PLG is the strategy that grew Notion, Slack, Figma, and Linear without a heavy sales team. Individuals use a free product and spread it to teams and companies.
Core elements
- **Freemium / Free trial**: start without a credit card - **Self-serve onboarding**: set up without sales - **Viral loops**: invite/share features drive spread - **Usage-based pricing**: scales naturally with use - **Product analytics**: analyze conversion/drop-off (Mixpanel, Amplitude)
Korea/Japan application
- **Korea**: PLG-friendly. Naver Works / KakaoTalk sharing enables viral spread. HubSpot and Notion are success stories - **Japan**: Traditionally sales-driven, but PLG has surged recently. Local tools (freee, Sansan) are strengthening PLG elements
PLG vs Sales-Led
| | PLG | Sales-Led | |---|---|---| | Initial CAC | Low | High | | ACV | Low-med | Med-very high | | Growth speed | Fast | Slow | | Enterprise | Hard | Strong |
In practice, "PLG + enterprise sales layer" (Product-Led Sales) is common — HubSpot and Notion being prime examples.
Metrics
- Activation rate (signup → first value) - Free → Paid conversion rate - Time to value - NPS / viral coefficient