Our first try at PLG nearly failed. Here's what we did next.
How one startup 6x-ed their activation and 5x-ed free-to-paid conversion
👋 Hi, it’s Kyle and I’m back with a 🔥 edition of Growth Unhinged, my newsletter that explores the unexpected behind the fastest-growing startups.
Up today: Navattic’s growth team — specifically Raman Khanna (Head of Product Growth) and Natalie Marcotullio (Head of Growth & Operations) — join Growth Unhinged in what might be our most tactical guest post ever. They unpack how Navattic 6x-ed activation and 5x-ed free-to-paid conversion — and bring all the receipts to help you do it, too (there are 15 product screenshots). Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
When we first started experimenting with PLG we had no onboarding, 5% activation, and 1% free to paid conversion. Tough numbers to start with.
Over several months (and effort from every team at Navattic) we built an onboarding flow users like, had a ~33% activation rate, and a 5% free-to-paid conversion rate — now in line with industry benchmarks.
We still have a long way to go but are happy with the early signals we are seeing from our PLG motion. Here are all the iterations we made and the lessons we learned along the way.
Why we went PLG in the first place
Navattic helps marketing and sales teams create interactive product demos. Customers use them on their marketing site (see: Ramp, Fivetran, Vitally) and as a follow-up asset in the sales process.
For three years we had a sales-led motion with $500/month and $1k/month plan offerings. Having just sales-led growth worked for us — until it didn’t. Our $500/month and $1k/month plans were driving consistent revenue, and our sales team was great at nurturing prospects through the funnel.
But we noticed some cracks. Prospects kept telling us that they wanted to try the product first. They wanted to prove value to their team and secure budget.
Either we could double down on sales-led growth or we could take a leap into PLG. We decided to take that leap into PLG. We had to iterate quickly.
Onboarding: From “startling” to “easy to get started”
When considering PLG, we ran some user tests with Wynter. Users called the sign-up process “bare” and “startling”.
They were right. Our early flow was not in a great place. We hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about it because it was customers who were going through it before.
But for free users, this would be their first introduction to us.
We started by reworking the welcome screen.
The old one felt jarring, cold, and “bare”. We replaced it with a more inviting design.
To build trust, we also added social proof by showcasing some top customer logos like Cisco, Dropbox, and ClickUp.
And finally, we added value prop messaging highlighting exactly what users were unlocking.
We were still asking too much, too soon. Users were hit with a wall of questions.
We split the signup flow into separate steps. One screen for basic information, another for use case details, and so on.
The “How do you plan to use Navattic” step was added. Our sales team uses it when reaching out to good-fit PQLs to send more tailored content and templates.
Our goal is to also use this data to personalize onboarding down the line. In-app experience and emails would be based on the use case.
We set clear expectations on how many steps were involved (showing “step X of 3”). We wanted users to know what was coming next to limit frustration (and therefore drop-off).
There were two key moments that added friction but would unlock the product’s full potential — installing our Chrome Extension and inviting team members.
We knew from our data and user interviews that users who did these actions were more likely to be activated and engaged. But they also were big moments of drop-off.
To address this issue, we introduced a simple but effective UI tweak. We placed the Chrome Extension and team member invite in front of a blurred screen of the product. This accomplished two things:
Downloading the extension felt more like a gateway to the full experience and more purposeful
Visually connected the extension to what they could accomplish. It seemed more obvious that this step was the final one before they could dive in.
Activation: From 5% to 33%
At the beginning, our new user activation rate was ~5%.
We had no real onboarding beyond an old checklist that also didn’t really focus on getting users to our core activation moment.
We ran some initial tests on the first user experience and got brutal (but fair at the time) feedback from a test user:
“There are ZERO onboarding, how to, get started, tutorials. absolutely the WORST experience for a customer.”
And we’ve now ended with quotes like this from our most recent user interviews:
“It was super easy to use and intuitive to get started…no problems in building [an interactive demo] and everything made sense.”
Our initial onboarding had a ~5% activation rate because we didn’t have much of an onboarding experience. Users were dropped into the main page with a “Welcome to Navattic” pop-up that didn’t offer much guidance.
We did a series of user interviews and looked at PostHog recordings and drop-off points in our funnel dashboards.
We saw that users were going to multiple pages. They weren’t anchored on what their next step should be. And users that did activate had a long time to value.
The reason seemed to be that the flow wasn’t intuitive. Each step was disjointed and somewhat hidden. This often meant users bounced right away.
After onboarding, users were guided to the capture selection step, where they entered their product URL, took captures for their demo, and then chose which ones to include. Then they were taken straight into the builder to start creating their demo.
There was no guesswork about what to do next. They didn’t have to figure out the next step on their own.
Our data showed that users who edited captures of their product (a key step in building an interactive demo) were 14x more likely to activate. And our Sales and CS teams confirmed this was a major "aha" moment for customers.
But in user interviews, many said they didn’t even know editing was possible or didn’t fully understand what captures were.
A really important feature wasn’t being discovered or understood. We needed to surface it better.
We added an "edit" button on the capture to reduce the steps to access it. Early data shows a +36% improvement in the number of captures edited and a lift in demos published (activation).
We wanted to make it easy to get started with building a demo.
We also saw that ~70% of our most successful free users had engaged with our customer showcase that showed our top interactive demo examples.
That made us confident in introducing pre-built templates for common use cases—sales, training, in-app tours, etc. We think templates will also support free-to-paid conversion by showcasing use cases beyond the single demo allowed on the free plan, encouraging upgrades for unlimited demos.
This is our newest update, but we are closely tracking customers that use templates to see if this hypothesis is right.
Conversion: From 1-2% to 5%
We had to come up with a playbook to put users on a path to upsell. Both in-product and with our sales touchpoints.
To have a subtle (but still consistent) path to upgrade, we added a banner to the left side of the product.
It was a gentle reminder (without disrupting a user’s workflow) of what the limitations of their plan were.
At the natural moments when users would feel the limitations of the free plan (adding an additional demo, connecting an integration, adding an additional user, creating a custom theme, etc.) we introduced contextual upgrade prompts. These prompts weren’t pushy. The goal was to show this was a locked feature and help users understand what they had to gain from upgrading.
We introduced an in-app upgrade flow. It also benefited our existing customers who could also now upgrade in-app.
This flow allowed users on the free plan to explore paid options, view pricing, and also complete their upgrade without ever leaving the app or having to talk to sales.
For a majority of our upgrades, a call is scheduled with sales. But we have had a few customers that were fully self-serve and upgraded completely in-app either with no sales touch or light sales outreach.
Added visual locks on pages and features that were part of our paid plans. It made it more clear what they were missing out on with the free plan.
On those locked pages we added Navattic interactive demos. Instead of just telling users what these paid features do, we let them try it with a Navattic interactive demo. These demos let users see the value of a paid plan, instead of just reading about it.
What we learned along the way
Lesson 1: A phased launch was valuable
We incrementally increased traffic seeing our free plan. We started with 5% and “turned the dial” of traffic seeing the experience until our launch.
It gave the sales team time to adapt and build a playbook without a flood of new freemium leads.
Being able to watch early users and look at their activation data allowed us to iterate on their first user experience
Helped confirm there would be limited impact on ARR and downgrades.
By the time we rolled out freemium to 100% of traffic or did any public promotion of our free plan, we had a starting playbook in place. Progress felt slow in the moment but it was deliberate. And it ultimately paid off.
Lesson 2: Going product-led required the whole company
Our success with PLG required the entire company to come together.
We had weekly cross-functional standups. The GTM team would identify core focus areas and the product team would determine the best way to implement updates to the product.
We also had to make sure our sales team came along for the journey. They were a part of regular check-ins on the transition. They gave feedback and were a part of setting the strategy.
Lesson 3: Quantitative data showed us where the problems were and qualitative data contextualized them - both of them were important
Our funnel metrics and product activation rate were valuable but they didn’t tell the whole story. Session replays and user interviews helped us figure out the why.
For example, our analytics showed that users were dropping off before publishing a demo. When watching recordings and talking to users we realized it was because users didn’t feel anchored on a clear next step in the product.
This insight led us to implement guided pop-ups and step-by-step setup guides. The combination of both qualitative and quantitative data is how we went from 5% to 33% with activation.
Lesson 4: Monetization and free-to-paid conversion is a balancing act (that we are still figuring out)
Finding the right balance between delivering value in a free plan and encouraging upgrades is a constant challenge. It’s one that we’re still figuring out.
We landed on one demo, no integrations, two seats, and no custom themes. Given we are in the early phases of our PLG motion, this is something we are constantly iterating.
We also found that PQLs often preferred to explore the product independently and weren’t immediately ready to talk to sales. Our sales team adopted a consultative approach and sometimes acted more like support leads. This tactic has been so effective that sales have even organized their own webinar series to help free-plan users get started. (And our sales team has started to get some great feedback on the more consultative style.)
Along with having enough value to upgrade, we had to make it easy to upgrade. We’ve also added in-app prompts, upgrade banners, and an in-app upgrade flow. While we’re seeing positive signs with a 5% free-to-paid conversion rate, it’s an ongoing process of experimentation and fine-tuning.
Launching a PLG motion at Navattic was anything but straightforward. We started with low activation and conversion rates, no onboarding, and many unknowns. But by digging into data, listening to users, and iterating across every part of the product, we’ve seen significant progress. Activation grew from 5% to 33% and free-to-paid conversion grew from 1-2% to 5%.
We hope these lessons can help others navigate their PLG journey - whether you’re just starting or looking to refine your approach.
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Love the demonstration of tactics and the reminder that real insights come from quantitative and qualitative data. I always say, “quant data tells you WHAT is happening, qual data tells you WHY.”
Loved it! Great case study on GTM success ... Keep them coming :)