Insight
Gross: Startups using paid acquisition under $100M ARR are not PLG
“If you are doing PLG and you're doing paid acquisition, sub a hundred million in revenue, I'm not sure you're really PLG.”
Insight
Adam Gross: Most AI value will accrue to incumbents, not startups
“I'm of two minds on this. I think a lot of AI value will accrue to existing large distribution players. AI is not naturally disruptive in the way that the shift from on-prem to cloud was, right, which obviously I had a front row seat to.”
Assertion Contradicted
Adam Gross: No Startup Raises Series A Pursuing Dual GTM Strategies
“And at some point, you got to decide, and you have to decide pretty early because nobody has ever raised an A or I would think a B doing both. You just would spread yourself far too thin attempting to do both.”
Insight
Adam Gross: Startups should stick to one motion until reaching $10M ARR
“My rule of thumb there is you only get to have one of those until at least ten million, if not further.”
Insight
Gross: Emotive product branding without strategic narrative cannot capture enterprise budgets
“And if you're a motive and you're not strategic, you're interesting and cool, but you'll never command the kind of business impact and ultimately budgets and ultimately, you know, growth for your company that you're trying to look for.”
Insight
Gross: PLG is a business model, not just a GTM motion
“PLG is not for everybody, and PLG is not a go-to-market motion. PLG is a business model.”
Assertion Partly supported
Adam Gross: PLG Companies like Dropbox Exceeded $50M ARR on One Channel
“I think it's interesting to think about, and I've certainly seen PLG businesses that got well past 50 on one channel, or even back to Dropbox, got well past 50 in one channel.”
Insight
Empathetic end-user UX and enterprise software features are not in conflict
“You can really have your cake and eat it, too, in a real kind of emotive, empathetic, individual, high quality product and also build great enterprise features as well. They were viewed as somewhat intentioned with each other and if not in outright conflict. A…”
Opinion
Adam Gross: VP of Growth roles overfocus on local optimization
“I honestly don't love like the title VP of growth and I don't love growth function because all of that stuff, and I have deep respect for the work. I've done a lot of it myself. It is a lot of local maxima, right? It's how to, it's optimization. It's improving…”
Insight
Gross: Moving from enterprise sales into PLG is much harder than vice-versa
“It can be the other way of companies going trying to, you know, go into PLG from enterprise, which is a much harder path to go.”
Insight
Adam Gross: Adding multiplayer functionality requires finding product-market fit twice
“Having a single player product, a product that has value on a single player basis, and that you can then build a multiplayer Right? Collaboration product experience on. You're doing MVP. You're doing product market fit twice.”
Opinion
Gross: Dropbox, GitHub, and Heroku fell into cultural growth plateaus
“And, you know, arguably, you know, even Dropbox and GitHub and in Heroku have fallen into this in different times.”
Insight
Gross: PLG fails when self-serve and enterprise sales motions intermingle
“This is where PLG goes south, is when you don't have the clarity in how you run the business of, this is our self-serve product, and this is our self-serve business, and this is how it works. And this is our sales-led business, and this is its value propositio…”
Disclosure
Gross: Wrote First Check into Docker but Got Recapped Later
“I was the first check into Docker. That's a whole nother story... I was in the first round with Docker. I mean, I remember meeting with Solomon and those guys at Founders Den on third, when it was like three people in a room. And yes, we did get recapped and I…”
Opinion
Gross: Enterprise Software Cultures Are More Customer-Centric and Predictable Than Consumer
“They are much more customer-centric and Frankly, more predictable and controllable.”
Insight
Adam Gross: Early Career Success Comes From Being Good at Two Skills
“Be good at two things. Don't be the best at one thing, be pretty good at two things.”
Insight
Gross: Salesforce succeeded through intentional marketing and narratives, not virality
“Salesforce owned its own growth. The growth didn't happen to it. It didn't just, it kind of experienced, you know, kind of a viral growth and Kind of took off on the internet when it started. Maybe the internet wasn't even big enough for that to happen. It own…”
Insight
Gross: Innovation in customer acquisition is underrated versus technical innovation
“One of the things that, ah, I think is maybe underrated that I'm really attracted to, and I encourage entrepreneurs to think a lot about, is what's changing? Where is their innovation in customer acquisition?”
Insight
Gross: Shift to online sales makes all reps inside salespeople
“So much of sales now is happening online in a way that it can be captured versus face to face. You know, we're all inside salespeople now.”
Insight
Adam Gross: Deal Size Is the Best Proxy for Go-to-Market Strategy
“Maybe not day one, but definitely year two. You know, day one, sure, you're just building prototypes here, you're kind of MVP-ing, you're, at some point, you need to decide who is your customer? Not just from a use case and value proposition point of view, but…”
Insight
Gross: Successful PLG startups drive 50-70% of acquisition from one channel
“Whenever I talk to founders, a good PLG business, even at the five, ten million range, they usually have discovered like one good acquisition mechanism that is contributing to, you know, a disproportionate, 50, 60, 70% of their actual customer acquisition volu…”
Disclosure
Adam Gross: Portfolio startups have failed transitioning from single-player to team product
“And I've seen this a bunch, and I've seen companies I've invested in not make it, where they get the individual value proposition, but they're not able to translate to the collaborative value proposition.”
Insight
Gross: Company homepages should focus primarily on top-of-funnel free acquisition
“My default is The website is about the top of the funnel, is about establishing the initial customer relationship. So you want to yoke towards that free customer acquisition, and that's kind of the primary thing. Now any website does multiple things, but that'…”
Insight
Gross: Growth mindset means willingness to abandon early core values
“That comes, that's part of you asked before what's growth, growth mindset. That's growth mindset. Right? Is being so religiously customer focused that you're willing to challenge the core values that you genuinely believe have contributed to your success becau…”
