The Product-Led Geek

Advising B2B SaaS startups in all things PLG, Product, Growth, Strategy

Advisor (PLG / Product / Growth)

neptune.ai

Advisor

Reforge

Appearing as a featured guest in Reforge live programs (Growth Leadership, PLG)

Featured Program Guest (PLG, Growth Leadership)

Supporting content development for Reforge PLG program

Program Council Member (PLG)

TryHackMe

Gearset

CyberArk

Bleach Cyber

Beyond Identity

Panaseer

Helping B2B SaaS founders win with PLG | Snyk, CloudBees | Follow me to learn how to scale your startup with product-led growth and product-led sales.

I spent 20+ years building, nurturing and scaling high-performing product and cross-functional growth teams.

I now help founders and product growth leaders at developer tool and other B2B SaaS companies to create sustainable, defensible growth through PLG and PLS.

My expertise, experience and proven growth systems across acquisition, retention and monetisation levers allow me to help you with

→ Defining and improving activation and engagement as inputs to better retention
→ Layering on a PLG motion to bring GTM efficiency to existing sales-led business
→ Establishing and scaling Product-Led Sales (PLS) to increase close rates and ACVs
→ Creating effective user onboarding to minimise time-to-value
→ Developing growth and/or product strategy
→ Identifying, documenting, standing up and quantifying growth loops
→ Building qualitative and quantitative growth models
→ Developing improved product and growth leadership muscle
→ Starting and scaling growth teams
→ Designing and implementing growth process
→ Implementing appropriate data and analytics infrastructure
→ Establishing experimentation (A/B, multivariate) programs
→ Selecting and implementing effective product & growth platforms & tools
→ Implementing product management process and best practice
→ Cultivating and coaching high-performing teams

If you want to get weekly advice on the systems behind product-led success, you can join my newsletter:

→ GO HERE: plg.news

If you wan't to explore an advising engagement visit my site:

→ GO HERE: plgeek.com

Twitter: @theplgeek
TikTok: @theplgeek
Instagram: @theplgeek
YouTube: @theplgeek

Ben Williams

— Created the course: AI Customer Research Analysis for Designers, Product People and Researchers
— Featured on Maven "AI-Powered Super IC" top courses
— 4 Weeks to cutting your analysis time in half

Founder - AI Analysis Course

AI x Customer Research Newsletter

The only newsletter that digs deep into AI tools, workflows, considerations and relevant news to help you adopt AI for faster Customer Research.

Founder / Researcher

User Research Studio

🛠️ Bringing processes for trustworthy insights to fast-moving startup teams
🌏 Supporting EU, UK and US startups/scale-ups
🚀 Training teams + individuals to 3-10x your research impact

From pre-seed to scale-up, I advise early teams on optimal Customer Research and Product Discovery processes that take the least time for the most impact.

Lean product discovery processes for product teams with limited time and staff to dedicate to research. 

A few ways I've helped startup teams:
🎁 Supported the insights-driven development of a new product. It generated 3x the profit of product #1
⭐️ Pushed a pre-product startup to drop their first MVP and launch one instead that got customer satisfaction ratings >85% and proved product market fit by rapidly reaching first 1000 paid users
💰 Helped a startup launch its first subscription fee after 3+ years of a free product. Estimated risk of lost customers and potential new ones gained before price change
🌏 Helped teams avoid bad investment decisions in new markets and achieve growth by doubling down in the right places
🏃 Trained product teams to run 3-4x as much valuable customer discovery as before in the same time
 

I’m passionate about empowering founders and product teams to run their own trustworthy research for better products.

How I work: 
- Team advisor
- Workshop training sessions 
- 1:1 coaching

Founder, Customer Discovery Advisor

Relive

Customer Discovery Advisor

ManyPets

Clayground Ceramics Berlin

Sold in 2023. Built a highly demanded studio space and community in a craft niche. The studio was developed around lean research, identifying key insights pre-investment that enabled us to differentiate and thrive despite increasing competition and a pandemic. I used the business as a place to experiment in business model development and service design, as well as prove that customer research can make a dramatic difference for businesses of all sizes and industries.

Co-Founder

Soundtrack Your Brand

User Research Advisor

For the Spotify Business product that then became "Soundtrack", I built the customer insights discipline from within the Product team while partnering with Growth and Marketing. 

I put discovery and validation processes in place so they could:

⭐️ Launch a new service tier with significantly higher conversion 
⭐️ Nearly double their customer base
⭐️ De-risk pricing and offer changes that discreetly found the right price 
⭐️ Supported the product team to make faster decisions (not slow them down with research) 
⭐️ Supported a major brand transition

Supported the C-level to constantly challenge assumptions and find the right balance between listening to customer requests and innovating for their underlying needs.

Head of User Research

Dreams Sustainable

Led the customer insights strategy and hands-on work for a team pre-product. Worked with them to establish foundational understanding of a new target audience, identify first best-fit users, narrow focus to the most important customer problems to solve, and clarify potential MVP feature set.

Dreams

Led UX Research on a contract-basis for early stage fintech startup with a product but no UXR team. Helped the team define and pinpoint their best target audiences, find barriers to engagement, and prepare for risks of launching a subscription fee for the first time with minimal damage.

Later supported their first Head of UXR by providing training and mentorship to include diverse team members in research, enable more people to lead product discovery projects, and improve frequency of internal insights-sharing for full-team impact.

Fjord

Worked with large Swedish companies to innovate in their domains, and solve user problems better than their competitors. Was responsible for UX Research, Service Design, UX Design and client management for companies across banking and retail industries.

Senior Interaction Designer

Keeping designers, marketers, and product people ahead with faster high-quality AI-assisted customer insights—from YouTube and Volvo to Supermetrics and Breyta.ai.

I partner with teams for short- and mid-term collaborations, focused on driving faster customer clarity and smarter growth decisions:

🎯 Advisory Roles – I work as a short-term or fractional partner, helping teams use AI to uncover customer insights faster, sharpen positioning, and find hidden growth opportunities.

🚀 Training & Workshops – I design custom AI trainings and hands-on workshops to equip your team with faster insight systems—so you can learn what customers want and move smarter, not slower.

🔍 Consulting Projects – Tailored work to solve specific customer insight challenges—like refining messaging, accelerating product validation, or building AI-powered feedback loops.

⚡ Strategic Sprints – Fast, high-impact projects where we apply AI to customer research and insight generation in focused, action-driven phases (perfect for teams moving fast).

🤝 Team Discounts on AI Content – Clients I work with get my premium newsletter for FREE plus major discounts on my courses to continuously keep their teams ahead.

💌 If one of these is the accelerator help you need, email * hi@userresearchstudio.com *



____

A few current/former clients: Lufthansa Airlines, Relive, Aumio, ManyPets, Yubo, Spotify Business/Soundtrack, Dreams Nordic, Google, Scandinavian Airlines, Hemköp, Nordea, Dunkin'​ Donuts, AT&T.

Caitlin Sullivan

2018: quit job to freelance. 2024: shifted to AI research. 
Today: renamed my whole business 🫣

When I first left my job, I just wanted freedom.
Still, my clients quadrupled overnight.

I realized my timing was pretty good, I was onto something. I followed the signals.

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻.

I started experimenting with AI.
Quietly, reluctantly, with no big plan.

Within months, everything in my inbox was: 
“𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 {𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗸} 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗜?”

But let me be clear - it wasn’t all easy success stories.

Between 2018 and 2023 I tested 50+ other ideas —
businesses, courses, directions I could’ve gone in.

Almost none of them worked.

Eventually, I stopped pushing so hard.
(That’s really hard for me.)

In the last two years, I just kept sharing my AI experiments and reflections on LinkedIn instead —

...things I was genuinely curious about.
...things I wanted to answer for myself.

And something clicked.

People wanted to learn what I was doing.
Teams asked me to teach them.
Individuals asked how to access to my work without being in a team with a custom training budget.

That pull has continued to grow.
And yet...

I was really reluctant to put all my eggs in one basket and call my business what it is.

𝗜’𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗶𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵.𝗰𝗼𝗺 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 2023!

But I didn’t dare switch everything over.
It felt too bold — like saying out loud, this is all I do now.

Turns out, it is all I do now 😆

🙋‍♀️ 𝗜’𝗺 𝗖𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗻 — 𝗜 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗱𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁.

And now my website tells you that, too.

(I'll be making a somewhat clunky transition from userresearchstudio .com to this, bear with me).

—

But I hope that what you’ll actually take from this is:

when you stop forcing things and start listening, then following, the strongest signals around you — momentum is a lot easier to find.

AI for Customer Research ⚡️ Using AI to figure out customers 3x faster. Training Fortune 500 and growth-ready teams to use AI.

𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘂𝗽 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 2026: 4 opportunities for AI Customer Research 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 👇

I've spent this year 100% focused on testing, breaking, and advising on AI tools for customer research.

More than 160+ different product, design and research teams have used my training guidance. Crazy.

And yet, a lot of people are still feeling very much behind. 
There's a lot of catching up to do, but I want to make you feel a little less overwhelmed going into next year.

My objective: show you some important improvements...

...and what to test (in smaller ways than you realized).

More often than not, "catching up" looks like putting aside just 2 hours to try something for the first time. 

〰️

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵:
↳ Video analysis is finally starting to WORK
↳ AI-moderated interviews are actually more usable, for us and participants 
↳ Reasoning models improved—if you prompt well (yes, still need those skills)
↳ Synthetic users can work—but *require* good research, not in place of it


𝗦𝘄𝗶𝗽𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗝𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 ↓


〰️

P.S. I write a free newsletter that goes 10x deeper on this stuff.

Prompt frameworks. Tool teardowns. What I'm learning from testing things that most teams aren't able to explore...

It's for 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗠𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆ing 𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱:

🔗 Link in comments

Catch-up for 2026: AI Customer Research opportunities 

I pretty much never repost but I could not have written a better wrap-up of these tools myself. Nice one, Nils!

Head of Product | Experimentation & AI | Springer Author | Bocconi

🧠 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐔𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐒𝐜𝐢-𝐅𝐢 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

A few months ago, I shared an early map of companies shaping the synthetic user landscape and we had great discussions in the comments with people like Fabian Teichmueller , Sarah Goodhew and Hugo Alves.

Since then, I kept tracking this space and discovered several new players. I’ve now updated the list to 20 companies that are actively shaping how we test, simulate, and understand user behavior without real users 👇

🧩 What’s new?
Some of the fresh additions include:
Synthetic Society (YC S25) → Agent-based product testing
Uxia → UX testing with AI agents
Livepanel → Synthetic responses for market research
Yabble™ → AI personas built from real data

💡 This space is evolving incredibly fast. I’m sure there are others I missed or some that may not fully fit this category.

👉 I’d love to crowd-source this again:
Which companies should be added or removed?
Any interesting categories or clusters you’d suggest for the next version?

Let’s map this emerging field together 🌍
#experimentations #syntheticusers #digitaltwins #uxresearch #aiproducts

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗜 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 - A sales exec at a research platform reached out to tell me their customers keep mentioning my AI course 🙏

The part that stuck with me:
"...𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀."

That's the whole goal for me. ✨

Most Product people I meet are: 
→ Using AI but secretly wondering if the output is wrong 
→ Using AI spontaneously, with no system: every run generates different outputs

Both leave insights on the table.

𝗜𝗻 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗜'𝗺 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀.

↳ Go from messy feedback to finished analysis in 4x 90-min sessions (live) 
↳ The prompting frameworks I've used with teams like Canva, YouTube ++
↳ How to verify AI outputs and evidence so you can defend your decisions 
↳ An analysis playbook with updates for 6 months after the course

4 live sessions. Hands-on projects. 
From "I'm not sure about this" to trustworthy insights from your actual data *every week*.

Link in comments 👇

FREE live session next Thursday for Product Managers: 3 Tactics for Immediately Better AI Analysis…

I’ve run my AI analysis course five times in 2025 -> stress testing what works with people from teams like Figma, Ramp, Meta…

Lately I’ve been running some new tests to make it even simpler to explain *why some errors happen* in AI analysis 

…and how to prevent them. 

Nearly every error or misinterpretation I’ve ever encountered with analysis in LLMs was due to one thing:

Your prompting skills.

AI analysis isn’t wrong randomly. 

It’s wrong systematically—in ways you can predict and fix.


I’m teaching 3 key fixes to your AI Analysis process in a FREE Lightning Lesson next week 🎉

40 minutes. 
Live demos. 
AMA.
Tactics you can use the same day.

Join below! 👇

Open article: 3 Tactics for PMs: Immediately Better AI Analysis by maven.com

3 Tactics for PMs: Immediately Better AI Analysis

I asked 3 reasoning models to 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 in an interview transcript. 🧐 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁...

Counting what matters in qualitative data is trickier than people realize.

ᐧ How many survey respondents mentioned a topic? 
ᐧ How many conversations touched on pricing?

→ We need precision to know which product changes to bet on.

My test was simple: 
Find the 3 conversations about taxes.

Gemini and ChatGPT said there were 2 separate conversations. (Not quite right).
Only Claude got it.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴?
They hunted for mentions, and defined "unique conversations" differently—my vague guidance let them interpret conversations in their own ways.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗜𝗫: 
When I defined what counts as a "conversation" *to me*, all three got it right.

LLMs are often not wrong randomly. 
They're wrong systematically, in ways you can predict and fix.

__

⭐️ 𝗜'𝗺 𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 𝗟𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻 next week!

"3 Tactics for PMs: Immediately Better AI Analysis"
→ Get consistent results regardless of model
→ Fix counting problems at the source
→ CSV data handling that ensures correct analysis

🔗 Join here -> https://lnkd.in/dqK4NFzD

-

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