Minute Monday 18: Faux-PLG from the outside

In last week’s newsletter post, I took a look at what one newsletter reader described as ‘faux-PLG’ and described what that feels like when working at a company that might not be fully committed to product-led growth.

But, all this was from the perspective of someone on the inside.

Now, please spare a thought for the end users.

When all this is happening on the inside, it most likely manifests to users on the outside in symptoms like these:

• Users click enticing CTAs that take them to intrusive marketing forms.

• There’s no structured onboarding, or onboarding is confusing.

• Users start getting sales outreach (emails, calls, LinkedIn connections and DMs) shortly after signing up.

• If a user speaks to someone, it’s obvious to them they’re trying to sell then something, not help them get done what they need to get done.

• Once in the product, users are faced with clumsy, unintuitive and/or cluttered UX.

• Users receive contextless automated email sequences.

• The pricing pages are confusing and/or hide pricing.

• User feedback seemingly goes into a black hole.

• User support queries get passed around without context, and they need to re-explain their issue multiple times.

Ultimately your users will be frustrated and more likely to abandon you to find solutions that better meet their needs - and that’s where the real harm comes.

Might any of these be true when you look through the eyes of your users?

If so, something is broken.

If so, and you identify as a PLG company, you may be kidding yourself.

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