ProductLed

Last week, over 270 SaaS founders turned up for the ProductLed Founders Strategy Summit. In less than 3 hours, we helped them create a One-Page Endgame, which is basically a strategy document outlining what they need to focus on as we head into 2025. Shoutout to Alex Turnbull, Nathan Latka, Georgiana Laudi, and Dirk Sahlmer for rolling up their sleeves and helping all the SaaS founders refine their strategies on the go. To everyone who attended: thank you for making it an event to remember. Here are 9 takeaways from the summit 👇

Today marks 8 years since I got fired from my only full-time job. Fast forward to today, I've worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies, authored 2 best-selling books, generated over $1B in self-serve revenue for our clients, and have built a successful business. It’s funny how something that felt like a dead end at the time turned out to be a major turning point. Here’s why it changed everything for me: 1) It pushed me toward entrepreneurship. Getting fired made me realize something: working for someone else isn’t the “safe” option. When you work for a company, you’re reliant on one “customer", which is your employer. If they fire you, your income drops to zero. As an entrepreneur, losing one customer doesn’t sink you. You can diversify. You can decide who you want to work with. That control felt less risky than a job ever did. 2) It helped me find my lane. In my full-time role, I constantly thought strategically while the job just required someone to execute. I wasn’t thriving in that environment. But in consulting, my strategic thinking became a strength. The lesson: your weaknesses in one setting might be your superpowers in the right environment. 3) It clarified my values. A week after I got fired, I had a job offer that doubled my salary. On paper, it looked amazing but I said no as it didn’t align with what I really wanted. Starting my own business felt like the fastest path to develop, learn, and challenge myself. And that clarity has shaped every decision I’ve made since. Looking back, getting fired was one of the best things to ever happen to me. If you’ve been laid off recently, I hope this gives you some encouragement. The end of one chapter can be the start of an even better one. Just make sure that next chapter aligns with what you do best and has the right environment for you to succeed, whether that's a new job or a new venture. You’ve got this :)

Last week, Alex Turnbull did something most SaaS founders avoid. He documented his strategy for 2025 and shared it openly with 270+ SaaS founders at the ProductLed Founders Strategy Summit. He presented his One-Page Endgame (OPE) - outlining his gameplan for Helply. It wasn’t perfect. But that’s the point. Documenting your strategy forces you to confront non-negotiable business questions: ☑ Who is your ideal customer? ☑ What makes your business defensible? ☑ What’s your endgame? Once it’s on paper, you can refine it. That’s the only way you gain clarity and direction. Alex’s OPE became a launchpad for some incredible discussions. Here’s what Georgiana Laudi, Nathan Latka and Dirk Sahlmer shared to help everyone in the room sharpen their strategies: 1) Clarify Your Ideal Customer (Georgiana) Most founders try to learn from all customers. That's a big mistake. She explained the importance of focusing on your sweet spot: • Happy, active customers (not at risk of churn). • Signed up in the last 3–6 months. • Paid more than once. These are the customers who’ll help you understand what’s working, why they chose you, and what they value most. 2) Build Moats to Defend and Scale (Nathan) Growth is great, but defensibility is how you win. Nathan shared how to think about moats for any SaaS company. Alex plans to make Helply impossible to copy through: • Founder Brand Moat: How your personal credibility can give you an early edge. You should follow him to see this in practice. • Differentiation Moat: Articulate why your product is unique and what makes it irreplaceable. • Pricing Moat: A bold strategy like a forever-free tier or outcome-based pricing can drive adoption and make you hard to compete with. Start layering them early. 3) Define Your Endgame (Dirk) Without a clear endgame, it’s impossible to align your team or measure success. You can't afford to set arbitrary goals. You need to be realistic and clearly define what winning looks like for your business. Alex’s OPE wasn’t perfect at first. But by putting it on paper, he had something real to work with. Here’s why it matters more than you think: ☑ When your strategy is written down, it forces clarity. ☑ It helps you communicate your vision to your team. ☑ And it gives you something to measure yourself against. Have you documented your strategy? If not, take an hour this week to write it down. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The clarity will come when you put pen to paper. I’ve had the privilege of working with Alex in the past to help scale Groove, and it’s been incredible to watch him only get better at building his strategy as he's building Helply. Seeing him share his OPE so transparently at the summit was no surprise—it’s just how he operates. A huge shoutout to Alex for showing us all what it means to put together a winning strategy. 🙌

SaaS founders: This your last chance to join us! If you’re serious about making 2025 your breakout year, this is your opportunity. We’ve spent the last couple of months prepping to make this summit as valuable as possible for SaaS founders. Here’s why: In 2025, SaaS is only going to get more competitive. The AI boom is accelerating innovation (and commoditization), margins are under pressure, and every founder I’ve talked to is asking the same question: "How do we win in 2025?" This summit was designed to help you answer that. We’ve got two days packed with actionable content: ☑ On Day 1, we’ll help you map out a winning strategy to stand out in a crowded, AI-driven market. ☑ On Day 2, we’ll dive into how to make your goals inevitable. We’re bringing in top SaaS leaders who have been there and done that: Nathan Latka, Georgiana Laudi, Dirk Sahlmer, Alex Turnbull, and more. We’ve already got over 660 registrations. And we'll stop taking new ones soon. Register before we close. Link is in the comments 👇

Last week we hosted our 2025 annual planning session for ProductLed. I've never felt more bullish on our business. Here's the back story: In 2023 - we had a critical insight showing that our success rate skyrocketed when we worked with SaaS founders. It's not that we didn't like working with senior product execs (they used to be our ideal customer). It was just that if the SaaS founder didn't completely "get" what PLG was all about and roll it out as a "company thing" vs a "product thing" well, it doesn't work out that well. So we changed up our ideal customer profile. Which also meant adapting our product to better solve the needs of SaaS founders. 2024 was the year we laid a killer foundation. We completed the Product-Led Playbook, which will soon become the de facto book any SaaS founder should read if you're considering building or scaling a product-led business. Then we refined our two main programs to make it 10x easier to build and scale up a product-led business. We can now help you if you're looking to: ☑ Do it yourself > Product-Led Playbook ☑ Done with you > Product-Led Academy (coaching program) ☑ Done for you > Product-Led Implementation I believe this model is going to be more and more common for service-based businesses that adopt a product-led approach. The information should be free if you want to do it yourself. While the implementation support is what you invest in. One thing I will say is that we've never been this clear on our direction. 2025 is going to be an incredible year where we explode our growth. Big shoutout to Caleb Z. for hosting our annual planning meetings! Even though we have a small team, it pays dividends to have someone else host your planning meetings. Reminder: these meetings are THE most valuable meetings in your business where you set the future direction of the business. Happy planning, -Wes P.S. Want the meeting template we use to run our Strategic Alignment Meetings? Check out the Process Component in The Product-Led Playbook. It's all in there :)

Millions in EBITDA. Lean Teams. No VC funding. Meet the new class of SaaS founders who are rewriting the standard scaling playbook: 1) Guillaume Moubeche (lemlist): Scaled from 0 to $26M ARR in just 6 years—fully bootstrapped. With $10M in EBITDA, he’s proving what a lean, profitable SaaS can achieve. 2) Esben Friis-Jensen (Userflow): $5M ARR with just 3 employees. If you want to know what top-tier efficiency looks like, there's no better example to learn from. 3) Jason Fried (Basecamp): Turned down over 100 offers from VCs and private equity firms, and built a profitable SaaS with millions of users. 4) Adam Robinson (RB2B): Reached $1M ARR in just 16 weeks with 6 employees. His personal brand and freemium strategy has created massive leverage. What do they all have in common? ☑ Profitability as a core principle ☑ Small, skilled teams that punch above their weight ☑ Strong founder brands that build trust and visibility ☑ A product-led approach that creates leverage at scale There’s no ‘one way’ to succeed in SaaS. But if efficiency, profitability, and focus are your goals, these founders are the blueprint.

I spoke with the founder of a $3M SaaS in a market crowded with well-funded competitors. They’ve got bigger budgets and are investing heavily in developing AI features. He, on the other hand, runs a lean team based in Europe with limited resources. It might look like he’s at a disadvantage. So, how does he stand out? Simple: he plays to his strengths and ignores the hype. Instead of trying to compete on the same fronts, he’s focused on building three strategic moats: 1) Pricing Moat With an efficient team structure, he can offer the best value plan in the market while still being profitable. For budget-conscious customers, his pricing makes it an easy choice. 2) User Experience Moat While his competitors pack in features, they also add complexity. He saw an opportunity: a frictionless, straightforward solution that users can pick up quickly, turning “simple” into a competitive advantage. And for users overwhelmed by complicated tools, the simplicity and hands-on support his team offers is exactly what they need. 3) Customer Success Moat Their market is crowded yet no one has addressed the skill and knowledge gap that most users struggle with. They need help with setting things up right. So rather than more features, he invested in a high-touch, personalized onboarding experience. His team guides users through setup, ensuring they’re set to succeed. When everyone's chasing the AI hype, he's prioritizing simplicity and service – and he’s winning a loyal slice of the market because of it. Standing out doesn’t always require the latest features or technology. So stop trying to play the same game as your competitors. When they zig, you zag. Need help building your winning strategy for 2025? Make sure to attend our free ProductLed Founders Strategy Summit on Dec 5-6th! We've got Nathan Latka, Dirk Sahlmer, Alex Turnbull and many top founders & executives from leading product-led companies joining us. Registration link is in the comments below 👇

We're hosting the FIRST-EVER ProductLed Founders Summit on Dec 5-6th! This is a rare opportunity to roll up your sleeves and build a winning strategy for 2025. You need a winning strategy more than ever before in 2025... • AI is making it easier than ever before to copy what you do • Organic SEO is crumbling (you can't trust your website data and for most organic SEO is stagnant or declining) • VC funding has declined substantially In short, it's getting hard to differentiate and scale your company. Winning in 2025 is going to be hard to pull off. Unless you have a winning strategy. So we're bringing together founders who've solved these challenges to share their playbooks. Including: → Nathan Latka, CEO of Founderpath → Dirk Sahlmer, Head of Origination at saas.group → Alex Turnbull, CEO & Founder of Groove and Helply → Top founders & executives from leading product-led companies In just two days, you’ll create a winning strategy that unites your team to make massive progress in one direction by giving everyone the same decision-making framework for the company’s focus. Focus means: ☑ Your entire team can make decisions faster.  ☑ Your customers better understand what you do. ☑ Your business becomes hard to copy. The best part? It's completely free. Make 2025 your biggest growth year yet! Registration link is in the comments 👇 (If LinkedIn decides to hide the link for some reason, please sort the comments by "Most Recent")

We’re growing quickly at ProductLed, and our team is almost maxed out. Guess that's a good problem to have 😉 Rodrigo, one of our Senior ProductLed Implementers, has been doing incredible work, but we need another hands-on, PLG-obsessed Implementer to join us. What's in it for you? ☑ Mentorship from ProductLed Experts You'll work closely with Rodrigo and myself who bring years of hands-on PLG experience. You’ll get to learn from the best, refining your skills daily with guidance that will accelerate your growth like no other role out there. ☑ Experience with High-Growth SaaS Companies We work with SaaS businesses ranging from $1M to $10M+ ARR, giving you a front-row seat to what does and doesn't work. You’ll directly contribute to helping SaaS businesses significantly grow their self-serve revenue and profit. ☑ The Best PLG Training Ground If you want a real education in Product-Led Growth, there’s no better place. From strategy to implementation, you’ll immerse yourself in PLG at a level that’s unmatched anywhere else, gaining expertise that will make you a sought-after leader in this space. Here's what Rodrigo has to say: "If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and make a real difference, becoming a ProductLed Implementer is your chance. You’ll be hands-on, driving growth for SaaS companies and seeing the impact of your work every day. It’s fast-paced, rewarding, and perfect for those who love a good challenge." Want to join the team? Application link is in the comments below. (If LinkedIn decides to hide the link for some reason, please sort the comments by "Most Recent") We're looking forward to hearing from you :)

We’re growing quickly at ProductLed, and our team is almost maxed out. Guess that's a good problem to have 😉 Rodrigo, one of our Senior ProductLed Implementers, has been doing incredible work, but we need another hands-on, PLG-obsessed Implementer to join us. What's in it for you? ☑ Mentorship from ProductLed Experts You'll work closely with Rodrigo and myself who bring years of hands-on PLG experience. You’ll get to learn from the best, refining your skills daily with guidance that will accelerate your growth like no other role out there. ☑ Experience with High-Growth SaaS Companies We work with SaaS businesses ranging from $1M to $10M+ ARR, giving you a front-row seat to what does and doesn't work. You’ll directly contribute to helping SaaS businesses significantly grow their self-serve revenue and profit. ☑ The Best PLG Training Ground If you want a real education in Product-Led Growth, there’s no better place. From strategy to implementation, you’ll immerse yourself in PLG at a level that’s unmatched anywhere else, gaining expertise that will make you a sought-after leader in this space. Here's what Rodrigo has to say: "If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and make a real difference, becoming a ProductLed Implementer is your chance. You’ll be hands-on, driving growth for SaaS companies and seeing the impact of your work every day. It’s fast-paced, rewarding, and perfect for those who love a good challenge." Want to join the team? Application link is in the comments below. (If LinkedIn decides to hide the link for some reason, please sort the comments by "Most Recent") We're looking forward to hearing from you :)