59: Dani Grant - In-person Community building in a PLG product at Jam.Dev

Summary

Jam.dev created a tool called Jam that helps product managers and engineers communicate and debug bugs more effectively. The company has grown to over 100,000 users and has fixed more than 2 million bugs.

They have adopted a unique approach to marketing, prioritizing community building and sharing their journey as builders. The company uses an R&D framework to evaluate and measure the success of their marketing initiatives.

I’m talking with Dany Grant about why it’s not just optional to be close to users in a product-led growth startup and why in-person interactions might matter more than you think.

Takeaways

• Jam.dev prioritizes community building and sharing their journey as builders to connect with their target audience.
• They use an R&D framework to evaluate and measure the success of their marketing efforts. 

Sound Bites

• "When you're a PLG company, the thing that's existential is are you giving value to your users."
• "We sometimes have this really weird thing with PLG companies that we just do not know who we're talking to because we do not foster this kind of real-life connection."
• "Even if we do not generate leads and money from the actual events, you kind of still do because you get information about who it is that is buying your stuff."

Chapters

03:51 Innovative Bug Reporting and Communication

08:13 Marketing Strategies: In-Person Events and Social Media

23:58 Being Close to Users in a PLG Startup

26:30 Understanding User Connections in PLG

27:54 Gaining Insights from Events and User Interactions

31:12 Struggles with Identifying the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

33:30 Onboarding Larger Companies through Smaller Teams

38:13 The Journey of Building a Startup and Team Growth

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