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Is PLG freemium rebranded? Notion at $10B, Microsoft acquires Ally, and more...

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This week in PLG 🗞

Is PLG freemium rebranded? Notion at $10B, Microsoft acquires Ally, and more...

Ruchin Kulkarni
and
Arjun Rakesh
Oct 14, 2021
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Is PLG freemium rebranded? Notion at $10B, Microsoft acquires Ally, and more...

www.topofthelyne.co

👋 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)

The outcome we're shooting for is simple... to get enough folks excited about the product-led world that we so dearly love ❤️

Subscribe to get this newsletter every week👇

Get early access to Toplyne for free 🤩


Into the Twitterverse 🐦🌌

  • Is PLG = Freemium + Virality, rebranded?!? 🤔

    Well… yes ✅ and no ❌

    Zachary Perret from Plaid asks a pertinent question on PLG 👇🏻 A question we wrestled with for the longest time!

    Twitter avatar for @zachperret
    Zachary Perret @zachperret
    Is "Product-Led Growth" just a rebrand of freemium and viral loops?
    4:49 AM ∙ Oct 8, 2021
    280Likes1Retweet

    James Kaikis made a great point - there’s finally a real GTM process powering PLG! Top of funnel, activation, PQLs (product qualified leads), Sales team, Customer Success, Account management, all working at heightened levels of efficiency thanks to #PLG 🚀

    Twitter avatar for @JamesKaikis
    James Kaikis @JamesKaikis
    @jasonlk @zachperret And maybe finally a real GTM process around it.
    3:04 AM ∙ Oct 9, 2021

    Jason Lemkin’s adds - the modern PLG GTM is finally instrumented and tooled for the job 👇🏻 Think Amplitude, Mixpanel, Segment, and many more ⚡️

    Twitter avatar for @jasonlk
    Jason ✨BeKind✨ Lemkin ⚫️ @jasonlk
    @zachperret Yeah. But with much better instrumentation and tools.
    12:46 PM ∙ Oct 8, 2021
    21Likes1Retweet
  • Money 💰 = Time ⏰

    As markets get crazier and PLG companies (and founders) get hotter 🔥 Harry Hurst had an insightful reminder of what raising money really buys, time. Pipe has burnt less than 5% of what they’ve raised! A shoutout to a company that has emerged as one of the strongest enablers of product-led growth (without dilution 😉 )

    Twitter avatar for @harryhurst
    Harry Hurst @harryhurst
    One of the biggest myths I see perpetuated is that you have to burn money just because you raised it. @pipe we’ve burned less than 5% of the capital we’ve raised. A strong balance sheet gives you leverage to grow. It gives you time, the most precious thing. Burn with caution.
    8:58 PM ∙ Oct 8, 2021
    694Likes55Retweets
  • Much like Messi ⚽️ it took Notion a decade of work to be an overnight success! 🦄

    Jason Lemkin reminds us of the tough early years Notion (much like many other wildly successful startups) faced on its road to becoming a decacorn last week ⭐️

    Twitter avatar for @jasonlk
    Jason ✨BeKind✨ Lemkin ⚫️ @jasonlk
    Notion is an incredible $10B overnight success story Note it was founded as a company in 2012/2013, however Sometimes you don't see the tough early years
    8:41 PM ∙ Oct 8, 2021
    285Likes14Retweets

Growth Stories 🚀

This weeks article was a Substack on Substack 😵‍💫 … Thanks for the shoutout, Lulu 🙌🏻

Twitter avatar for @lulumeservey
Lulu Cheng Meservey @lulumeservey
This graphic by Top of the Lyne… 👩🏻‍🍳💋
Image
4:07 PM ∙ Oct 13, 2021
22Likes4Retweets

Here’s how Substack is reimagining publishing in the modern world and grew to a mind-boggling $650M in the process 👇🏻

Top of the Lyne
An ode to Substack
Humanity’s success has always revolved around our ability to band together in large groups and work towards audacious goals. Whether it be building the pyramids or putting a man on the moon. But there has been one key enabler to these large-scale collaborative pursuits - trust! More so, trust in institutions. Institutions like religions, constitutions, …
Read more
2 years ago · 2 likes · Arjun Rakesh and Ruchin Kulkarni

Also, we’re back with a new podcast episode! Find out how Figma layered their bottoms-up PLG motion with a kickass sales team to build a $10B SaaS giant!👇🏻 Make sure to follow the channel on Spotify for weekly updates


Fundraising, Venture Capital and Exits 🤑

  • Did you bet against Bolt when things got rough over the last few years? The jokes on you 🤭 Raising $393M at a massive $6B valuation they are very much up and kicking! 🔥

    Twitter avatar for @ryantakesoff
    Ryan Breslow 🕺 @ryantakesoff
    🚨Big announcement today: Bolt raises $393M. Wow. A couple years ago, I didn’t know if we were going to make it. Now we have $500M+ on the balance sheet. I wanted to share a bit more about where we've been, but more importantly where we're going 👇👇👇
    Image
    12:02 AM ∙ Oct 13, 2021
    1,810Likes174Retweets
  • Notion rides the remote work wave to 20M active users (you and I included, right? 😅) and a valuation of…

    wait for it…

    $10B 💰🤯

    Twitter avatar for @mvernal
    Mike Vernal @mvernal
    Very excited to partner with @ivanhzhao, @akothari and the team at @NotionHQ! Notion has become a global phenomenon and is on its way to becoming the operating system for work across teams and enterprises. 1/
    forbes.comNotion Reaches $10 Billion Valuation, Boosted By Remote Work — And TikTokNotion has raised $275 million from Coatue, Sequoia and Base10 as users of the work app increased 5x from the pandemic’s early days, to more than 20 million.
    3:09 PM ∙ Oct 8, 2021
    233Likes16Retweets
  • Microsoft acquires 3-year-old OKR specialists Ally.io 💰

    Twitter avatar for @Allydotio
    Ally.io @Allydotio
    Big news today. Ally.io has been acquired by Microsoft!
    Twitter avatar for @MSFTnews
    Microsoft Stories and News @MSFTnews
    #Microsoft is pleased to announce the acquisition of @Allydotio, a leader in the OKR space. Ally will join the #MSFTViva family as part of our employee experience platform. Learn more: https://t.co/uu09EHz9Ad https://t.co/mhATVW7S6I
    3:22 PM ∙ Oct 7, 2021
    30Likes10Retweets

Launches, events, and releases

  • Crypto stans rejoice! 🤩 Stripe has hired a 3 member crypto team and the payment giants’ re-entry into the industry is very close!

  • Toronto-based password management tool 1password releases a new feature that lets users share credentials over links 🔗

  • Instagram adds scheduling and ‘practice mode’ features for Live creators 👨🏻‍🎨


Nerding out on PLG 🤓📚

Jennifer Li from a16z discusses the role research plays in a Product-led organization and shares tactics on how one could adopt a research mentality. Find out more



Some housekeeping…

Is your mailbox trying to keep our content away from you! 💔 What can you do about it? Mark this email as ‘not spam’ 😱 or move it from your promotions to the primary folder 👉🏻 It’s very easy!

Thanks again, and please tell a few friends if you feel like it.

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Is PLG freemium rebranded? Notion at $10B, Microsoft acquires Ally, and more...

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