Growth PLG Advisor

Purpose

Design product-led growth strategies by assessing PLG readiness across 5 dimensions: time-to-value, onboarding, virality, monetization, and data infrastructure. Whether you're transitioning from sales-led to PLG or optimizing an existing growth engine, this skill diagnoses your biggest constraint and delivers concrete next steps.

PLG isn't just "add a free tier." It's a product architecture decision that affects onboarding, pricing, feature packaging, and data infrastructure — all of which this skill covers.

Input

Works best with: Your product, current growth model, and any growth metrics you have. Also useful: Current conversion rates (trial→paid, free→paid), activation metrics, retention cohorts.

Anything supplied with the invocation counts as answers already given.

Arriving empty-handed? The skill assesses your PLG readiness first, then recommends next steps.

Example invocation: "We're a B2B SaaS with enterprise sales. Help me add a PLG motion for mid-market."

Key Concepts

The 5 PLG Readiness Dimensions

PLG Growth Loops

The PLG Conversion Funnel

Visit → Sign up → Activate → Engage → Convert → Expand
  │          │          │          │         │         │
  │          │          │          │         │   NRR/upsell
  │          │          │          │    free→paid
  │          │          │    D1/D7/D30 retention
  │          │    activation rate (aha moment)
  │    signup rate
traffic

Application

This interactive skill asks up to 5 adaptive questions, then produces a PLG action plan.

Question 1 — Current State

Agent asks: "Where are you in your PLG journey?"

1. Pre-PLG — We're sales-led or service-led. No free tier, no self-serve.
2. Early PLG — We have a free trial or freemium tier, but conversion is low or unclear.
3. Growth PLG — We have PLG working, but we want to optimize loops, virality, or expansion.
4. PLG + Sales hybrid — We want to add a sales motion on top of existing PLG.

Question 2 — Time-to-Value

Agent asks: "How long does it take a new user to get their first meaningful outcome?"

1. < 5 minutes — Near-instant value (e.g., "upload → result")
2. 5-30 minutes — Quick setup required (e.g., "connect account → dashboard")
3. 30 min - 2 hours — Configuration needed (e.g., "invite team → first project")
4. > 2 hours — Significant setup/integration
5. Not sure — We haven't measured it

Question 3 — Activation & Onboarding

Agent asks: "What does 'activation' look like for your product, and what is the current rate?"

1. We know our activation metric — User provides rate and definition
2. We don't have one — Agent helps define it
3. We have an aha moment — User provides context for optimization

Question 4 — Viral Potential

Agent asks: "Does your product naturally involve collaboration or sharing?"

1. Multiplayer — Multiple users needed for full value (e.g., collaboration, communication)
2. Shared output — Users share output that links back to the product (e.g., design tools, docs)
3. API/integration — Other tools talk to your product; adoption spreads through ecosystem
4. Single-player — One user gets full value; no natural sharing (challenging for PLG)

Question 5 — Monetization Model

Agent asks: "How do you convert free users to paid?"

1. Usage-based — Free tier has limits (seats, features, volume); upgrade removes them
2. Time-based — Free trial expires; convert or lose access
3. Feature-gated — Free tier has core features; premium features require payment
4. Hybrid — Combination of usage + features

Output

After all questions, the agent produces:

## PLG Action Plan: <Product>

### PLG Readiness Score
| Dimension | Score (1-5) | Status | Priority |
|-----------|-------------|--------|----------|
| Time-to-Value | ? | ? | ? |
| Onboarding | ? | ? | ? |
| Virality | ? | ? | ? |
| Monetization | ? | ? | ? |
| Data Infrastructure | ? | ? | ? |

### Biggest Constraint
<The dimension with the lowest score — this is your PLG bottleneck>

### Recommended Actions

1. **<Action 1>** — <specific next step, owner, timeline>
2. **<Action 2>**
3. **<Action 3>**

### Growth Loop Design
<If applicable, the recommended primary loop and how to build it>

### Metrics to Track
| Metric | Current | Target | Why it matters |
|--------|---------|--------|----------------|
| | | | |

Examples

Example 1: B2B Analytics Tool Going PLG

Context: Enterprise analytics product wants to add a PLG tier. Time-to-value is 45 min (too long). Current activation rate: 12%. Product is single-player.

PLG Readiness:

• Time-to-Value: 2/5 (45 min setup with SQL knowledge)
• Onboarding: 1/5 (12% activation)
• Virality: 1/5 (single-player, no sharing)
• Monetization: 3/5 (clear usage limits possible)
• Data Infrastructure: 2/5 (can't segment free vs. paid users)

Biggest Constraint: Time-to-value. No one will convert if they don't see value in the first session.

Recommendation: Before building a free tier, invest in guided onboarding with sample data. Add "share dashboard" as built-in virality mechanism. Target getting TTV under 5 min and activation to 30% before launching PLG tier.

Common Pitfalls

Pitfall 1: Freemium Without a Funnel

Symptom: "We'll launch a free tier and figure out conversion later." Consequence: Free users churn at 80%+ with zero path to paid. You get volume, not revenue. Fix: Design the free→paid trigger before launching: what behavior predicts willingness to pay? Gate that feature behind the upgrade.

Pitfall 2: Copying Consumer PLG for B2B

Symptom: "Slack grew through virality, so we should too!" Consequence: If your product is single-player (see Q4), you can't rely on inherent virality. You need a different loop (API, content, community). Fix: Match your growth loop to your product architecture. Single-player products need content or API loops, not inherent virality.

Pitfall 3: Activation Theater

Symptom: "Our activation rate is 60%!" ... because activation is defined as "clicked the start button" Consequence: Vanity metric. True activation is "user experienced the core value and came back the next day." Fix: Define activation as the combination of behavior + retention. If they activate but never return, it's not activation.

Pitfall 4: Free Tier Cannibalization

Symptom: Free users love the product but see no reason to upgrade Consequence: You're paying infrastructure costs for users who will never pay you Fix: The free tier must have a hard ceiling — usage limit, team size, time, or features — that makes the upgrade inevitable for growth-stage users.

References

Related Skills

• acquisition-channel-advisor — Channel evaluation for paid acquisition once PLG is set up
• organic-growth-advisor — McKinsey Growth Pyramid for broader growth strategy
• experiment-designer — A/B testing for PLG experiments (pricing page, signup flow)
• saas-revenue-growth-metrics — Tracking the revenue impact of PLG

External Resources

• Wes Bush, Product-Led Growth — The canonical PLG book
• OpenView PLG Index — Industry benchmarks by product category
• Kyle Poyar's Growth Unhinged — PLG conversion benchmarks
• Lenny Rachitsky's Newsletter — Growth case studies
• Andrew Chen, The Cold Start Problem — Network effects and virality