November 11, 2024

💡 A Deadly Gravitational Pull in PLG B2B (and more)

The Cure Deliver the Power-Doom Epic We’ve Been Waiting For

Great Rolling Stone review of a perfect late-career album by The Cure :

‘Songs of a Lost World’ is the triumphant power-doom epic it needed to be, fully the Cure’s best since ‘Disintegration’, as Smith reaches into the depths of his cobwebbed heart, going deep into adult loss and grief. It’s an album that begins with the line ‘This is the end of every song I sing,’ and closes with ‘Left alone with nothing at the end of every song.’ In between, he gets dark.

I’ve also slowly been making my way through the live-stream of the album release show. They definitely look the 60+ that they are, but man, they still sound incredible.

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A Deadly Gravitational Pull in PLG B2B: Individual-Centric Experiences

Elena Verna on the importance of focusing on team experiences in B2B products:

The key to any successful B2B Product-Led Growth (PLG) strategy lies in connecting end-user adoption to enterprise-level deals. But because B2B PLG often looks like, smells like, and acts like consumer product, it pulls product and marketing teams into a deadly gravitation pull of crafting consumer-like experiences focused solely on the individual value. While acquiring individual users is a natural first step, failing to consider the dire need to connect that individual to a team and a company level value WILL sabotage your future growth.

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Garden State was a good movie

I read about Zach Braff and His All-Star Benefit Concert for the 20th Anniversary of ‘Garden State’ , and it reminded me how much I loved the movie despite all the hate it gets.

“Back in this era, the Virgin Megastore was around the corner from a movie theater in [New York City’s] Union Square,” Braff recalls in a phone interview. “And so many people were going directly from the movie theater to the Virgin Megastore to buy the soundtrack that Virgin had to put a sign in the CD slot that said, ‘We are out of the Garden State soundtrack. Please stop asking.’ The thing just caught fire.”

The Shins’ frontman, James Mercer, credits the soundtrack with transforming his career. “We have a lot of young people in our audience still, and I think it’s probably because of Garden State,” he tells Rolling Stone.

I always think of Spoon’s song Outlier as the hate example that cuts the deepest:

And I remember when you walked out of Garden State
‘Cause you had taste, you had taste
You had no time to waste

Rude.

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47 (no, not that one)

I turned 47 this week. There was also an election. It was also the 8th anniversary of my dad’s passing . I know this is a Product blog, but allow me to take a moment to just say, dang , y’all. What a week. What a decade. I don’t have words for the era we are about to enter in the US. So, as always, I turn to music. Some people eat their feelings, I listen to mine.

First, I made a post-election feels mixtape on Spotify. I am deliberate about calling it a mixtape and not a playlist. There’s no specific genre, it’s all vibes . And if you do decide to give it a go, don’t shuffle. There’s an arc here.

Second, as I often do, I used my birthday to do a listen-through of as many Genesis albums as I can fit in (if you know me and my unnatural obsession with Phil Collins, this won’t surprise you). The song Undertow has always been one of my favorites, but this week it hit especially hard:

Stand up to the blow that fate has struck upon you
Make the most of all you still have coming to you
Lay down on the ground and let the tears run from you
Crying to the grass and trees and heaven finally on your knees

Let me live again, let life come find me wanting
Spring must strike again against the shield of winter
Let me feel once more the arms of love surround me
Telling me the danger’s past, I need not fear the icy blast again

We are heading into—sorry for using the word everyone is using but I don’t think there’s a better one— unprecedented times. Brené Brown says we should focus on “micro-dosing hope”. I like that. I don’t know where we’re heading, but I have to believe that Spring must strike again. And that when it does, we’ll need not fear the icy blast again.

Stay strong, friends.

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PS. You look nice today 👌