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Ben Williams

VP of Product at Snyk

VP of Product at Snyk, one of the biggest developer security companies; led Snyk's evolution from product-led growth to product-led sales, community-driven growth, and developer-focused go-to-market strategy.

Dimension Profile

Strategic Vision 60%
Execution & Craft 70%
Data & Experimentation 70%
Growth & Distribution 90%
Team & Leadership 60%
User Empathy & Research 50%

Key Themes

growth loops and models product-led growth to product-led sales freemium strategy developer-focused go-to-market community-driven growth growth team structure

Episode Summary

Ben Williams, VP of Product at Snyk, provides a detailed look at how Snyk built and scaled its developer security business through product-led growth, community-driven adoption, and eventual evolution to product-led sales. He shares frameworks for identifying and documenting growth loops, structuring growth and product teams, making freemium decisions, and maintaining strategic focus when ideas are abundant.

Leadership Principles

  • Identify micro and macro growth loops, document them in a qualitative model, then augment with quantitative data to guide quarterly focus
  • In a high-performing growth team you'll never have a shortage of ideas — knowing where to focus amidst that sea of ideas is the critical role of strategy
  • Product-led growth and product-led sales are not mutually exclusive — PLG can evolve into PLS as the company scales

Notable Quotes

"Being able to identify the various micro and macro loops, how they're all connected, being able to document them in a qualitative model to communicate a shared understanding of how you grow, it's really powerful. Augmenting that then with the quantitative side of things that helps guide quarter to quarter focus."

— On building a growth model that connects qualitative and quantitative understanding

"You're never going to have a shortage of ideas in a high performing growth team. So, knowing where to focus amidst that kind of sea of ideas is a really important role of the strategy."

— On the real job of growth strategy

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