensive you wouldn't consider buying it?"

2. "At what price would it be so cheap you'd question the quality?"

3. "At what price would it start getting expensive, but not out of the question?"

4. "At what price would it be a bargain?"

When you plot the responses, the intersection points reveal your optimal price range.

But chances are you don’t have a high volume of customers like ChatGPT to draw any meaningful conclusion.

In such a case, simplify it to just 2 questions:

1) "What's an acceptable price for [your product]?"

2) "When would [your product] seem expensive?"

That should help you pinpoint the ideal price point.

Speaking of pricing strategy, I'm hosting a free live workshop with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz and John Kotowski on June 25th from 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM EST.

You'll learn how to:

☑ Find your perfect value metric
☑ Build a pricing page that converts 15-30% more free users
☑ Use AI to design and deploy your pricing page live

Register here: https://lu.ma/v6wpn93g 👇

"The PLG Guy" | Hire my team to scale your self-serve revenue | $1B+ in self-serve revenue generated | DM me "PLG" to learn how

First half Ironman in the books.

A 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run in 5 hours and 20 minutes.

Finished 11/149 in my age group.

During the race, one thought kept coming back: why did I sign up for this thing in the first place?

Well, you don't need to do an Ironman to be fit. I could stay in great shape with way less suffering.

But that wasn't the point.

I did it for mental fitness, not physical fitness.

There's something powerful about deliberately choosing to do hard things. 

About pushing past the point where your brain says "this is enough."

It reminds you that you're capable of way more than you think.

Living life only in your comfort zone is boring as hell.

I actively seek out challenges because that's where growth happens.

Whether it's building a business, writing a book, or crossing a finish line you weren't sure you could reach.

You need to constantly prove to yourself that you can do hard things.

Thank you Catherine for being my biggest cheerleader through all of it! ❤️

"The PLG Guy" | Hire my team to scale your PLG motion | $1B+ in self-serve revenue generated

Subscription fatigue is real.

Users are tired of paying monthly fees for software they barely use.

Going forward, you'll see a lot more SaaS companies tie their pricing directly to the value customers get. 

Look at Kit's pricing page below.

The shift is happening because customers are demanding a fairer model - one where they only pay for what they actually use.

Think about your own software subscriptions. How many are you paying for monthly but barely using?

This subscription fatigue is driving a fundamental change in how customers want to pay for software.

Expect to see a lot of SaaS companies move away from flat monthly fees. 

Instead, they'll tie pricing directly to usage metrics that reflect real value:

→ Storage used
→ API calls made
→ Documents processed
→ Workflows automated

This model also opens up your market. Small customers can start with minimal investment and grow into larger accounts.

But here's where things get interesting:

The winners won't just slap usage metrics onto their existing pricing. They'll rethink their entire pricing strategy around metrics that truly reflect customer value.

Start by identifying the core actions in your product that directly correlate with customer success.

These are your potential usage metrics. Then, look at your current customer base.

Understanding their usage patterns is crucial for setting the right pricing tiers.

When done right, it can give you a massive ROI in very little time.

Optimizing your pricing is one of the very low-effort, high-impact wins you can implement immediately.

That's why on June 25th, I'm hosting a free 90-minute live workshop with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz and John Kotowski where you'll:

☑ Nail your value metric - the key to effortless expansion

☑ Build a pricing page that converts 15-30% more free users into paying customers

☑ Use AI to design and deploy your new pricing page, live

By the end of the workshop, you'll walk away with a pricing page ready to launch, designed using real buyer psychology.

Register using the link in the comments 👇

My friend Ramli John just launched his new book Eureka: The Product Onboarding Playbook for B2B Companies!

I’ve watched him obsess over every detail when he wrote Product-Led Onboarding. And I can tell you - Ramli doesn't do anything halfway.

The guy lives and breathes user onboarding.

His frameworks and strategies are hands down the best I've seen.

If you're losing users after signup (and who isn't?), grab his book: https://lnkd.in/gu4s5GQy

The most sobering B2B SaaS stat I've seen lately: Trial-to-paid conversions spike at 2.5% in week 1, then crater to ~1% by day 14.

That's a 60% drop-off in just ONE week.

This data comes from ChartMogul's analysis of 2,500 SaaS companies in their latest GTM Report.

Here's how the conversion rates break down over time:

↳ 7 days: 2.5% (your peak)
↳ 14 days: 1.0% (60% drop from week 1)
↳ 1 month: 0.9% (64% drop from week 1)
↳ 2 months: 0.5% (80% drop from week 1)
↳ 3 months: 0.1% (96% drop from week 1)

This pattern is consistent across quarters.

What does it mean for you?

Your product’s time-to-value needs to be brutally short.

All you have is a narrow 7-day period where your product either proves its worth it or loses the user forever.

This makes your onboarding more critical than any other growth lever in your business.

If your first time onboarding experience doesn’t deliver value fast, your conversion rates will stay stuck in mediocrity.

Want to nail your onboarding from the get-go?

Grab a copy of Ramli John’s new book EUREKA. He has the absolute best onboarding frameworks and strategies.

P.S. If you want to dive deep into the report, check out the link in the comments 👇

July 6th, 2025.

That's the day I'll be swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles, and running 13.1 miles. All in one day.

When I tell people I'm training for an Ironman, the usual response is: "Why would you do that to yourself?"

Fair question.

On the surface, it seems a bit absurd. We're talking about punishing your body for 6+ hours straight.

You definitely don't need to complete an Ironman to be considered "fit."

But it's not really about physical fitness.

It's about something much deeper.

Endurance events like this force you to confront your limiting beliefs head-on.

When you're 4 hours in, your legs are screaming, and your mind is telling you to quit, you discover what you're truly capable of.

We live in a world designed for convenience. Everything is optimized to be easier, faster, more accessible.

Food delivered in 30 minutes. 
Entertainment on demand. 
Problems solved with a few taps on your phone.

But growth happens when you deliberately seek out challenges that push you beyond what you thought possible.

The Ironman is just another way of proving to myself that I'm capable of so much more than I think.

We built a custom GPT that creates high-converting pricing pages in 15 minutes (giving it away below)

It asks the right questions, analyzes competitors, suggests optimal prices, and outputs a complete pricing page you can ship today.

We gave a live demo of how to make the most out of it on our pricing workshop last week.

ICYMI, here's the 4-step framework the GPT uses:

Step 1: Nail Your Value Metric

What do your best customers do a lot of in your product? That's your value metric.

For example, for Kit, the pricing increases based on the number of email subscribers you have.

If you get it right, your pricing scales beautifully with customer success.

Step 2: Build Your Pricing Matrix

Most product-led companies only need three plans:

→ Free (to hook users)
→ Growth/Pro (where most conversions happen)
→ Enterprise (for big accounts)

The goal should be to pass the 5-second test. Visitors should instantly know which plan fits them.

Step 3: Find Your Sweet Spot Price

Use the Van Westendorp method. Ask two questions:

1. "What's an acceptable price for this?"
2. "When would this feel expensive?"

The intersection = your optimal price range.

We covered 3 other pricing methodologies in our workshop that may be more relevant for early-stage startups. 

If you missed it, reach out to Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz. For our upcoming workshops, make sure to attend them live to get the full value. 

Step 4: Put It All Together

Create a simple pricing page with:

→ Headline positioning your price as a great deal
→ Your pricing matrix
→ FAQ addressing top objections
→ Risk reversal (guarantees, free trials)

Want access to the Pricing Page GPT?

Like this post and comment "GPT" below.

Our newsletter subscribers always get first dibs on these custom tools, frameworks, and exclusive insights. If that’s something you’re interested in, subscribe using the link in the comments 👇

Nathan Latka had me demo my custom offer GPT in front of 1,000+ founders last week.

(Props to Jacob Bank for being brave enough to let me critique Relay.app's homepage offer)

So I pulled up my GPT and walked through three key questions to build an irresistible offer:

1. What's the actual result you deliver?
2. Why choose you vs. alternatives?
3. What's stopping people from signing up?

We were just getting to the good stuff (helping ops pros save 10+ hours/week with AI agents that are way less scary than n8n) when...

Nathan cut me off for the next speaker 😂

I don’t blame him. He tries to pack as many quick takeaways as possible. If you’ve attended any of his webinars, you’d know.

But honestly, the whole event was packed with gold:

→ Manthan Patel showed how to build free tools in n8n to drive traffic 

→ Tycho Luijten broke down his 3-part framework for going viral on LinkedIn consistently 

→ Jacob revealed his insane AI agent org chart (40+ agents running his marketing) 

→ Plus case studies from Submagic ($8M ARR), Superwall's unique pricing strategy, and more

Want to checkout the custom GPT I shared in the workshop?

The link is in the comments 👇

(Nathan - next time give me at least 10 minutes 😉)

BetterPic went from $1.5K to $270K monthly revenue in just 18 months, and Ricardo 🥦 did it all PART-TIME while running his consulting business.

As someone who has worked with hundreds of product-led companies, I'm always fascinated by fast-growth stories.

Most founders struggle to find the right technical co-founder or get stuck trying to build everything themselves.

Ricardo took a different approach entirely.

He turned a $1 acquisition (not kidding) into a quarter-million dollar monthly business.

Ricardo found BetterPic listed for $20K on a marketplace. Instead of competing on price, he made a bold offer:

"I'll buy it for $1, but I'll invest $200K in the business over the next year."

That's how he made a deal with the founder (now CTO Miguel Rasero).

So how did they go from $1.5k to $270k monthly revenue?

Here are the 3 moats that made it happen:

1. Lowest Cost of Goods in the Industry

BetterPic can deliver AI headshots cheaper than any competitor, giving them massive margin advantages.

When you have higher margins, you can outspend competitors on acquisition channels. It's a compounding advantage.

2. Obsessive Customer Support

They invested heavily in 24/7 support from day one. They have 3-minute response times and 8-minute resolution times.

Even includes human editors for when AI fails.

3. Dominating Low-Cost Channels

They went all-in on SEO from month one, even when the product was terrible and refund rates hit 10%.

"We made long-term bets. When the product got better, we'd already had the organic growth engine firing on all cylinders."

What's remarkable is Ricardo maintained his consulting business throughout this growth.

Today, they have around 7,000+ customers monthly with 20 team members, with 40% dedicated to customer success.

Also, it's worth noting that their affiliate program now drives $80K of their $270K monthly revenue.

They're seeing a 9% conversion rate when most affiliates see only 1-2%.

"If you can make money and help other people make a lot of money, you're in a good business."

Some affiliates are making as much as $30-40k monthly promoting BetterPic.

Their story is a masterclass in strategic acquisition and execution discipline.

Full episode link in the comments 👇

Klaviyo took a MASSIVE positioning risk as a $9.36 billion publicly traded company.

They went from "marketing automation platform for e-commerce" to "the only CRM built for B2C brands."

Did they make the right call?

We don’t know. We don’t have any data.

Even if we did, it’d be too early to arrive at a conclusion.

Anthony Pierri made a great point about this:

"Short-term conversion rate is the worst way to evaluate a seismic positioning shift."

When you make a positioning bet, expect:

→ Fewer total signups initially
→ Customers churn
→ Lower conversion rates

Certain customer segments stop converting because your message no longer speaks to them.

When this happens, most companies panic and revert back.

But as Anthony says, you need to give it time:

"Once this new positioning has a chance to permeate throughout the market, the conversion rate would gradually increase — only with higher value clients wanting to pay more money for the new angle."

We recently completed a repositioning project for one of our clients.

(Yes, we focus on strategy too. If you want to scale your self-serve revenue, that’s where you need to start.)

The data told a clear story:

Marketing/ CRO managers had the highest free-to-paid conversion rate (11.3%), whereas it was only 2% for product managers.

Based on this data and a few other factors, we recommended they focus entirely on marketing/ CRO managers.

That was also because most of the solutions in their category had a very broad focus and this was an opportunity for them to really stand out.

(You’re probably nowhere as big as Klaviyo. So it makes sense to go narrow in most cases)

Are we expecting their overall conversion rates to drop initially? Yes.

Because they're no longer optimizing for users who barely convert anyway.

Over time, they’ll have:

☑ Better product-market fit
☑ Premium pricing power
☑ Stronger customer retention

The strategic foundation is set for long-term category dominance.

Play the long game.

P.S. If you’re a product-led SaaS doing over $3M ARR, we’ll help you add at least $1M ARR in the next 12 months - guaranteed. Learn more here: productled(dot)com

PLG isn't binary. It's a spectrum.

Yet founders act like there are only two options: be the next Canva or admit PLG doesn't work for you.

The reality is far more nuanced.

SAP will never be purely product-led. When you're selling 7-figure ERP implementations, self-serve trials don't make sense.

Canva would go bankrupt if they used a sales team to qualify every hobbyist creating Instagram posts.

The unit economics just don't work.

And there are a lot of companies somewhere in the middle.

HubSpot's CRM is self-serve for startups, but mid-market and enterprise companies implementing complex workflows get dedicated sales reps.

Your ACV, product complexity, and customer segments should determine your position on the PLG spectrum, not what worked for Slack or Dropbox.

Here's a simple way to think about it:

→ If you have a simple product with less than a $5K ACV, lean heavily towards PLG.

→ If you have a complex implementation with $50K+ ACV, you need a sales-led motion.

→ Everything in between could benefit from a hybrid approach.

A lot of sales-led companies we help transition don't want to kill their golden goose (i.e. their sales motion) even if it’s not that profitable.  That's understandable.

So we start with creating a self-serve motion for the smallest customer segments (eg: solopreneurs, 1-10 person businesses) and then expand to bigger accounts as the product improves at selling itself. 

Also, PLG doesn't always have to be your front-end offer.

You can use it for account expansion while keeping sales for new acquisitions.

The question isn't whether you should be product-led.

It's how product-led you should be, and for which segments.

---------

P.S. If you’re a product-led SaaS doing over $3M ARR, we’ll help you add at least $1M ARR in the next 12 months - guaranteed. Learn more here: productled(dot)com

Every VP of Growth thinks they understand what drives growth.

Until they try to apply their strategies to a different company and realize 70% of what they 'knew' was just specific to that last company they worked for.

Here's what most of them will never experience:

☑ Applying growth strategies across 5+ different SaaS companies.

☑ Understanding which PLG tactics are universal vs. industry-specific.

☑ Building a playbook that actually transfers between businesses.

That's exactly what our ProductLed Implementers do.

You'll work as a fractional VP of Growth across multiple companies, implementing the ProductLed System that's helped 400+ businesses generate over $1B in self-serve revenue.

You'll become the dedicated strategic growth leader for each company while getting exponential learning.

The role includes:

→ Direct partnership with founders and C-suite teams 
→ Full autonomy to implement PLG strategies 
→ Performance-based compensation with no ceiling 
→ Access to our complete training and methodology

You'll get to work on higher-leverage problems across multiple growth contexts.

If you've scaled product-led businesses and want to become world-class at PLG...

Apply below (link in the comments)

We've officially entered the era of lean SaaS and Revenue-Per-Employee (RPE) is the new HOT metric.

The companies that master this metric will dominate. The ones that don't will get squeezed out.

Here's why this efficiency gap will determine who survives the next 3 years 👇

1. Capital efficiency is now survival

VCs are writing fewer checks and scrutinizing unit economics harder than ever. 

The days of "grow at all costs" are over.

Even if you’re bootstrapped, there’s absolutely no way you can make it big without having top-tier operational efficiency.

2. Rising marketing and talent costs

Ads have become brutally expensive. SEO requires a lot of time and investment to rank. Not to mention most people aren’t using search engines the same way.

Meanwhile, any senior hire - sales, marketing, or engineering starts at six figures.

Gone are the days when you could solve growth problems by hiring new folks.

So what’s the way out?

Your product needs to become your best employee.

And what would that look like?

Instead of hiring salespeople to qualify and demo features, your product needs to showcase it’s value quickly.

Instead of hiring CSMs to onboard customers, your product guides users to success automatically.

Instead of scaling marketing spend, you bake in “growth loops” so that satisfied users naturally bring in teammates and referrals.

And how do you make your product your best employee?

By becoming product-led.

(Credits to Ben Lang for curating the list)

--------

P.S. If you’re a product-led SaaS doing over $3M ARR, we’ll help you add at least $1M ARR in the next 12 months - guaranteed. Learn more here: productled(dot)com

Here’s how our team gets 1% better each week and and stays at the forefront of PLG 👇

Every Monday, our ProductLed Implementers gather where one of them teaches a new tactic/ playbook/ strategy they've discovered while working with clients.

But we don't stop there. We dissect the context to see if we can make it repeatable.

☑ Why did this work for this specific client?
☑ What conditions made this successful?
☑ How do we adapt this for different company stages?

Then we package everything into our playbook vault so current and future Implementers stay up to date.

So when you work with a ProductLed Implementer, you're not getting a static playbook.

You're getting the collective wisdom of dozens of implementations, refined weekly.

Plus, whenever you hit a roadblock, you get the brains of our entire team working to solve it.

This is how we stay ahead of the market.

Sales-led founders: "Who should I hire to solve this?”

Product-led founders: "How can our product solve this?”

Sales-led companies treat every problem like it's a people problem.

They think:

More leads? Hire more SDRs.
More churn? Hire a customer success team.
More bugs? Hire more engineers.

That's why they have bloated teams and embarrassingly low revenue per employee.

If you need to scale efficiently, you need to adopt a counterintuitive mindset: 

Delegate to your product first, people second.

→ Support flooding with the same questions?

Don't hire more support reps. Treat it like a bug and fix the product experience so nobody has that problem again.

→ Sales team repeatedly explaining the same core benefit to convert prospects?

Don't hire more salespeople. Update your homepage to lead with that solution.

→ New users constantly churning?

Don't hire a customer success manager to call everyone. Build better onboarding that gets users to their "aha moment” without any handholding.

Hiring should be your last resort.

Whatever the problem, your first instinct should be: "How can our product solve this?"

Most problems that feel like people problems are actually product problems in disguise.

Your product never calls in sick. Never takes vacation. Never asks for a raise.

It works 24/7, scales infinitely, and gets better over time.

Make it your best employee.

I’m excited to speak at Delight Path's Product Onboarding Summit this Tuesday!

Mason Schroder from Chameleon and I are diving deep into what actually works in product onboarding.

We’ll be covering product tours, checklists, activation flows, and the strategies high-converting companies use to turn trial users into paying customers.

More importantly, we’re celebrating the launch of Ramli’s new book and I couldn't be more excited for him.

You can win copies of his new book for your team or even a $2,500 onboarding audit.

The summit is free to attend. 

If you'd like to take a look at some interesting data on onboarding benchmarks and best practices, you should be there.

Registration link in the comments 👇

Conventional wisdom says stay at one company for 5+ years to build deep expertise.

Santosh Sharan disagrees.

He's absolutely right, and it got me thinking about the new VP of Growth role we’re hiring for.

Most VPs work at 3-5 companies (max) over 10 years.

And that puts a ceiling on your learning curve.

You become an expert at your specific product, market, and customer base. But you never gain many reps implementing your strategies.

So how do you break that ceiling?

By working on challenges across multiple companies and contexts.

This will help you understand which tactics are universal versus company-specific. 

Plus, you’ll build what Santosh calls "business pattern recognition."

The problem?

Most fractional or consulting roles focus on strategy without execution. You advise, but you don't stick around to see if it actually works.

That won’t be the case with this role.

This isn't consulting.

You'll work as a Fractional Head of Growth across 5-8 SaaS companies in the first year alone, implementing the ProductLed System that's driven $1B+ in self-serve revenue.

Over a 10-year period, you could be working with up to 30 companies.

In this process, you'll get that "masters degree in business pattern recognition" while actually driving results:

→ Solve fresh growth challenges across different companies 

→ Build expertise 10x faster than single-company roles 

→ Performance-based pay (with lucrative bonuses) that scales with impact 

→ Work directly with founders who move fast on your recommendations

That’s why I call it a “career accelerator” that’ll help you quickly rise to the top 1% in your field.

This is a perfect opportunity for senior operators who want to build market expertise, not just company expertise.

Learn more about the role and apply using the link in the comments 👇

(If you can help us find the perfect fit for this role, we’ll send you $1,500 as a referral bonus)

AI is only as good as your prompts. Most are winging it.

Tomorrow, I'm joining Nathan Latka's AI Prompt Mastermind to share some of my top business prompts alongside other experts.

I'll be sharing some pricing and PLG prompts that have helped companies unlock millions in revenue by aligning their pricing strategy with their go-to-market motion.

But honestly, I'm just as excited to learn from the other speakers:

Gaurav Bhattacharya will share the master prompt he used to book 300+ qualified meetings and scale from $0 to $3M in 3 months.

Alyona Mysko will share how she helps software founders save $50k+ annually by maximizing R&D credits and finding legal tax strategies most CPAs miss.

Plus 6 more money-printing prompts from other experts.

Register using the link in comments 👇

FINAL CALL: Free Pricing Workshop 🚨

I'm teaming up with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz and John Kotowski for a live pricing workshop tomorrow.

In just 90 minutes, you'll:

☑ Determine your perfect value metric (the key to turning value into revenue)

☑ Build a pricing page that converts 15-30% more free users into paying customers

☑ Use AI to design and deploy your pricing page live

Live attendance is free.

Register using the link in the comments 👇

I need your help finding our next podcast guests.

After 272 episodes of the ProductLed Podcast, we're shifting our focus to product-led founders who've scaled SaaS companies from $1 to $100M+ ARR.

Well, we did interview these epic founders with crazy stories this year.

- How Esben Friis-Jensen bootstrapped Userflow to $5M ARR with just 3 employees

- How Marie Martens scaled Tally to $2M ARR with only 5 team members in a "saturated" market

- How Ricardo 🥦 Ghekiere scaled BetterPic to $270k in monthly revenue while working part-time

But we’re looking for some fresh faces and stories.

We want to dig into what actually worked for them—the strategies, the pivots, the lessons learned along the way.

Who comes to mind?

If you know a founder who's built something impressive with a product-led approach, drop their name in the comments.

And be sure to subscribe: productled(dot)com/podcast

Taplio

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