Product led growth -a business strategy that relies on using your product as the main vehicle to acquire, activate, and retain customers.

Product led onboarding -  product-led onboarding is a methodology for designing and delivering customer onboarding experiences that are driven by the product itself.

Product led organisation- is one where the product is at the centre of everything. The focus is on creating a great product that meets customer needs and drives growth.

Customer led onboarding - user onboarding process which is focused on customer

Customer led growth-growth strategy aligned with customers growth

Why select between product led vs customer led?

The challenge is in finding the best way for your company to grow. The company is interested to transit to product led organization only if it brings expected growth.

There are approaches which existing hundreds of years already, including traditional sales-led strategies. At the same time with technological progress, new trends emerge.
Product led or customer led growth strategies become significantly more popular and impactful in tech and SaaS communities.

product led vs customer led vs sales led startegies in Google trends

There are a number of reasons why product-led organisations and strategies attracted such strong attention recently

  • More SaaS products with self-service
  • Scalability of startups and tech services
  • Variety of different products
  • Change in the decision-making process

Product led vs customer led: 5 key reasons to take into account

So, which is the better approach product led vs customer led? It depends on a number of factors, including your industry, your target market, and your resources. We'll take a closer look at both product led (PLG) and customer led (CLG), compare and contrast the two approaches, and help you decide which is right for your business.

There are a few key reasons why this question is important to consider when starting or growing a business.

First, the answer will determine what type of products or services you offer.


If you focus on products first, you'll need to make sure your products are appealing and useful to your target customers.
If you focus on customers first, you'll need to find out what they need and want and then create products or services that meet those needs.

Second, the answer will determine how you market and sell your products or services.
If you have great products but don't know who your target customer is, you'll have a hard time selling them.  
On the other hand, if you know your target customer well but don't have any great products to offer them, you'll also have a hard time selling.

Third, the answer will determine how much money you need to start or grow your business.
If you're product-led, you'll need enough money to develop and produce quality products.
If you're customer-led, you'll need enough money to research your target market and figure out what they want and need.

Fourth, the answer will determine how fast you can grow your business.

Product-led vs customer-led growth

Product-led vs customer-led

Simply speaking customer led organizations focus on customer communication and feedback and product UX.

Talking about product led people to refer to different terms and the core in it is product-led growth.

Product led growth -a business strategy that relies on using your product as the main vehicle to acquire, activate, and retain customers.

Product-led growth (PLG), focuses on building a great product and using that product to acquire customers. The second approach, known as customer-led growth (CLG), starts with acquiring customers and then using those customers to help shape the product.

Product led sales - a company's sales strategy that is focused on the product first and foremost. This means that the product is the primary driver of sales, rather than things like marketing or advertising.

Customer led growth-growth strategy aligned with customers growth

Product led vs customer led organisation

Product led organisation- is one where the product is at the centre of everything. The focus is on creating a great product that meets customer needs and drives growth.

The company will invest heavily in research and development to create a product that is superior to anything else on the market. They will then use marketing and sales to convince customers to buy their product. In a customer led business, the focus is on the customer. The company will use market research to identify what customers want and then create a product or service that meets those needs. They will then use marketing and sales to convince customers to buy their product or service.

A customer led organisation is one where the customers are at the forefront of everything that the organisation does.

This means that the organisation is constantly striving to understand what the customers want and need, and then providing it to them. The organisation will also work to build relationships with its customers so that they keep coming back. This type of organisation requires a lot

Product led onboarding vs Customer led onboarding

Product-led-vs-customer-led-onboarding

Product led onboarding -  product-led onboarding is a methodology for designing and delivering customer onboarding experiences that are driven by the product itself.

Customer led onboarding - user onboarding process which is focused on customer

User onboarding is a significant part of the growth strategy for the company. Therefore it is essential to identify which way to select.

Product led organizations examples

You probably familiar with the product led organisation out there. Most of them have an impactful product which millions of users around the world love, self service and smooth onboarding.

Some of the example of product led organisations are Slack, Notion and Typeform.

Product led strategy for your product led organisation

Product led organisation, it is growth and essential processes like onboarding all consist of a number of core startegies.

1. A product led strategy focuses on the product first, and the customer second. This is because the product is the most important element in the company. The customer is important, but the product is more important.

2. A product led strategy is better because it allows the company to focus on its strengths. A customer led strategy can be distracting and cause the company to lose sight of its strengths.

3. A product led strategy allows the company to be more agile and responsive to changes in the market. A customer led strategy can be slower to respond to changes.

4. A product led strategy allows the company to control its own destiny. A customer led strategy can be influenced by outside forces that the company has no control over.

5. In general, a product led strategy is better than a customer led strategy because it allows the company to focus on its strengths, be more agile, and control its own destiny.

What are the  benefits of customer led strategies for growth?

customer led strategies for growth

You are the one!

After you identified the customer group you

Never enough feedback

You can continuously gather the feedback from the users to.

One million ways of communication

Gather feedback and continuously communicate with your users using variety of channels

Each customer is unique

Every customer should be treated in the personalised and uniques way. For that you can create the

Product led vs customer led or maybe mixed?

Product led vs customer led mixed strategies

It is quite hard to stick strictly to only one strategy selecting between product led vs customer led.

By the end of the day often it is a mix of different ways and approaches which work best for the company.

So, when we talk about product led vs customer-led, we can identify at least two main approaches.

Customer led inside the product

One of them is taking the best out of both strategies and the second is to consider the focus on the customer inside the product. So we take the product-led growth strategy and inside it our priority is the customer.

Best from customer led vs product led

customer led vs product led mixed strategy

My personal favourite is the strategy where we take the best from both approaches product led vs customer led.

Where everything happens inside the product but all the product journeys are focused on the customer. It takes the best from the product led growth and onboarding strategies and the best from customer led. We can say that this strategy forms still product led organisation.

Customer led onboarding despite the sales led can have a lot in common. So for example, in both cases, the onboarding can happen directly from the product.

Content can be located as in product as also outside. There could be many ways and channels of communication with customers.

Personalization for every user is an important component of the advanced product led vs customer led onboarding.

Customer led onboarding still means more direct, synchronous communication with the users.

Conclusion

There are advantages and disadvantages to both product-led vs customer-led businesses. In a product-led business, the focus is on developing innovative products that customers will want to buy. In a customer-led business, the focus is on understanding the needs and wants of customers and then creating products that meet those needs.

Both approaches have their merits, but which one is right for your business depends on your specific goals and objectives. If you want to create groundbreaking products that will revolutionize your industry, a product-led approach may be the way to go. If you want to create products that meet the specific needs of your target customers, a customer-led approach may be better suited for your business.