2021 in memes: the PLG version

In the spirit of the new year, this week we cover the dankest moments of 2021 from the world of product-led growth

👋 Hey, Ruchin here! Welcome to this week’s edition of the ✨Top of the Lyne✨ newsletter. Each week we publish the hottest news from the beautiful world of product-led growth! (PLG)

But not today. It’s the end of the year. And my fellow Toplyners want to let loose and have some fun… so here you go.

Subscribe to get this newsletter every week… we promise we’re not usually this DANK 🙈👇

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• 2021 saw the best in the world challenge the status quo, set aside conventional models, and elevate their game… like Cristiano Ronaldo at the Euros ⚽️

  Buyers of software today want to take the product for a spin before they make purchasing decisions. Step aside, the Pepsis and Cokes of the world in Sales-led and Marketing-led motions. The future is product-led 🚀

• At the Met Gala, Kendall Jenner and Kim Kardashian perfectly caricatured the challenge revenue teams at PLG companies face today 😰

With freemium models enabling anyone with an internet connection to start using products for free, the Sales top-of-funnel (ToFu) has expanded multifold. Sales teams have a hard time solving the needle-in-a-haystack problem of finding the free users who are primed to convert to paid plans.

• If remote work was new in 2020, it became de-facto in 2021 👩🏻‍💻

  And all the cool kids stood up and delivered… like Timothée Chalamet, Wes Anderson, Tilda Swinton, and Bill Murray did at Cannes.

• In a world where trust in institutions continues to erode, Substack put the power back in the hands of the individuals 🧑‍💻

  The number of paid subscribers on the platform grew from 250k+ in Dec 2020 to 500k+ in Feb 2021

• You don’t need this kind of negativity in your life:

  Toplyne @Toplynehq

  “PLG is just free trials” 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 #productledgrowth #plg

  

• There is no known cure for Zoom fatigue, but in mmhmm, Phil Libin has built the palliative for it 💊

  We’re big fans (and users) of mmhmm ourselves and we covered their growth story in some depth here. Fan boy moment for us when mmhmm themselves RT’d our meme.

  

mmhmm @mmhmmapp

Small changes, whether switching seats on the bus or switching video tools, can yield big results. Thanks for the meme and also the great write up, @Toplynehq! ow.ly/ONb750H0kqM

• The Weeknd did a great job personifying the frustrations of conventional search at the Superbowl 🏈

  A problem no one who has ever used Algolia’s blazing fast search API has ever faced.

• If history has taught us anything, it is that we should let trilogies be! Sorry Keanu… we still love you ❤️

  And that “heads-down” time at work is important. Clockwise offered us the red pill of time management 💊

Not all superheroes wear capes. Some are Chrome Extensions 🦸🏻‍♀️

Clockwise @getclockwise

“'Help the world make time for what matters.' It's easy to take Clockwise's impact on your calendar for granted. But their mission is a stark reminder of the impact this glorious little Chrome extension can have on our lives."

Ruchin ツ @Ruchin_Kulkarni

In classic #VC pattern matching style - today's article on what makes the best #PLG companies truly special 🤩 ft @canva, @stripe, @sourcegraph, @Shopify, @getclockwise, @NotionHQ, @SlackHQ, @Dropbox, @HubSpot, @figmadesign, @Hopin, @getpostman, @airtable https://t.co/6lZItxMSzs

• Retool came to the rescue of developers around the world playing red light green light against the demands of building internal tools🚦

  

• In 2021, Airtable made databases sexy again. And zoomed to a $11B valuation in the process.

  

• Let’s step outside PLG for a second and look at the Meta picture here

  We’re not saying the Ever Given blocking the Suez canal and Facebook services going down for seven hours are comparable… but we’re not saying they weren’t either.

• Anyone who is someone did a “2021 wrapped” but no one quite did it like Spotify 🎵

  Here is our genre-bending “top songs” playlist from 2021. The perfect playlist doesn’t exis… 😬

Happy New Year, folks! See you on the other side.

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