Wes Bush, author on Product-Led Growth, cites his research findings on software buyer preferences between self-serve trials and sales interactions.
Insight
Bush: Sales-led companies solve complexity; product-led companies must solve simplicity
“In most kind of generalizations like this, I find a lot of sales like companies Are fantastic. It's solving for complexity... For a product-led company. It's like, that's actually your detriment sometimes is you create something that is so complex, does so man…”
Insight
Bush: PLG requires onboarding and pricing design, not just free trials
“It's just a free trial. But in order to do that, oh my goodness, is it ever a lot more than that? It's like, oh, we got to figure out onboarding. We got to figure out pricing and we got to figure out, you know, a great free offer that people want. We got to Fi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bush: Live onboarding assistance was economically viable on Paubox's $29/mo plan
“What they did is they had a bit of a hybrid motion and we kind of did this in their onboarding where as soon as they signed up, it's like, Hey, Liz, do you want us to set this up for you? Or do you wanna, you know, do this yourself? And so if they said, Hey, I…”
Insight
Bush: User onboarding friction decomposes into product, skill, and knowledge gaps
“That's the way I always look at the equation of, okay, what are they missing? Is it the skills? Is it the knowledge? Is it the product piece? And Okay. If it's the product piece, let's make that easier. How do we make that easier? Sometimes it's people initial…”
Insight
Bush: Free trials fail when enterprise code deployment takes a quarter
“So for instance, with like app queues or user flow or like any product adoption tool, you could have a 40 day trial and the product manager signs up. Who is the user? They got that part right. But then to actually put the code in their application, they got to…”
Insight
Bush: Auditing onboarding steps cuts 30% to 50% of initial friction
“And just from that activity alone, you usually shave about 30 to 50% of steps. So it's like crazy amount of like how much faster it is to get the value.”