skills-ws/skills/product-led-growth/references/1-plg-fundamentals.md

87 agent skills for AI coding assistants — marketing, growth, web3, dev, design & operations. Built for OpenClaw, Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

## Contents

- 1. PLG Fundamentals
- PLG vs Sales-Led vs Marketing-Led
- When PLG Works (and When It Doesn't)
- The PLG Flywheel

## 1. PLG Fundamentals

### PLG vs Sales-Led vs Marketing-Led

| Dimension | Product-Led | Sales-Led | Marketing-Led |
|-----------|------------|-----------|---------------|
| Primary acquisition | Self-serve signup | Outbound sales | Inbound content/ads |
| First touch | Free trial / freemium | Demo call / RFP | Lead magnet / webinar |
| Time to value | Minutes to hours | Weeks to months | Days to weeks |
| CAC | Low ($0-50) | High ($5k-50k+) | Medium ($200-2k) |
| Deal size sweet spot | $0-25k ARR | $50k-500k+ ARR | $5k-100k ARR |
| Conversion driver | Product experience | Sales rep relationship | Content + nurture |
| Expansion motion | Self-serve upgrade + usage | Account executive upsell | Marketing-assisted |
| Examples | Slack, Figma, Notion, Canva | Salesforce, Workday, Palantir | HubSpot, Drift, Intercom |

### When PLG Works (and When It Doesn't)

**PLG works when:**
- End users CAN adopt without IT/procurement approval
- Value is demonstrable within minutes, not months
- Product has natural collaboration or sharing hooks
- Low switching cost from alternatives (or no alternative)
- Large addressable user base (not 50 companies in the world)

**PLG doesn't work when:**
- Product requires complex integration before any value (e.g., data warehouse migration)
- Buyer ≠ user and buyer won't let user self-serve
- Regulatory/compliance blocks self-serve adoption
- Total addressable market is < 1,000 companies
- Average deal size must be > $100k to make unit economics work

### The PLG Flywheel

```
┌─────────┐     ┌───────────┐     ┌─────────┐     ┌─────────┐     ┌───────────┐
│ ACQUIRE │ ──→ │ ACTIVATE  │ ──→ │ RETAIN  │ ──→ │ EXPAND  │ ──→ │ ADVOCATE  │
│ Sign up │     │ Aha moment│     │ Habit    │     │ Upgrade │     │ Refer     │
└─────────┘     └───────────┘     └─────────┘     └─────────┘     └───────────┘
      ↑                                                                  │
      └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

Each stage feeds the next. Advocacy drives acquisition. The flywheel compounds.

**Key principle:** Fix stages in order. No point driving acquisition if activation is broken. No point optimizing retention if users never activate.