BROADCASTS.com

Merci Grace has been a founder, an investor (at Lightspeed Ventures), head of product and growth (at Slack), and is now a founder again (Panobi). She\u2019s also one of the co-founders of Women in Product, and Fast Company named her one of the Most Creative People in 2017.

\u2014

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

\u2022 Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/lenny

\u2022 Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/startups

\u2022 Whimsical: https://whimsical.com/lenny

\u2014

In this episode, we cover:

[3:41] Merci\u2019s path to Head of Product and Growth at Slack

[4:42] What Merci learned from being a VC that helps her be a better founder

[6:50] How to tell a compelling story

[9:43] What most people don\u2019t know about Slack

[10:27] Why Slack hasn\u2019t created a consumer/social product

[15:14] How Slack innovated the PLG motion

[17:14] Slack\u2019s early growth strategy

[19:57] Slack\u2019s activation point

[22:10] Why it\u2019s important to find connectors within a company

[26:40] Lessons from optimizing Slack\u2019s onboarding flow

[32:12] Most common mistakes in going PLG

[35:56] Signs you can go PLG

[38:10] PLG vs. bottom-up

[40:23] Importance of day-zero value in your tool

[42:17] When to bring in your first salesperson

[44:47] How to hire amazing people

[50:21] Storytelling and Slack\u2019s culture

[51:04] How and when to build a growth team

[52:08] How to build a more diverse team

\u2014

Where to find Merci:

\u2022 Panobi: https://panobi.com/

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

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

\u2022 Website: https://mercigrace.co/

\u2022 Women in Product: https://www.womenpm.org/