OpenView

A lot of PLG talk is focused on operational strategies and tactics. But what does PLG mean for the CEO of a company? What should your mindset be? How do you address common objections you might hear from your team (especially if transitioning to PLG for the first time).

Martin Gontovnikas, a.k.a Gonto, is a software engineer at heart that moved to the “dark side” to focus on Marketing. With this career transition, he found a way to combine his 2 passions by applying his “engineering thinking” model to Marketing. He is now a B2B SaaS Advisor to Vercel and Rev among others and Co-Founder of Hypergrowth Partners. Previously, he was SVP of Marketing and Growth at Auth0. 


Martin Gontovnikas

Co-Founder and General Partner at HyperGrowth Partners

A lot of PLG talk is focused on operational strategies and tactics. But what does PLG mean for the CEO of a company? What should your mindset be? How do you address common objections you might hear from your team (especially if transitioning to PLG for the first time).


Martin Gontovnikas (HyperGrowth): What PLG Means for the CEO

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It takes 3 ingredients to build a software startup in today’s wild market: people, product and growth. Easier said than done. BUILD is here to help by featuring conversations between venture capitalist Blake Bartlett and the smartest folks in software. OpenView is a VC firm that invests in amazing companies like Datadog, Expensify and Calendly. Visit ov.vc for more details.

BUILD with Blake Bartlett

“Community” is a major buzzword today, and for good reason. Community creates leverage, and lots of it. Gonto ran marketing and growth at Auth0 for 7 years before the $6.5 billion acquisition by Okta. He cuts through the buzzword noise to give us his perspective and playbook on why (and how) to win with a community strategy. Key Takeaways:<ul><li>[00:27] Overview —&nbsp;Building a community</li><li>[02:24] Defining community, and why is it trending</li><li>[04:56] Creating communities through open source products, enterprise solutions, and other methods</li><li>[08:55] How to identify members to target if you're building from scratch</li><li>[13:31] Tapping into existing communities and identifying communities to target</li><li>[21:17] Doing research with a user, interviewing developers, and engaging on Twitter</li><li>[26:30] What does a community team look like, and who owns the effort in a PLG company?</li><li>[30:02] KPIs and measuring the business value of building community</li></ul> Mentioned in this episode:<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter/#.YfRAM-rMIuU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletter</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgonto/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Martin Gontovnika</a>, Co-Founder and General Partner at HyperGrowth Partners<a href="https://www.hypergrowthpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HyperGrowth Partners</a>Subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaVvQTEaCyt2bbkoAh7wPyg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blake Bartlett on YouTube</a>.Podcast produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView</a>.View our&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blog&nbsp;</a>for more context/inspiration.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/openview-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Linkedin</a><a href="https://twitter.com/openviewventure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/openviewventure/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Instagram</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/OpenViewVenture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Facebook</a>

Martin Gontovnikas, a.k.a Gonto, is a software engineer at heart that moved to the “dark side” to focus on Marketing. With this career transition, he found a way to combine his 2 passions by applying his “engineering thinking” model to Marketing. He is now a B2B SaaS Advisor to Vercel and Rev among others and Co-Founder of Hypergrowth Partners. Previously, he was SVP of Marketing and Growth at Auth0. 

As a software engineer, Gonto built a framework for AngularJS called Restangular that eventually became popular and is used today by companies like weather.com, Reuters, CNN, and others. During this process, he realized that he really enjoyed making Restangular popular, by creating content for his blog, answering questions in StackOverflow, and speaking at events, more than he had enjoyed actually building the framework. The “dark side was calling ....

Thanks to his engineering roots, Gonto is a very analytical person that loves creating new experiments to continuously accelerate his customers’ revenue growth.

“Community” is a major buzzword today, and for good reason. Community creates leverage, and lots of it. Gonto ran marketing and growth at Auth0 for 7 years before the $6.5 billion acquisition by Okta. He cuts through the buzzword noise to give us his perspective and playbook on why (and how) to win with a community strategy.


Martin Gontovnikas (HyperGrowth): Why You Should Embrace a Community Strategy (and How to Do It)

Cliff has a secret learning strategy: recruit the best people in the world at a skill to personally train you. It’s easier than you think. They’re just a DM away. Check out this quick pro tip and try it out yourself! Key Takeaways:<ul><li>[00:34] Rule 25 —&nbsp;How to find the best people in the world at a skill</li></ul> Mentioned in this episode:<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter/#.YfRAM-rMIuU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletter</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/CliffWeitzman" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cliff Weitzman</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliffweitzman/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Founder &amp; CEO of Speechify</a>Cliff's YouTube video, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RiCjYmUEMM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">28 Lessons for Turning 28</a><a href="https://speechify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Speechify</a>Subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaVvQTEaCyt2bbkoAh7wPyg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blake Bartlett on YouTube</a>.Podcast produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView</a>.View our&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blog&nbsp;</a>for more context/inspiration.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/openview-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Linkedin</a><a href="https://twitter.com/openviewventure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/openviewventure/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Instagram</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/OpenViewVenture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Facebook</a>

Dyslexic Entrepreneur with crazy productivity hacks, and tricks on how to make things. CEO at Speechify - Turn any text on your phone or computer into an audiobook & listen instead of reading. Speechify is now used by millions of people who consume billions of words on the platform every month. It has saved users more than 31.4 million hours of time speechify.com

Cliff Weitzman

Founder & CEO at Speechify

Cliff has a secret learning strategy: recruit the best people in the world at a skill to personally train you. It’s easier than you think. They’re just a DM away. Check out this quick pro tip and try it out yourself!


Cliff Weitzman (Speechify): How to Learn Anything

Cliff is the Founder CEO of Speechify. He’s also a “full-time” YouTuber, with an awesome channel that features startup advice, life hacks, and self-improvement philosophy. He explains the why and how behind his personal brand strategy on YouTube, and we dive deep into one of my favorite videos of his, “28 Rules for Turning 28.” Key Takeaways:<ul><li>[02:45] Meet Cliff, CEO of Speechify, and his YouTube channel</li><li>[06:31] Connecting with an audience, and thinking "will this be interesting to someone?"</li><li>[08:15] 28 Rules for Turning 28</li><li>[12:27] Rule #10: Lead with Love</li><li>[15:55] Rule #22: Speed is critical</li><li>[21:36] How to begin writing your own rules for your age</li></ul> Mentioned in this episode:<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter/#.YfRAM-rMIuU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletter</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/CliffWeitzman" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cliff Weitzman</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliffweitzman/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Founder &amp; CEO of Speechify</a>Cliff's YouTube video, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RiCjYmUEMM" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">28 Lessons for Turning 28</a><a href="https://speechify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Speechify</a>Subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaVvQTEaCyt2bbkoAh7wPyg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blake Bartlett on YouTube</a>.Podcast produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView</a>.View our&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blog&nbsp;</a>for more context/inspiration.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/openview-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Linkedin</a><a href="https://twitter.com/openviewventure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/openviewventure/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Instagram</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/OpenViewVenture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Facebook</a>

Dyslexic Entrepreneur with crazy productivity hacks, and tricks on how to make things. CEO at Speechify - Turn any text on your phone or computer into an audiobook & listen instead of reading. Speechify is now used by millions of people who consume billions of words on the platform every month. It has saved users more than 31.4 million hours of time speechify.com

Forbes 30 Under 30, Parkour/Tricking athlete, obsessed with audiobooks, have the first chapter of Harry Potter Memorized.

Cliff is the Founder CEO of Speechify. He’s also a “full-time” YouTuber, with an awesome channel that features startup advice, life hacks, and self-improvement philosophy. He explains the why and how behind his personal brand strategy on YouTube, and we dive deep into one of my favorite videos of his, “28 Rules for Turning 28.”


Cliff Weitzman (Speechify): The Value of Building a Personal Brand and Audience as a Startup Founder CEO

Adding a top-down sales motion is a make-or-break moment for PLG companies. If it’s done right, it can make you the next big thing in your category. If it’s not done right, it can break your team and ultimately compromise your position in the market. The answer? All-in commitment from the founders and key leaders. Enterprise PLG is a team sport! Key Takeaways:<ul><li>[00:06] The most common mistakes John sees PLG founder make when adding sales to a bottom-up or self-service motion </li><li>[02:15] The hidden subtext to be helpful</li></ul> Mentioned in this episode:<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter/#.YfRAM-rMIuU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletter</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/johneitel/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">John Eitel, Former Global Vice President of Sales &amp; Success at Canva</a><a href="https://www.canva.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Canva</a>Subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaVvQTEaCyt2bbkoAh7wPyg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blake Bartlett on YouTube</a>.Podcast produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView</a>.View our&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blog&nbsp;</a>for more context/inspiration.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/openview-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Linkedin</a><a href="https://twitter.com/openviewventure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/openviewventure/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Instagram</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/OpenViewVenture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Facebook</a>

Technology-savvy, customer-focused executive with more than two decades of progressive sales, marketing, and operations leadership in intensely competitive enterprise technology markets. Track record of top-tier sales performance as both a leader and individual contributor, throughout career. Dynamic and decisive leader, with a history of building high-performance sales teams from the ground floor, turning around under-performing sales / service operations, and fueling multi-million sales growth with both new and existing accounts.

John Eitel

Former Global Vice President of Sales & Success /GM North America

Adding a top-down sales motion is a make-or-break moment for PLG companies. If it’s done right, it can make you the next big thing in your category. If it’s not done right, it can break your team and ultimately compromise your position in the market. The answer? All-in commitment from the founders and key leaders. Enterprise PLG is a team sport!


John Eitel (Canva): How PLG Founders Can Avoid Common Mistakes in Adding a Top-Down Sales Motion

John built the global sales team at Canva, which allowed the company to expand further into the enterprise. He walks us through everything a PLG founder needs to know about adding a top-down motion to a bottom-up, product-led foundation. When should PLG companies do this? Why is it necessary? What is the strategy? And how do you do it IRL?&nbsp; Key Takeaways: <ul><li>[4:35] Repeatability in enterprise customers and understanding where these deals stall out</li><li>[8:01] Stall points in enterprise spending and getting purchase approval</li><li>[10:30] Embracing a top-down motion for PLG companies</li><li>[14:17] Combining bottom-up and top-down to scale business using customer success stories</li><li>[17:24] Communicating to executives the story of what software adoption saves</li><li>[20:24] A broader context and story of how the platform improves customer lives</li><li>[22:47] How the data component can make or break sales efforts</li><li>[27:40] Where is adoption happening and using data to determine who gets involved</li><li>[30:10] How to get the entire company working with sales</li></ul> Mentioned in this episode:<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter/#.YfRAM-rMIuU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletter</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/johneitel/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">John Eitel, Former Global Vice President of Sales &amp; Success at Canva</a><a href="https://www.canva.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Canva</a>Subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaVvQTEaCyt2bbkoAh7wPyg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blake Bartlett on YouTube</a>.Podcast produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView</a>.View our&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blog&nbsp;</a>for more context/inspiration.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/openview-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Linkedin</a><a href="https://twitter.com/openviewventure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/openviewventure/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Instagram</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/OpenViewVenture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Facebook</a>

John built the global sales team at Canva, which allowed the company to expand further into the enterprise. He walks us through everything a PLG founder needs to know about adding a top-down motion to a bottom-up, product-led foundation. When should PLG companies do this? Why is it necessary? What is the strategy? And how do you do it IRL? 


John Eitel (Canva): Bottom-Up + Top-Down

A product professional’s role changes dramatically over time as a company and product scales, and as the individual develops additional skills and experiences. Annie says you need to “product manage” your own career as a PM in this highly dynamic environment. Calendly is an OpenView portfolio company. For a full portfolio list please visit&nbsp;<a href="http://ov.vc/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ov.vc</a> Key Takeaways:[0:13] What it's like for Annie to product manage her career as a PM Mentioned in this episode:<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter/#.YfRAM-rMIuU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletter</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniepearl/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annie Pearl, Chief Product Officer at Calendly</a><a href="https://calendly.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Calendly</a>Subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaVvQTEaCyt2bbkoAh7wPyg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blake Bartlett on YouTube</a>.Podcast produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView</a>.View our&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blog&nbsp;</a>for more context/inspiration.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/openview-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Linkedin</a><a href="https://twitter.com/openviewventure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/openviewventure/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Instagram</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/OpenViewVenture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Facebook</a>

Before Calendly, Annie led Glassdoor's product vision and user experience for job seekers and employers around the world. She has led enterprise product teams at Box, including before and after its 2015 IPO, and was the VP of Product and a founding member of Xpert Financial. Annie was honored as one of the Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business in 2019 by the San Francisco Business Times. She holds a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law and a Bachelor's degree from Claremont McKenna College. She loves spending time outdoors, especially skiing hiking, and running.

Annie Pearl

Chief Product Officer at Calendly

A product professional’s role changes dramatically over time as a company and product scales, and as the individual develops additional skills and experiences. Annie says you need to “product manage” your own career as a PM in this highly dynamic environment.

Calendly is an OpenView portfolio company. For a full portfolio list please visit ov.vc


Annie Pearl (Calendly): Career Growth in Product Management

A product professional’s role changes dramatically over time as a company and product scales, and as the individual develops additional skills and experiences. Annie says you need to “product manage” your own career as a PM in this highly dynamic environment.



Every PLG business will eventually have to build for the enterprise. Why? Bottom up adoption can indeed go “all the way up”...to the C-level of large organizations. But to get that 6- or 7-figure contract, you’ll need to beef up the product for the big leagues. Annie has gone through the journey at Glassdoor, and now at Calendly. She shares her playbook with us in today’s episode. Calendly is an OpenView portfolio company. For a full portfolio list please visit&nbsp;<a href="http://ov.vc/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ov.vc</a> Key Takeaways:[2:10] What it looks like for PLG businesses to embrace enterprise[4:42] Three components that make adopting enterprise easier said than done[7:49] How to tackle the PLG plus enterprise transition in terms of people [17:00] Maintaining simplicity and the end user experience as a philosophical north star[19:51] Trades offs of embracing enterprise products from the PLG standpoint, and how to manage them[22:57] Building solutions for personas and horizontal platforms[28:06] Platforms and opting into layers of complexity[30:01] Foundational step number one to building towards enterprise Mentioned in this episode:<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/newsletter/#.YfRAM-rMIuU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletter</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniepearl/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Annie Pearl, Chief Product Officer at Calendly</a><a href="https://calendly.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Calendly</a>Subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaVvQTEaCyt2bbkoAh7wPyg" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blake Bartlett on YouTube</a>.Podcast produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView</a>.View our&nbsp;<a href="https://openviewpartners.com/blog" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blog&nbsp;</a>for more context/inspiration.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/openview-/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Linkedin</a><a href="https://twitter.com/openviewventure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/openviewventure/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Instagram</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/OpenViewVenture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenView on Facebook</a>

Every PLG business will eventually have to build for the enterprise. Why? Bottom up adoption can indeed go “all the way up”...to the C-level of large organizations. But to get that 6- or 7-figure contract, you’ll need to beef up the product for the big leagues. Annie has gone through the journey at Glassdoor, and now at Calendly. She shares her playbook with us in today’s episode.

Calendly is an OpenView portfolio company. For a full portfolio list please visit ov.vc


Annie Pearl (Calendly): Building Enterprise Products

Every PLG business will eventually have to build for the enterprise. Why? Bottom up adoption can indeed go “all the way up”...to the C-level of large organizations. But to get that 6- or 7-figure contract, you’ll need to beef up the product for the big leagues. Annie has gone through the journey at Glassdoor, and now at Calendly. She shares her playbook with us in today’s episode.


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