The Art & Science of Series A Growth

Here's the uncomfortable truth that no one in B2B SaaS wants to admit: product-led growth is a myth for 95% of companies.

The entire industry has been chasing this false idol for years. "Build it and they will come." "Product will sell itself." "Just focus on the product experience." It's all a comforting lie that serves two purposes: (1) making founders feel better about not understanding marketing, and (2) justifying the valuations of the handful of outlier companies that actually made it work.

Let's be clear: Slack, Dropbox, and Zoom were exceptions, not the rule. They had magical product-market fit at exactly the right moment in market evolution. Trying to copy their playbooks is like trying to replicate Facebook's growth strategy for your social network in 2025.

For the overwhelming majority of B2B SaaS companies, especially those selling into enterprises with complex buying committees and six-figure deals, product-led growth isn't just ineffective – it's actively harmful.

Why Product-Led Growth Fails for Most Companies

Here's why PLG fails for most B2B companies:

1. Complex Problems Don't Demo Well: If your product solves a genuinely complex problem (which it should), users can't grasp its value in a 30-minute self-guided tour.
2. Buying Committees Don't Have Shared Accounts: Enterprise decisions involve 7-12 stakeholders. They're not all going to use your freemium tier together.
3. Decision-Makers Don't Try Products: The people who control budgets rarely do hands-on testing. They delegate that to others who lack purchasing authority.
4. Value Accrues At The Organizational Level: Individual users can't experience the true ROI, which only materializes at scale.

For most Series A companies, PLG is a comforting delusion that lets them avoid the harder work of building actual go-to-market functions. It's like a fitness guru telling you that you don't need to diet or exercise – just wear the right shorts.

What Actually Works: The Buyer-Led Model

Successful Series A companies need to embrace a buyer-led growth model instead. This means:

• Building your entire go-to-market around how buying committees make decisions, not how individual users adopt products
• Focusing on facilitating consensus rather than driving individual usage
• Designing sales processes that navigate organizational complexity instead of trying to hack around it
• Creating marketing that speaks to organizational value, not just user convenience

This approach requires substantially more effort. It's not as sexy as watching a magic growth curve born of product virality. But it actually works for companies selling complex solutions to enterprises.

The greatest marketing tragedy I see is Series A companies burning 12-18 months trying to "be like Slack" before finally accepting reality and building proper go-to-market functions. By then, they've wasted half their runway and given competitors a massive head start.

Be honest about what kind of business you're really building. If you're selling complex solutions to enterprises, embrace the buyer-led model from day one. It's harder, but it actually works.