In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we're back talking to the founder and CEO of Vidyard, Michael Litt.
In our first episode with Michael, we talked a lot about leadership and how to grow a company. In this episode, we wanted to dig into Vidyard's recent shift to being a product-led company and how they successfully added freemium to their go-to-market.
We talk to Michael about why he made that decision, the challenges Vidyard had to overcome to make it successful, how to get your go-to-market teams working effectively together, and how to get your sales team excited about freemium.
Time Stamped Notes
[2:50] - Michael walks us through how he decided to shift Vidyards business model to freemium. As an engineer, he approached those decisions from the first principal's perspective.
[6:25] - A big part of that shift was due to the way businesses have changed how they purchase Martech software. Michael talks about those changes.
[8:40] - Software companies are vying for their consumer's time. We've gone from software as a service, to results as a service.
[10:45] - We talk to Michael about some of the challenges that came with adopting freemium. One of the changes Vidyard made was how they structured their product and engineering teams across their different tiers. Michael talks through other changes they had to make.
[17:40] - One of the changes brought about by a shift to product-led growth was the number of teams involved in Vidyard's go-to-market strategy grew. Michael is in the process of building out a growth team.
[23:00] - A freemium option means you end up with a lot more users, and not all of them are interested in buying your product. Michael talks us through how Vidyard qualifies product qualified accounts, those free accounts that have a high propensity to buy.
[27:40] - Moving to freemium means you need to get great at reading 'digital body language.' To do that, you need resources in data analysis and data science.
[29:20] - We talk about how the Vidyard team optimizes upgrade points in the product across their different tiers.
[39:30] - When moving to freemium, there is a lot of education needed for your sales team for them to understand how it benefits their pipeline. Michael talks about how Vidyard got their sales team on board with the freemium initiative.
[36:45] - Creative tension among the different go-to-market teams is a good thing because it forces you to address tough questions and ultimately leads to better results.
– Michael on Twitter / LinkedIn
– Kieran on Twitter / LinkedIn / Medium
– Scott on Twitter / Linked / Medium
