The Long ViewHow to Build a Product-Led Growth Motion at a Sales-Led Company
Tidemark Venture Partner and former CMO at Toast, Kevin Hamilton, shares insights from Toast’s journey from $40M to $1.2B in ARR
At Tidemark, we spend a lot of time with founders building Vertical SaaS platforms. A recurring question we hear: can you layer product-led growth (PLG) onto an already-successful, sales-led go-to-market model?
The short answer: yes—but only if you’re deliberate.
When I joined Toast in early 2018, we already had a high-performing, field-based sales engine. Over time, we layered in a PLG and eCommerce motion that started as a small experiment and ultimately became a meaningful contributor to growth. By the time I left in 2024, this approach had meaningfully contributed to our new logo acquisition, helped us unlock new TAM, and shifted roughly 25% of our upsell transactions to a fully self-service experience—all without undermining our core sales motion.
At Tidemark, we try to open-source our thinking as much as possible to help founders win; however, as investors, we can’t give everything away in public. If you’re an operator or founder, you can request access to the rest of this piece below.
Stay in the Loop
Enter your details and be notified when we publish new articles on The Highpoint.