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Ben Williams is VP of Product at Snyk, an industry-leading security platform for developers, last valued at $8.5b. He\u2019s also a product and growth advisor with over 20 years of experience building and scaling high-performing product and growth teams. Through product-led growth, product-led sales, and community, Snyk rapidly scaled and won over the lucrative developer audience. In today\u2019s episode, Ben shares the successful growth levers that helped Snyk get started, all of the details of how Snyk has structured their growth, product, and marketing teams and set them up for success in terms of cross-collaboration\u2014and also how their initial plan for self-serve monetization fell flat. We go into Ben\u2019s many useful tips for product-led growth, including his thoughts on free vs. paid versions, trials, and how to build amazing growth teams.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-snyk-built-a-product-led-growth

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Where to find Ben Williams:

\u2022 Twitter: https://twitter.com/semanticben

\u2022 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/semanticben/

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Where to find Lenny:

\u2022 Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

\u2022 Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

\u2022 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

\u2022 Coda: https://coda.io/lenny

\u2022 Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lenny

\u2022 Vanta: https://vanta.com/lenny

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Referenced:

\u2022 Snyk: https://snyk.io/

\u2022 Weekly Team Impact & Learnings Review Template: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GibNaJ4aONgp5Kg824NCionr1citHIDk3FLvMdkpX_Q/edit?usp=share_link

\u2022 Monthly Group Impact & Learnings Review Template: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nQ18OTuRtc8urBnUWEObD_BlfdGDKlDDMFg8-G2GK7E/edit?usp=share_link

\u2022 Experiment Plan Template: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18LiGXKphGe1tUpZCQA20i4bJqf-S3kDbYnY4Pls_9kQ/edit?usp=share_link

\u2022 Vision & Mission Framework: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CiRwscu-50lBr2c7yRLY_zXVzv5DCnYqNnS5Au83WC8/edit?usp=share_link

\u2022 Ed Sim\u2019s newsletter: https://whatshot.substack.com/

\u2022 Tamar Yehoshua on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tyehoshua

\u2022 Julian Shapiro on Lenny\u2019s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/growth-tactics-retention-strategies-and-becoming-a-better-writer-julian-shapiro-demand-curve-hyper-webflow-techcrunch/

\u2022 Annie Duke\u2019s website: https://www.annieduke.com/

\u2022 Elena Verna on Lenny\u2019s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-verna-on-how-b2b-growth-is-changing-product-led-growth-product-led-sales-why-you-should-go-freemium-not-trial-what-features-to-make-free-and-much-more/

\u2022 Growth loops: https://www.reforge.com/blog/growth-loops

\u2022 Brian Balfour on using learnings: https://brianbalfour.com/growth-machine/maximize-learning

\u2022 Adam Fishman on Lenny\u2019s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/how-to-build-a-high-performing-growth-team-adam-fishman-patreon-lyft-imperfect-foods/

\u2022 Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/

\u2022 FullStory: https://www.fullstory.com/

\u2022 User Interviews: https://www.userinterviews.com/

\u2022 User Testing: https://www.usertesting.com/

\u2022 Sprig: https://sprig.com/surveys

\u2022 Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/home/toolkit

\u2022 How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of \u201cIntangibles\u201d in Business: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470110120/

\u2022 Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days: https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/150112174X

\u2022 Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078QSCM3V/

\u2022 This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race: https://www.amazon.com/This-They-Tell-World-Ends/dp/1635576059

\u2022 Acquired podcast: https://www.acquired.fm/

\u2022 Turning Red on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/turning-red/4mFPCXJi7N2m

\u2022 Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/curb-your-enthusiasm

\u2022 Christine Itwaru\u2019s blog: https://prodops.blog/

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In this episode, we cover:

(04:44) Ben\u2019s background

(07:27) What is Snyk, and what\u2019s the current scale?

(08:45) Why Ben joined Snyk

(09:29) How Snyk got their first 100 users

(15:14) How Snyk used developer conferences and in-person meet-ups to launch

(19:23) How Snyk used GitHub as a growth lever

(23:50) Snyk Advisor, and other growth loops Snyk successfully used

(26:56) Snyk\u2019s failed attempt at self-serve monetization

(31:21) How to win the hearts and minds of developers

(33:38) How adding sales and marketing teams helped Snyk gain momentum

(35:11) The evolution of Snyk\u2019s growth team

(37:26) Snyk\u2019s key areas of growth and how Ben solved tension between teams

(39:32) What is Snyk\u2019s decision science team?

(40:59) Why Snyk has a growth marketer embedded on each team

(43:39) The importance of having an amazing SEO person

(46:21) Advice on building growth teams

(51:32) Ben\u2019s vision and mission framework

(53:53) More on the growth process and experimentation

(56:04) Using learnings as a path to impact

(57:32) Growth strategy

(1:02:26) Data in growth teams

(1:06:33) How Snyk socializes learnings

(1:10:05) How Snyk structures their product org

(1:13:15) Free vs. paid features and how to approach trials

(1:18:57) Activation milestones at Snyk

(1:23:05) The most valuable tools for Snyk\u2019s growth team

(1:25:21) Lightning round

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.