Hila Qu
Executive in Residence, Reforge · 1 appearance on the record.
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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.
29statements → 4claims → 2claims resolved → 3.86/5average certainty → 1.79/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated →
2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
1 prediction · 3 assertions · 1 opinion · 23 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Hila argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Qu: Amplitude used interactive demos to bypass technical integration barriers
“For example, I remember Amplitude. They are pursuing PLG now, but they used to have a lot of barrier. Like as an end user, it's hard for me to put that code into my product and see my data. Right. But they build a really realistic interactive demo that's getti…”
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Hila Qu on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Hila Qu said on Lenny's Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
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…”
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.”
Qu: Activation was the highest leverage point for Acorns retention
“When I was asked to work on retention, I did a bunch of analysis. The biggest leverage for me is actually activation.”
Qu: Companies must audit data instrumentation before adopting analytics tools
“In, in order for product analytics to be meaningful, the first step is you need to collect the data. You need to do some instrumentation. You need to have the foundation. And then because it's garbage in, garbage out, if you're send a bunch of garbage data int…”
Qu: Companies should prefer hiring their first growth PM internally
“Prefer hiring internally if possible. If not, if you really don't have anyone internally with that knowledge or with that interest, you can look outside. I would say map the initial growth PM higher to your starting point.”
Qu: Key PLG properties include low friction, self-checkout, and organic spread
“I think the key properties of a PLG product, think about it should have a very low barrier to entry. Usually it has a free version, free trial. You don't need to get Get approval from your boss to use it. You can use it today. And then it has some sort of a se…”
Qu: Amplitude used interactive demos to bypass technical integration barriers
“For example, I remember Amplitude. They are pursuing PLG now, but they used to have a lot of barrier. Like as an end user, it's hard for me to put that code into my product and see my data. Right. But they build a really realistic interactive demo that's getti…”
Qu: Usage data bridges the gap between PLG activation and paid conversion
“Between this kind of activation usage, aha moment to this conversion moment, Actually, there is a big gap and what is the gap? How you can understand the gap, how you can guide people along that journey is basically you need to have a very good grasp of data. …”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab) | Apr 2, 2023 | 1h 9m |