Hila Qu
Executive in Residence, Reforge. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
operatorexecutiveinvestorauthor@HilaQu ↗LinkedIn ↗hilaqu.com ↗
Hila Qu is a growth advisor and Executive in Residence at Reforge. She previously scaled Acorns from 1 million to 5 million users as VP of Growth and launched the product-led growth motion at GitLab.
2shows
2appearances
53statements
2resolved
2supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
3said about them ↓ Everything Hila Qu said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Qu: B2B software companies will eventually need both PLG and sales
“I would think so, because if you are like, let's say if you are in a sales motion dominated kind of traditional B to B software industry, your competitors will be adding PLG, right? As soon as they added, they will have a benefit of attracting more end users a…”
Hila Qu: PLG is fundamentally data-led growth in exchange for reach
“PLG, I always say is actually fundamentally DLG, data led growth. So when you give away your free product, what you want to get in exchange are two things. One is the broader reach because Free product spread itself is lower barrier to entry. Two, you want to …”
Qu: A data analyst should often be hired before a growth PM
“I would often say actually a data analyst needs to be the very first hire. Sometimes even try to find a growth PM who can do analysis. If you're really small, right? You can find that type of unicorn person or even before hiring growth PM, hiring analysts that…”
Acorns spent heavily sponsoring NASCAR but saw zero visible user growth
“At one time we sponsored NASCAR. And it's a lot of money, but it didn't, we didn't see any visible lift in our results.”
Early-stage founders cannot outsource initial growth channels to agencies
“The most fundamental things is about figuring out your growth model, the initial channels that cannot be outsourced, and you need to figure that out on your own.”
Hila Qu calls Google Analytics a last-generation tool compared to Amplitude
“A lot of funders in early stage, they use Google analytics is okay, but it's, I would say it's last generation of analytic tool. You want to have tools like Amplitude or Mixpanel or things like that.”
Hila Qu compares B2B data infrastructure to a 'kindergarten level'
“B to B. The data situation is in general, much worse. I would say B to B is almost like kindergarten level. If B to C is third grade level in terms of data foundation.”
GitLab focused its growth teams on input metrics rather than top-line ARR
“So when I joined at GateLab, I talk with our CEO, we have a, we have ARR, not ARR, ARR growth as our North Star metric for the company, which is fine. But for me as a growth leader, right? Or for any other teams, I need to break that down into inputs exactly a…”
Qu: Adding PLG to sales-led companies is harder than starting PLG early
“It is easier if you have PLG from early on. If you are pure sales led, you try to add PLG, that's the harder thing to change basically.”
Qu: Consumer software habits drive the rise of B2B product-led growth
“The fundamental Driver behind this is the user of B to B softwares are also human. It's the same human using B to B to C softwares. And we're already trained to use product, try, and before we make any decision and we demand that in B to B as well.”
Hila Qu: Adding PLG requires at least a 1-to-2 year commitment
“You need to commit to at least a year or even two years. Kind of roadmap to build this entire thing out and change the process internally sometimes as well to support that.”
Hila Qu: Offering a free product without data foundation is useless
“If you don't have a foundation of data and understanding of how to analyze those data, you are giving away a free product for nothing.”
Qu: Assigning a single coordinator without a dedicated team causes PLG failure
“The other one is like, they don't have a dedicated team. They just basically assign one person to the thing, right? They are imagine, Hey, well, you already have this. It's not that big of deal. You can just figure this out by borrowing resources from everywhe…”
Qu: Companies with few enterprise clients and slow time-to-value should avoid PLG
“Do you have a product that's relatively Low complexity doesn't require a lot of customization for the customer to see value, like time to value need to be relatively short, or you can figure it out, out a way to make it short. And then do you have a lot of pot…”
Qu: Majority of B2B SaaS companies can integrate self-service PLG motions
“I think majority of B to B software I've seen, you've seen, we've used even some more complicated ones. Like Salesforce used to be this example of like sales motion, right? They are the pioneer of SAS and they do this so well, but they begin to add, look into …”
Qu: Requiring custom sales quotes breaks self-serve PLG checkout flows
“Your pricing need to be relatively simple. If your pricing is super complicated, they need to, whenever they, for example, they try the product and they love it, they have a sales checkout flow, but in order to decide how much they need to pay, they need to se…”
Qu: Product usage is the primary leading indicator in PLG funnels
“And the usage product usage is the, almost like the leading indicator for success for PLG versus in the sales funnel. It's like almost like how many do you get and do they interact with the marketing campaigns, right?”
Qu: High-usage ICP accounts in PLG should receive high-touch sales outreach
“And then the other potential conversion path is where the product usage is high, but also this customer, this potential prospect fits into your ideal customer profile, right? It's a, from a fortune, 500 company, or it's from a target industry that, you know, t…”
Qu: Telemetry only isolates correlation; experimentation is needed to prove causation
“Because in data, you are only isolating correlation. You are not proving causation. You just saw people who are doing this are more likely to convert, but it doesn't mean if you get people to do this, they will convert. So experimentation is the step. You will…”
Hila Qu: For user activation, doing is better than showing or telling
“I usually think about Do is better than show, is better than tell. Meaning you want to remove all the frictions and somehow give them a warm start, give them some sample template, give them some sample thing they can play with initially in that very moment alr…”
Hila Qu: Most B2B software companies should start by prioritizing activation
“Activation is actually a common good starting place for most B to B software because usually B to B software's are not designed to really Get you to use quickly, historically.”
Hila Qu: Optimize activation and self-serve before layering PQL sales motions
“And then the PQL, PQA part, the other more complicated path, I would say that's something you want to figure out activation and self-checkout a little bit, and you want to have some reasonable user number and then invest there. Otherwise it's, it can be a litt…”
Qu: Products used once a month cannot build habitual retention
“The key to do that is first of all, your product need to have a high enough frequency. Like if you are using this once per month, it's not likely you can build this into a product, into a habit.”
The other half of the tape: Hila Qu's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 2 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 3
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 3
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Hila's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Executive in Residence, Reforge | 1 | 29 | 100% 2/2 | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |
| 20VCLEDGER | Executive in Residence, Reforge | 1 | 24 | — | full record on 20VC → |