Listen now on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.
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Joe Wilkinson helped scale Lucid past $100M ARR and now advises early-stage startups on product-led growth and turning visitors into customers through his boutique consultancy Artisan Strategies.
Here’s some of my takeaways from this week’s episode…
1/ 🎯 Value First, Distribution Second
• The best products create an amazing core experience that sells itself
• Distribution becomes about showcasing that incredible experience
• Start with making something people genuinely love, then figure out how to reach them
2/ 🔄 Monthly > Annual Early On
• Monthly subscriptions force everyone to focus on customer retention
• Teams naturally optimize for keeping users happy and engaged
• Build better products by allowing customers to "vote with their feet"
3/ 📊 Data Should Serve Action, Not Vice Versa
• Data alone never makes decisions - humans do
• Avoid using data as an excuse for inaction
• Better to ship without perfect data than to have perfect data and never ship
4/ 🎨 Not All Clicks Are Equal
• Remove friction that blocks value, not just any friction
• Video games have long onboarding but users don't mind because it's valuable
• Focus on maintaining momentum toward the core value proposition
5/ 💼 The Power of Fractional Leadership
• Get higher-caliber talent than you could afford full-time
• Perfect for early-stage companies that need expertise but not full-time roles
• Can be more impactful in 1 day/week than a full-time junior hire
6/ 🎯 Operational Risk > Opportunity Risk
• Focus on executable strategies with clear value vs speculative bets
• Example: Master proven channels (SEO) vs chasing new unproven ones
• Success comes from execution quality, not gambling on opportunities
7/ 🌱 Solve The Now, Build For Later
• Must survive today to thrive tomorrow
• Make decisions that work now but inform future vision
• Balance immediate revenue needs with long-term product development
8/ 🎮 Product-Led Growth Requires Consumer-Grade Experience
• Enterprise software needs to feel as good as consumer apps
• Focus on individual user delight first
• Let grassroots adoption drive enterprise sales
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Where to find Joe Wilkinson:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephwilkinson/
Web: https://artisangrowthstrategies.com/
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In this episode, we cover:
00:00 Global Connections: The Power of the Internet
00:25 The Evolution of Podcasting and AI
01:55 Insights from Venture Capital: Learning from the Best
06:35 Growth Strategies: Lessons from Lucid
11:19 The Journey of Lucid: From Startup to Success
13:11 Lucid's Core Offerings and Innovations
13:58 Mindset for Growth and Experimentation
16:10 The Importance of Testing and Learning
17:07 A/B Testing Success Rates and Strategies
19:47 Achieving Statistical Significance in Testing
23:44 Frequentist vs Bayesian Approaches to Testing
30:03 Understanding Click Value in User Onboarding
34:17 The Concept of Product-Led Growth
36:02 Grassroots vs Traditional Sales Models
40:09 Common Misconceptions about Product-Led Growth
41:34 The Role of Data in Business Decisions
42:30 The Role of Data in Decision Making
47:21 Understanding Time Horizons in Business
50:24 Navigating the Middling Problem
57:11 The Rise of Fractional Work
01:03:51 Operational Risk vs Opportunity Risk
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Obligatory disclaimer: I've worked at YouTube and Google for about a decade in various marketing teams. Nothing I say in my personal spaces is necessarily endorsed by them.
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