How Snyk built a product-led growth juggernaut | Ben Williams (VP of Product at Snyk‪)‬ Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Ben Williams is VP of Product at Snyk, an industry-leading security platform for developers, last valued at $8.5b. He’s 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’s 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—and also how their initial plan for self-serve monetization fell flat. We go into Ben’s 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.lennyspodcast.com/how-snyk-built-a-product-led-growth-juggernaut-ben-williams-vp-of-product-at-snyk/#transcript
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Where to find Ben Williams:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/semanticben
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/semanticben/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:
• Coda: https://coda.io/lenny
• Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lenny
• Vanta: https://vanta.com/lenny
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Referenced:
• Snyk: https://snyk.io/
• Weekly Team Impact & Learnings Review Template: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GibNaJ4aONgp5Kg824NCionr1citHIDk3FLvMdkpX_Q/edit?usp=share_link
• Monthly Group Impact & Learnings Review Template: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nQ18OTuRtc8urBnUWEObD_BlfdGDKlDDMFg8-G2GK7E/edit?usp=share_link
• Experiment Plan Template: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18LiGXKphGe1tUpZCQA20i4bJqf-S3kDbYnY4Pls_9kQ/edit?usp=share_link
• Vision & Mission Framework: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CiRwscu-50lBr2c7yRLY_zXVzv5DCnYqNnS5Au83WC8/edit?usp=share_link
• Ed Sim’s newsletter: https://whatshot.substack.com/
• Tamar Yehoshua on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tyehoshua
• Julian Shapiro on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/growth-tactics-retention-strategies-and-becoming-a-better-writer-julian-shapiro-demand-curve-hyper-webflow-techcrunch/
• Annie Duke’s website: https://www.annieduke.com/
• Elena Verna on Lenny’s 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/
• Growth loops: https://www.reforge.com/blog/growth-loops
• Brian Balfour on using learnings: https://brianbalfour.com/growth-machine/maximize-learning
• Adam Fishman on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/how-to-build-a-high-performing-growth-team-adam-fishman-patreon-lyft-imperfect-foods/
• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/
• FullStory: https://www.fullstory.com/
• User Interviews: https://www.userinterviews.com/
• User Testing: https://www.usertesting.com/
• Sprig: https://sprig.com/surveys
• Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/home/toolkit
• How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of “Intangibles” in Business: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470110120/
• 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
• Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078QSCM3V/
• This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race: https://www.amazon.com/This-They-Tell-World-Ends/dp/1635576059
• Acquired podcast: https://www.acquired.fm/
• Turning Red on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/turning-red/4mFPCXJi7N2m
• Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/