WTF are PLG CRMs, expanding your BottomLyne, Content 101, and more!

👋 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 ❤️

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📜 Thesis recess

Starting off today’s newsletter with a new section… thesis recess.

There is a *sexy* new product category in town. One that we’re mistakenly tagged in all the time 🙈

Lo and behold… the PLG CRM!

The condition: PLG companies struggle with low conversion rates and less than optimal sales ✅

The prevailing diagnosis:

1. The traditional CRMs are to blame (read Salesforce, Hubspot, Pipedrive)

2. They just don’t work for PLG!

Our verdict: Umm…. the traditional CRMs seem to be working fine for Stripe, Canva, Atlassian… Figma, Zoom… Calendly, Asana… and most of the public PLG universe.

If Salesforce works for every >100M ARR company out there… then with PLG CRMs, you’re probably solving for the symptom and not the disease 🦠

The litmus test: Just ask founders - how many of them would PERSONALLY underwrite/guarantee a (2x) increase in sales… If you gave them a PLG CRM? 🤷🏻‍♂️

So why are investors so excited?

1. A large incumbent category (CRM)

2. An undeniable trend (PLG)

3. Pattern matching. Boom!

4. It hits all the sweet spots VCs drool for 🤤 I know I would’ve back in my VC days 😅

Stay tuned… a deep dive into PLG CRMs coming soon 😉

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Into the Twitterverse 🐦🌌

• How Segment expanded their BottomLyne 😉

  Step 1: Read an inspiring biography about Elon ✅

  Step 2: Get inspired by first principles engineering ✅

  Step 3: Increase gross margins 😌

  Kidding! Of course, it’s a lot harder than that. Instrumentation to measure server costs, autoscaling (up and down), redirecting data flow to manage AZ bandwidth charges from your friendly neighborhood AWS, renegotiating your AWS contract, and most importantly… hiring a stellar CFO like Sandy Smith to get it all done 💯

  Peter Reinhardt @reinpk

  When @segment was over $50m ARR we realized we were spending a fortune on servers, and it was growing like topsy, faster than revenue. Gross margin was free-falling into the low 50%'s (software benchmark was 80%). It didn't feel like we were in control, which I loathed. A 🧵 1/11

• Content 101… start small 👩🏻‍🏫

  As young substackers ourselves, we couldn’t agree more with Harry’s tweet.

  The early days of content creation are about starting small, writing for a niche audience (for us… that’s PLG GTM practitioners), engaging with your most engaged subscribers, figuring out what they want, and giving them more!

  Harry Stebbings @HarryStebbings

  Content is like product. When you start, don’t go broad. Have a very specific target audience. The smaller the better. Find 100 true believers. Expand from there. 🚀

• Web3 🤝 Web2

  Sriram Krishnan - sriramk.eth @sriramk

  Product I’d love : wrap Notion or Google Docs with wallet gating. Creator: Share To -> ( pick ENS or eth address). Viewers/Editors: login with wallet in the step you login with Google/email/Apple.

• The Times They Are A-Changin' 🪕

  Amjad Masad ⠕ @amasad

  It's fascinating how much adopting new software could change companies. This is from a 3000 employee, multi-decade old company.

  

• All roads lead to ch(rome) 🌎

  If you're a programmer who wants to work on something hard and important, Paul Graham strongly recommends Mighty.

  Paul Graham @paulg

  I went to see Suhail and got a demo of the latest version of Mighty. It's there. It's already as good as Chrome running on the desktop. And soon it's going to be better.

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🔎 The PLG hunt

• Cron - It’s about time!

  “We want to build the time layer of the internet,” says Cron co-founder Raphael Schaad.

  Cron is Apple calendar on steroids. With options to check calendar availabilites (and share them) within the app, convenient quick views of your upcoming meetings that open straight from the menu bar, and a ton of useful keyboard shortcuts, Cron is one of the smoothest calendar experiences you can get for yourself right now.

  And the final product isn’t even ready yet. Cron is still in semi-stealth mode.

  Right now, Cron is available to some users in early access and the app only supports Google accounts. But other providers are coming to the app soon.

  Cron @Cron

  Cron is nominated as productivity app of the year 🎊 It's a long shot but every vote counts! Check it out: producthunt.com/golden-kitty-a… 🧡 The order is randomized so you may have to scroll to find Cron.

  

  producthunt.comProductivity - Golden Kitty Awards 2021 | Product HuntProduct Hunt’s annual Golden Kitty Awards 2021. Nominate your favorite products for Productivity category.

  We're excited for where Cron can take the future of calendars 🤩

  Which hot and upcoming PLG company are you most excited about? 👇🏻

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Growth Stories 🚀

‘API Mixer’ → Snapier → Zapier!

Zapier threw the “How to be a unicorn” manual out of the window and charted their own course to get there. With <$1.4M raised in total funding, an obsession with great customer service, a Fibonacci pricing model (in the early days) and a smattering of mid-western values that the founders bring to the table, Zapier’s rise to the integrations throne and a $5B valuation has been unique. 👑

Read more in our detailed breakdown:

Paul Graham @paulg

Keep the thing that doesn't scale. "The early culture of 1:1 customer service and solving customer issues over Skype calls has now coalesced into the culture of this extraordinary rocketship and remains exceptional even to this day."

topofthelyne.coHappier with ZapierThe product-led growth engine that powered Zapier’s growth from $0-$140M ARR and a $5B valuation with just $1.4M raised

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Fundraising, Venture Capital and Exits 🤑

• Welcome to the Unicorn club, Hasura! 🦄

  With the latest round of funding - $100M in Series C - Hasura will now double down on accelerating growth and solving for emerging use cases.

  Hasura @HasuraHQ

  We are delighted to announce our $100M Series C funding led by Greenoaks. 🤩 This funding will allow us to accelerate the development and adoption of our GraphQL engine to make GraphQL available to everyone. 🚀 hasura.io/blog/seriesc-1…

• Alloy Automation, the OS for e-commerce co-ordination, raises $20M in Series A funding led by a16z 🚀

  While the explosion in e-commerce software has been great for brands and their tooling, it also means that there is a mess of data and apps that don't integrate.

  Alloy Automation creates order in this chaos.

  a16z @a16z

  We’re excited to invest in @AlloyAutomation, the operating system for ecommerce brands. Alloy connects key tools, enabling stores to stitch together workflows and leverage apps to their fullest, all in an easy-to-use interface. More from a16z's @davidu 👇 a16z.com/2022/02/22/inv…

  

  a16z.comInvesting in Alloy AutomationAlloy Automation is the operating system for ecommerce brands to automate their businesses.

Launches, events, and releases

• Meet Trello dashcards! 🃁

  SoftwareFTEW @SoftwareFTEW

  It's been a while, but @trello has finally come up with something new and exciting. At a glance, #Dashcards display the number of cards that match the filter as a card cover. Really like the idea and the implementation.

  

• Coda: Level up!

  A rebuilt editor, an open packs platform, a new market place and more are part of Coda 3.0

  Coda @coda_hq

  Big news: we’re pleased to introduce the all-new Coda 3.0 — the doc that brings it all together. With a brand new editor, an open Packs platform, and hundreds of your most requested updates, Coda 3.0 is ready for your team. Read more about Coda 3.0: bit.ly/3dot0-t

  

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