Question 1

What are the key takeaways from Ben Williams's episode on Lenny's Podcast?

Accepted Answer

1. Go depth-first before breadth - a JavaScript developer won't care if you support Golang, but will care deeply if key features are missing for their ecosystem. 2. Company-generated content loops can be both acquisition and engagement loops - Snyk's automated fix PRs on GitHub brought new users while keeping existing ones active. 3. Embed growth marketers in product teams - they bring a broader palette of ideas and can execute lightweight experiments without engineering resources. 4. Growth engineers thrive when they embrace imperfection, happily discard code, and aren't attached to their work - not everyone fits this profile despite being talented. 5. Focus on learnings not impact directly - learnings pave the path to impact; if you focus on impact alone you might struggle.

Question 2

What does Ben Williams say about product-led-growth and developer-tools?

Accepted Answer

"PLG or bottom up and security, these were never words that were known to have been spoken together in a single sentence. Security has always been a centralized function. Security programs were historically about audit and policing and enforcement versus developer enablement." - Ben Williams "They started with a really narrow early focus. It was a single persona, single context, single use case - developers building applications using Node.js who wanted to ensure that the open source dependencies they were pulling into their apps were secure." - Ben Williams "A JavaScript developer just won't care if you support Golang or Rust, but will absolutely care if a key feature like automated package upgrades isn't available for their ecosystem. The key was not to go too wide too early." - Ben Williams

Question 3

What are Ben Williams's views on product-led-growth, developer-tools, growth-teams?

Accepted Answer

Ben Williams: "PLG or bottom up and security, these were never words that were known to have been spoken together in a single sentence. Security has always been a centralized function. Security programs were historically about audit and policing and enforcement versus developer enablement." Ben Williams: "We create Snyk-branded pull requests to fix vulnerabilities. Other devs in the repo see and interact with those PRs, some follow links to Snyk, create accounts, connect their own repos, and the loop continues. A company generated, company distributed content loop - really powerful because it's both acquisition and engagement."

Ben Williams

How Snyk built a product-led growth juggernaut | Ben Williams (VP of Product at Snyk)

TRANSCRIPT

Ben Williams

How Snyk built a product-led growth juggernaut | Ben Williams (VP of Product at Snyk)

Ben Williams

How Snyk built a product-led growth juggernaut | Ben Williams (VP of Product at Snyk)

TRANSCRIPT

Ben Williams

How Snyk built a product-led growth juggernaut | Ben Williams (VP of Product at Snyk)