How Behavioral Science Can Build Products that Sell Themselves: The Pirate Funnel Toolkit
Introduction
Recently, a friend of mine shared his dilemma as a SaaS product founder in a post on LinkedIn: “To be successful, you need to do both of these things even though they are the opposite: build a human connection with every customer and make everything a (scalable) funnel.”
This is a delicate equilibrium, and there’s no silver bullet. How can we address the challenge of balancing human connection with scalability? In this article, we’ll explore how behavioral science can boost the application of product-led growth (PLG).
What is Product-Led Growth?
Driven by the dual forces of software development cycle acceleration, and the consequent downward push on sales cycle durations, the idea that “products that sell themselves” is a compelling frontier of building and commercializing tech.
PLG is a growth model in which product usage drives customer acquisition, retention, and expansion. To succeed in PLG, products must independently attract users, onboard them, and on top of that, provide an intuitive UX that’s sticky enough to keep them engaged.
References
- OpenView. (2023). 2022 Product Benchmarks. OpenViewPartners.com. Retrieved from https://openviewpartners.com/2022-product-benchmarks/
- OpenView. (2023). Product Led Growth Index. OpenViewPartners.com. Retrieved from https://openviewpartners.com/product-led-growth-index/
- Koivisto, J. & Hamari, J. (2019). The rise of motivational information systems: A review of gamification research. International Journal of Information Management, Vol 45, 191-210.
About the Author
Riya Chhabra
Riya Chhabra is a technology growth leader, and is passionate about understanding and leveraging behaviour science towards positive personal and organisational outcomes. She draws on her business experience as a growth strategist at Meta, strategy consultant at McKinsey, and a growth leader at Milaap, an Asian digital crowdfunding startup. Born and raised in India, she has lived and worked in New York, Singapore, Paris, and now lives in London. She holds an MBA from INSEAD, and is currently doing a part-time MSc in Behaviour Science from the London School of Economics to connect the dots between behaviour science and technology.
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