Building a PLG Motion at a Sales-Led Company

In our Q1 2025 Chalk Talk session, Kevin Hamilton, Venture Partner at Tidemark and former CMO at Toast, shared valuable insights on implementing a Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy within a traditional sales-led company. Drawing from his experience at Toast, where he helped grow ARR from $40M to $1.2B, Kevin discussed the process of testing into and proving out a PLG motion to complement an existing sales-led motion.

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Key Takeaways:

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1. Why Toast Invested in PLG: The onset of COVID-19 forced Toast to rethink customer acquisition costs (CAC) and payback periods. PLG served as a channel to unlock new TAM and also improve the overall customer experience.
   
   
2. A Structured Approach: Kevin outlined a three-step process for implementation:
   
   
   
   • Define the Opportunity: Understand market segments and buyer behavior. At Toast, this meant initially focusing on smaller, more cost-sensitive restaurants who were more likely to buy a POS systems online.
     
     
   • Test and Scale Demand: Validate PLG initiatives before full-scale implementation. Toast used “painted doors” to gauge demand before investing in new systems.  They also rapidly iterated on pricing and packaging to unlock additional demand.
     
     
   • Navigate Internal Tension: Minimize conflict with sales teams by aligning incentives, defining ideal customer profiles (ICPs), and introducing a “Sales Assist” motion.
     
     
3. Results: Toast successfully increased new logo acquisition and accelerated upsell growth through PLG.

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This session provided practical strategies for balancing PLG and sales-led approaches, especially for companies aiming to expand their customer base without compromising existing sales motions.

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Missed the session? If you would like to sign up to be considered for participation in a future live session, email us at knowledge@tidemarkcap.com.