Backwards from where you already have proof. You already know which customers succeed and what they did in week one, so start by instrumenting that as an activation event and measuring it on your existing base before you build any signup flow. Then open a narrow self-serve path for one segment you currently turn away as too small, with pricing published, and let it run ugly for a quarter. The instinct to launch a full freemium tier and rebuild the website first is the expensive version of this, and it fails because you learn nothing until real strangers pay. Expect internal resistance from sales the moment the first self-serve deal lands in a named territory, and settle that rule before it happens, not after.
5 resources, 1 India-specific, 5 link-checked.
The later chapter of the same story: how Postman layered enterprise sales onto a developer flywheel without breaking it. This is the transition most Indian PLG companies get wrong.
On SaaStr on YouTube by Abhinav Asthana 30 min watch
The funnel audit method Hila describes here is the single most useful thing to run in your first month on a PLG team, and hearing her talk through it is faster than reading a framework.
On Lenny's Podcast by Lenny Rachitsky 70 min listen
Open lennysnewsletter.com →Hila Qu added the self-serve motion at GitLab, a sales-led company, and this episode is the step by step order she would do it in again, plus the pitfalls of layering PLG on top of an existing sales team.
On Lenny's Podcast by Hila Qu with Lenny Rachitsky 93 min
Listen on Apple Podcasts podcasts.apple.com →Kazanjy is blunt that almost every bottom-up company eventually adds sales, so the only questions are when and how. He covers the sequencing, the data plumbing, and the mistakes, including delegating the first sales conversations too early.
From Lenny's Newsletter by Pete Kazanjy 25 min read
Hila Qu built PLG at GitLab and scaled Acorns, and this is the rare free piece that maps the sales-led funnel against the product-led one side by side so you can see exactly which stage you are actually changing.
From Lenny's Newsletter by Hila Qu 20 min read
How product-led growth reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Grow & market, our Starting Up track.
