Lessons from Elena Verna

On Career and Solopreneurship

On the reality of leadership: "Leadership should have never been the end goal - only a step toward the ultimate unlock: career optionality." [1]
On finding your niche: "Generalization is the enemy” of solopreneurs. [1]
On the power of optionality: "Remarkable things happen when you stop trying to fit into the market's mold and start reshaping the market to suit you." [1]
On career progression: "Career journeys are like snowflakes. Each career is unique and perfect, with infinite possibilities and paths." [2]
On visualizing your career: To better understand your unique career path, create a "career map" instead of a linear list to visualize the complexity and trajectory. [2]
On early career focus: "Learnings before earnings (in early stages). What I 'lost' in earnings early in my career by not chasing after the highest salary I make up in the blink of an eye now." [2]
On the value of titles: "Prioritize title progressions. Market values title progressions at the same company more than getting a higher title at a new job." [2]
On seeking support: "Don't do it alone. I had sponsors and mentors. I heavily involved myself at Reforge to learn from other operators. Shortcut learnings where possible!" [2]
On embracing flexibility: "Be flexible with the outcome. I wanted to be a CEO early in my career. Now I would never take on that role - I love being a solopreneur." [2]
On continuous growth: "Optionality is everything. Every year I ask myself - what can I learn/do now to give me more career options next year?" [2]
On the challenges of ambition: One of the hardest lessons learned is "Pushing forward, without knowing what the 'end goal' looks like." [2]
On the solopreneur's portfolio: "The goal of any solopreneur should be to build a portfolio of monetizable services." [1]
On the value of advising: Advising is a great way for tech employees to explore solopreneurship. [1]
On building a personal brand: Elena built her business using a freemium model, sharing free content on LinkedIn to generate leads for advisory roles. [1]
On the power of failure: "Turn failures into learnings. You will fail a lot when trying to grow your product or career. You must have a thick skin and adopt a growth mindset." [3]

On Product-Led Growth (PLG)

The foundation of PLG: "I think every single company has to first focus on being productled and retention. its the only way that you will ever have any chance at acquisition while being productled is if you nail your retention." [4][5]
The sequence of growth: "PMF, then data, then growth. You cannot grow if you don't have product market fit or data to help you make decisions. This order is non-negotiable." [3][6]
The goal of growth: "Our goal of growth is not to do a growth hack, it's not to create one blip in our performance in our metrics. It is to build predictable, sustainable and competitively defensible growth models." [7]
Loops over funnels: "Build loops, not funnels. Funnels are leaky and need to be fed constantly at the top." [3] A growth loop is a closed system where every input generates an output that can be reinvested. [7]
The evolution of growth models: "Your growth model should evolve across all three motions and all three levers. You should play in every single square on that menu or you will be disrupted by somebody who will." [7]
The role of product in PLG: "PLG pushes product teams to take accountability over growth levers in acquisition, activation, engagement and monetization, delivering customer-centric, self-serve end-user experiences that sell themselves." [7]
Product-Led Sales (PLS) defined: "Productled sales is turning that individual use case and self-s served usage. into a sales pipeline with enterprise level value." [8]
When to hire for sales in a PLG model: "You should never hire any salespeople until you feel that pull because if nobody's asking to purchase. then you cannot just hire an SDR. and make a purchase. happen." [8]
The danger of abandoning PLG: Many companies let go of their product-led initiatives in favor of enterprise sales, which can cause their inbound pipeline to dry up. [4]
The future is integrated: "It's not the question of if you should do PLG or marketing-led or sales-led growth, it's the question of when.” [7]

On Monetization and Pricing

Monetization as a career superpower: "Revenue is the ultimate success measure of any company. In order for you to truly own the outcome of your company, you need to own monetization strategy." [9]
The importance of monetization strategy: "Monetization strategy is part of your Product Market Fit, so I'm always puzzled when someone attributes this work to later-stage companies." [10]
Don't fear monetization changes: "We are often afraid to touch our monetization model... However, not iterating on it means: Building expectations of a static monetization model that will get a market reaction when you change." [10]
The Netflix example: "A great example is Netflix - their first price increase was a significant event. But all subsequent price changes have barely made the news. Rip the bandaid early!" [10]
The cost of inaction: "Leaving a lot on the table as the monetization model needs to adjust to market needs and your product evolution continuously. Instead, testing and knowing what works and doesn't within your monetization is the most significant strategic advantage you can have in your business." [10]
Who owns pricing?: "The monetization strategy should be owned by a committee comprised of Product, Sales, Marketing, and Finance." [10]
The root of monetization problems: "80% of monetization issues I encounter are because of lack of monetization awareness. Monetization awareness is a measure of your customers' understanding of what you are selling." [11]
Monetization and value: A good monetization model is intrinsically linked to the problems a product solves, who it solves them for, and how it solves them. [12]
Freemium vs. Trial: Freemium is often preferable as it makes it easy for people to get on board and takes advantage of web traffic. [11][13]
Indirect monetization: Even non-paying users in a freemium model can be monetized indirectly. [14]

On Growth Tactics and Strategy

Frameworks over hacks: "Scale with frameworks, not hacks. Frameworks are patterns that help you scale growth in a sustainable way across your team and organization. Hacks are one-off solutions that will burn your team and customers out." [3]
The problem with "growth hacks": While small-scale tactics can make a difference, the idea of "growth hacks" is often misleading. The focus should be on building a predictable and sustainable growth model. [11]
The power of onboarding profiling: "Understanding who your customers are becomes crucial... customers are happy to give you information about themselves during the onboarding time." [11]
The surprising impact of load times: "Every second counts when it comes to the load times of different parts of your product. It's not just about user experience; it's about your bottom line." [11]
Reverse trials in freemium: This can be an effective tactic for increasing conversion rates. [11]
Don't hire for growth too soon: "In order to get the growth going in the company a founder and the founding. team have to figure out how to make it grow to the first let's say a million 5 million 10 million in ARR." [15]
A growth team is not a savior: "If you're slowing down and you have issues with either your go to market strategy or your core product strategy... growth is going to be absolutely absolutely helpless." [15]
The folly of rebranding for growth: Doing a rebrand to drive growth is a common mistake. [15]
Don't obsess over competition: It's one of the top growth tactics that never work. [15]
Your problems are not unique: Believing your company's problems are unique is a pitfall to avoid. [15]
Prioritize earned channels: Don't neglect earned growth channels in favor of others. [15]
The ambiguity of "Growth": The term "Growth" can refer to a growth model, growth initiatives, a growth mindset, or a Growth Team, and they are not the same thing. [16]
The definition of a Growth Team: A "Growth Team" is a specialized function, distinct from the general concept of a growth mindset. [16]
The purpose of a growth model: "Your 'growth model' is just your financial forecast... How does the business acquire, retain, and monetize the customers to get to a desirable revenue output?" [16]
The persistence of the growth function: "This approach to building companies is here to stay - like it or not, this methodology isn't going anywhere." [16]

Learn more:

Lessons from Elena Verna

On Career and Solopreneurship

On Product-Led Growth (PLG)

On Monetization and Pricing

On Growth Tactics and Strategy

Written by Antoine Buteau

Lessons from Sam Jacobs, founder and CEO of Pavillon

Lessons from Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier