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"Your product isn't selling itself hard enough."
That's what Warby Parker's founders heard repeatedly from investors in 2010. Today, those same investors are watching in awe as the eyewear upstart commands a $4.5 billion valuation – without a traditional sales team.
This story isn't just about selling glasses online. It's about a fundamental shift in how successful businesses are built in the 2020s. Welcome to the Product-Led Growth (PLG) revolution, where your next customer's journey doesn't start with a sales pitch. It starts with a free pair of glasses arriving at their door.
Let's dive into how regular businesses are turning their customers into growth machines – and how you can too. 🚀
The New Rules of Growth
Picture this: You're a traditional eyewear executive in 2010. Your industry runs on high margins, pushy salespeople, and expensive retail locations. Then some upstarts decide to let people try five pairs of glasses at home, for free, with zero obligation to buy.
You'd think they were crazy, right?
But Warby Parker's founders understood something profound: In the digital age, your product isn't just what you sell – it's your most powerful marketing channel, sales team, and customer service department combined.
Think about the last time you shared something with your friends. Was it because some ad told you to? Nah. You shared it because it was so damn good you couldn't help yourself.
That's PLG in a nutshell.
There's hard math behind why some products spread like wildfire while others fade into obscurity. It's called the viral coefficient (K-factor), and it's calculated like this:
K=(Average Referrals per User)×(Conversion Rate)
When K > 1, something magical happens: Your product starts growing exponentially without additional marketing spend. Here's how some OG tech companies hit this holy grail:
Dropbox achieved K > 1 by offering 500MB of free storage per referral, driving an astounding 2.8 million monthly invites
WhatsApp maintained steady growth through free text messages in a multiplayer experience (each user needed to bring in another)
Slack reached Within 24 hours of their beta launch in 2013, Slack hit 8k users by making team collaboration the core of their viral loop. Today they have over 38 million users.
Beyond Tech: Regular Companies Going Viral
As I build my social platform Connyct, PLG is always top of mind, but through my agency Emerald Digital, I also work with many entrepreneurs outside of tech. For them—and for my agency as well—I wanted to explore how non-tech companies implement viral loops and turn their products into powerful growth engines.
Want an update on Connyct?
Eyewear: Warby Parker’s Try-On's Are Instagrammable
Tactic: Free home try-ons with 5 frames + social sharing prompts
Outcome: 21.78% Gen Z visit growth, $4.5B IPO valuation
Mechanism: Physical product experience digitized through Instagram-worthy unboxing
Beauty: Birchbox’s Personalized Sampling
Tactic: $5 credit for referrals + personalized sample curation
Outcome: 850K subscribers in 3.5 years via beauty community-building with an 18% reduction in churn after implementing AI-powered personalization.
Mechanism: Monthly subscription model creates recurring referral opportunities
Meal Kits: Blue Apron’s $35M Bet
Tactic: Dual-sided referral rewards (free meal), recipe sharing, first-box discounts
Outcome: 34% of new customers from referrals, significant market share capture, higher than industry average retention
Mechanism: Referral rewards trigger at first purchase, social sharing built into recipe platform, viral loops through meal gifting
Real Talk: Blue Apron spent $35M on referrals. That's some serious cash, and it may have been cash they didn't have. Your viral coefficient needs to justify your acquisition costs, and unless you have a VC war chest, it's best to be mindful of your margins. But here's the thing: if you do PLG right, it's way cheaper than outbound.
Morning Brew, Time Inc, LA Mag, and You
What’s the connection? beehiiv.
Our founders engineered the growth machine behind Morning Brew. They're now bringing that expertise to media juggernauts like TIME and LA Mag, helping them build best-in-class newsletters.
And all of that support, all of those tools, and all of that expertise is available to you. In short: no gatekeeping here.
When you work with us, just like Time and LA Mag, you’ll get:
The industry’s most powerful no-code website builder
Access to our ad network and sponsors like Nike and Netflix
Growth tools that help you scale with ease
Stop limiting your growth potential. Let proven experts working with the world’s biggest brands help you scale your content.
You Can Teach An Old Dog A New Trick
The next wave of product led growth is combining digital and physical experiences in ways that seemed impossible just a few years ago:
Sephora's Color IQ system uses machine learning to match skin tones, driving a 22% increase in basket size
Birchbox's AI curator reduces churn by 18% through personalized product matching
Warby Parker's 3D frame scanning app is driving 25% higher conversions
Your Turn: Making PLG Work
Design experiences worth sharing
Build virality into core features
Create "Instagram moments" in your user journey
Align rewards with user value (like Dropbox's storage rewards)
Create dual-sided benefits (like Blue Apron's meal sharing)
Build status systems (like Sephora's tiered rewards)
Make sharing stupid-simple
3. Measure What Matters
Track your viral coefficient religiously
Monitor activation rates (Octadesk's 97% improvement story)
Focus on Net Revenue Retention (Slack's 125%+ through team expansion)
The Bottom Line
You don't need to be a tech company to go viral. You need to be smart about it. Whether you're selling mattresses or meal kits, there's a way to make your product market itself.
To Recap:
Find your product's brag-worthy moment
Make it dead easy to share
Give people a reason to talk about you
Test, measure, repeat
Ready to turn your customers into your biggest growth engine? The playbook's right here. Time to make it rain. 💸
Remember: The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing at all.
🎁 Get rewarded for sharing! Invite your friends to join, and when they sign up, you’ll unlock our AI Viral Hook Generator—the ultimate tool for creating scroll-stopping content.
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While you're reading this, your competitors are already implementing PLG strategies.
Frustrated by high CAC while organic growth opportunities pass you by?