Wes Bush

Product-led coach helping founders scale from 6 to 8-figures in product-led revenue. Author of the bestselling book, Product-Led Growth.

Over the last 9 years, I’ve worked hands-on with 400+ SaaS companies, helping them unlock $1B+ in self-serve revenue through Product-Led Growth (PLG).

Six years ago, PLG was a choice.
Today, it is table stakes.

Recently, Brex published a list of the 50 fastest-growing software companies.
ALL of them have a PLG motion.

If you want to win in the SMB or Mid-Market space, you cannot survive without PLG in 2026.

What separates the winners is not whether they have PLG.
It is how strong their PLG motion is.

The best PLG motions showcase value in minutes and expand rapidly without adding headcount. Weak PLG motions get stuck in linear growth.

That is what I help founders fix in three ways:

➡️ Is PLG is right for you?

I wrote the bestselling book, Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself, to help you determine if PLG is the right strategy for your business. 

You can read it for free at ProductLed.com/Book - my treat!

➡️ What’s the best approach to scale up PLG?

After two years of research and working with hundreds of companies, I discovered the 9 essential elements that separate PLG success stories from the rest. 

I break it all down in The Product-Led Playbook.

You can grab a copy at ProductLed.com/Playbook, or watch my free masterclass to see the entire process in action: ProductLed.com/Masterclass

➡️ Ready to scale up?

If you’re ready to scale and need hands-on help, our ProductLed Implementers are here. They aren't consultants - they are experienced PLG operators who want to roll up their sleeves and work alongside your team to help you address your biggest growth bottleneck, whether that's getting more users to sign up, upgrade, or get to value.

Since we only work with a handful of clients at a time and guarantee growth, you must apply to work with us at ProductLed.com

Let’s turn your product into a growth engine and scale your business the product-led way. 🚀

CEO & Founder

We help you build a successful product-led business.

Start with our free ProductLed Masterclass 👉 productled.com

We asked 60,000 people: “who’s the best PLG operator you know?” 

and we researched who are (or were) behind the world’s best PLG companies (think early-days Slack, Notion, Miro, Etc.). 

Here are the results (2026 world rankings): 

#1 - Elena Verna
#2 - Giancarlo 'GC' Lionetti
#3 - Merci Victoria Grace
#4 - Melissa Tan
#5 - Wes Bush
#6 - Lauryn Motamedi
#7 - Laura Schaffer
#8 - Casey Winters
#9 - Jacob Bank
#10 - Kieran Flanagan
#11 - Leah Tharin
#12 - Ben Williams
#13 - Salvador Torres
#14 - Anton Osika
#15 - Carrie McMahon
#16 - Patrick Campbell
#17 - Esben Friis-Jensen
#18 - Ramli John
#19 - Bryan Ng
#20 - Kyle Parrish
#21 - Melissa Ross
#22 - Josh Sookman
#23 - Tommy Fink
#24 - Henrique Cruz
#25 - Casey Hill
#26 - Hila Qu 曲卉
#27 - David Barron
#28 - Mario Araujo
#29 - Kyle Poyar
#30 - Brian Balfour
#31 - Kate Syuma
#32 - Shaun Clowes
#33 - Meghan Gill
#34 - Michael T.
#35 - Shuo Wang
#36 - Eitan Helman
#37 - Raaz Herzberg
#38 - Shane Murphy-Reuter
#39 - Hiten Shah
#40 - Sam Crowell Richard
#41 - Jon Noronha
#42 - Etgar Bonar
#43 - Yaakov Carno
#44 - Aggelos Mouzakitis
#45 - Andrew Capland
#46 - Adam Fishman
#47 - Ravi Mehta
#48 - Jiaona "JZ" Zhang
#49 - Albert Cheng
#50 - Maor Shlomo
#51 - Francois Bondiguel
#52 - Sian Townsend
#53 - Brian de Haaff
#54 - Jules Walter
#55 - Amol Avasare
#56 - Arik Marmorstein
#57 - Dave Boyce
#58 - Sean Ellis
#59 - Rachel Hepworth
#60 - Jessica Gilmartin
#61 - Aaron Cort
#62 - Adam Robinson
#63 - Jason Fried
#64 - Alex Turnbull
#65 - Yasser Elsaid
#66 - Guillaume Moubeche
#67 - Nicolae Rusan
#68 - David Okuniev
#69 - Jan Oberhauser
#70 - Karim Atiyeh
#71 - Mickey Alon
#72 - David Barrett
#73 - Gary Brewer
#74 - James Hawkins
#75 - Nils Schneider
#76 - Daryna Kulya
#77 - Kurt Mackey
#78 - Koen Bok
#79 - Drew Banin
#80 - Patrick Thompson
#81 - Chris Bach
#82 - Melissa Kwan
#83 - John Foreman
#84 - Ryan Singer
#85 - Krithika Shankarraman
#86 - Pedro Magriço
#87 - Nick Chong
#88 - Harley Finkelstein
#89 - Hugh Molotsi
#90 - Ilan Rabinovitch
#91 - Jim Gochee
#92 - Neil Rahilly
#93 - Dylan Fox
#94 - Steffen Tjerrild
#95 - Ben Edelstein
#96 - Mauricio Idarraga
#97 - Carina Fonseca
#98 - Nick Rico
#99 - Fredo Tan
#100 - Rodrigo Fernandez
#101 - Justin Gallagher
#102 - Adam Jarczyn

Couldn’t tag everyone on this post. In the comments! 

Who do you know that’s not on this list, but should be? 

Let me know below 👇

Genspark AI reached $155M ARR in 10 months but I still got stuck getting to  value when I onboarded.

Here’s my full teardown of their PLG motion, and what I would change to get to $1B if I was in charge of self-serve growth 👇

DM me to get the full 10-minute Loom of me onboarding and giving feedback.

Oh, and Wen S. is coming on the pod. Stay tuned.

Reverse-engineering AI companies hitting $100M ARR ≤ 12 months

Genspark AI - PLG Teardown

Right now, founders have two choices.

One, they can pretend like they're living under a rock with their product, even if they have strong product-market fit right now. Or two, they can realize that product-market fit evolves faster than ever before with AI.

Let’s say you’re running a $45M business.

Growth is steady.
Churn is manageable.
Customers are happy.

On paper, everything looks solid.

But AI is compressing time.

If someone enters your category and delivers the same outcome in a fraction of the time, the equation changes fast.

The issue is → is your product still the fastest path to value?

That’s where the hard decision shows up.

Do you keep optimizing the current product?

Or do you build the version that makes your current product feel slow?

I’ll be direct: You should build the version that replaces you.

Design the AI-native experience that gets users to value dramatically faster.

Because if you don’t, someone else will.

And when they do, growth shifts quickly.

You’ll notice churn creeping up.
You’ll run experiments.
You’ll tweak onboarding.
You’ll adjust pricing.

But if the core workflow is slower, optimization won’t save you.

So the choice becomes simple.

Ultimately, these are the two choices you have to make:

1. Adapt or die: You must decide to disrupt yourself.
2. Be disrupted: Continue as you are and face the consequences.

That’s the decision.

I’m going to be blunt.

This was the best interview we’ve ever recorded.

Because Wen S. (COO + co-founder of Genspark AI) doesn’t talk in startup clichés.

He explains, in plain language, how a 50-person team hit $100M ARR in 9 months, then $155M ARR by month 10… with almost no marketing until after $100M.

Here are the ideas I can’t stop thinking about.

1) People want the job done. Period.

Wen said something that reframed the whole category for me:

People look for information because they need to finish something.

That’s why Genspark shifted the goal from “answer questions” to “finish work.”

2) Their “secret sauce” is boring, but effective: output quality.

Genspark put 99% of their energy into one thing: make the output so good you can ship it.

Work you can use right away.

That obsession is what made word-of-mouth do the heavy lifting early.

3) They refused to spend on marketing.

Most startups pour fuel on distribution early.

Genspark avoided ads on purpose.

Only after they crossed $100M ARR did they say: “Okay. This must be real. It’s time.”

4) They made a Super Bowl ad in 10 days (10x’d growth).

Yes, they ran a Super Bowl spot.

But the part that matters is they made it happen in ~10 days.

Script and creative generated using Genspark.
Shot fast.
Shipped fast.

Traffic jumped 10x overnight.

5) “Focus on one thing” is becoming bad advice.

In the old world, building multiple products meant multiplying teams and coordination.

In the AI-native world, you can reuse the same context across outputs.

People don’t want 12 tabs and 8 subscriptions. They want one place where context carries across everything.

6) How 50 people ship like 500.

Wen shared that 90%+ of their code is written by AI.

Instead of a classic org chart (frontend team, backend team, DevOps, design), they built a platform and kept ownership tight.

7) Why AI companies are hitting warp speed growth.

Adoption comes from two directions at once:

Bottom-up: individuals try it and get value immediately.
Top-down: leadership feels urgency and formalizes adoption.

If you aren't growing at warp speed, attend WARP Week from March 2nd to March 7th.

Save your spot: https://lnkd.in/gQfq4hYd

8) The real proof is revenue.

A consultant who used to spend weeks coordinating research and building decks now pays $25/month, gets the grunt work done in days, keeps more margin, and serves 5–6x more clients.

9) Their only advice to founders: obsess over the product.

If you have a great product, people will notice.

Stay paranoid. Keep shipping. Keep raising the quality bar.

That’s the game.

👉 Listen or watch the episode:
https://lnkd.in/geRJEhTk

“60 seconds to value? That’s impossible for my product.”

I hear this every time I talk about WARP.

Here’s what I tell them:

Cursor writes complex code in seconds.

Midjourney creates complex art in seconds.

Lovable builds entire applications in seconds.

These aren’t simple products. The difference is who does the work.

Old way: “You do the work and get X result.”

New way: “Tell me what you want done. Boom, it’s done.”

Even if you can’t hit 60 seconds today, what if you went from 3 days to 5 minutes?

That’s still a massive moat. And the window to capture it is now, while users are still actively trying new tools.

Wait until everyone has settled on their defaults and the cost of winning that same user goes up 10x.

That’s what we’re building in WARP Week.

Starts Monday. Link in comments.

I spoke with a $50M ARR founder yesterday.

He said something I haven’t stopped thinking about:

“We have product-market fit right now. But that’s PMF pre-AI.”

Let that sink in.

Most users aren’t deeply loyal.

They’re accepting the friction because there hasn’t been a dramatically better option.

If someone builds a tool that delivers the same outcome in 60 seconds instead of 30 minutes, switching becomes obvious.

And here’s the part founders don’t like to admit:

That company is being built right now.

Today.

Very likely by someone who understands your category inside out.

I’ve been studying what I call WARP speed companies.

The ones going from zero to $100M ARR in under 12 months.

They share a pattern.

Zero friction to value.

Users reach their first meaningful outcome in 60 seconds or less.

That’s the new bar for product-market fit in the AI era.

The question is no longer “Do people want this?”

It’s “How fast can they experience the outcome?”

Because speed to value is becoming the moat.

So the real question is simple.

If AI is going to compress your workflow, will you be the one compressing it?

Or will someone else?

10 months ago, Wen S. launched Genspark.

Today, it’s at $155M ARR with ~50 people.

For the first time, he shared exactly how they did it:

1. They didn’t build a better chatbot.

They rebuilt “work.”

Instead of answering questions, Genspark focuses on finishing tasks: decks, models, briefs, decisions.

2. They let individuals pull the product in.

Adoption started bottom-up.

Employees used it because it was immediately useful. Then leadership stepped in to formalize it.

3. They refused to spend on marketing until after $100M ARR.

No big ad budgets.

No artificial fuel.

If it grew, it had to be because the product earned it.

4. They made a Super Bowl ad in 10 days.

After product-market fit was obvious, they took a high-leverage swing.

Traffic jumped 10x overnight.

5. They built a 50-person team that ships like 500.

Over 90% of their code is AI-written.

Weekly releases.

70+ models orchestrated under the hood.

As Wen said, the entire team’s obsession is output quality.

Not features!

The formula is clear → Get users to real value fast. Make the output so good they can ship it. Keep raising the bar every week.

Individuals adopt.

Companies follow.

Growth compounds.

That’s what AI-era product-market fit looks like.

🎧 Listen to the full breakdown: https://lnkd.in/geRJEhTk

Networking Coach: Land 10-20 Product Interviews at Top Tech Companies✨Product & GTM Advisor🪄

Learn how to network to land your next job. My second cohort starts on March 3.
https://maven.com/dspeigel/networking-magic

Grow your product, grow your customers, grow your network.
I help executives build growth features into their products to land customers and channel partners.
I help individuals improve their networking skills to build the relationships they need to succeed.

Want to land you next top tech role? Do you think 3-5 interview loops is enough? Think again. Even with 5 loops, the odds of you landing 2 offers timed closely enough to choose are very slim. After coaching 100s of PMs, the ones with the best chances of landing their dream role develop a pipeline of 10-15 interview loops per month. They do this through persistent networking, not just applications.

More about me:
15+ years of product leadership in AdTech, both B2B and B2C.

- Launched data products for audience capture (LiveRamp) and built audience integrations to top social networks and DSPs such as Meta, Google, The Trade Desk and many others.

- Built 0-to-1 campaign management tools for reporting, ad creative approval, and audience creation. Added product led growth go-to-market capabilities to a B2B SaaS influencer marketing platform

- Worked in two public company innovation centers taking products from 0-to-1 and scaling from 0 to $xxM.

David Speigel 🔮

My titles and degrees may look impressive. They hide a lot of bruising failures...

One year out of undergrad at Indiana's Kelley School of Business, I was laid off when my company prepped for sale. It was a shock. In hindsight, it was a blessing. It taught me very early that no job is guaranteed.

I moved to Los Angeles to be near my older brother, who'd had multiple successes during the dot-com boom. I caught the startup bug fast.

Worked for a startup that got acqui-hired. Learned that "exited founder" doesn't always mean "successful exit." That acquirer raised $4M from two VCs. Six months later, one bailed. 50 employees became ~5. I wasn't one of them.

A recruiter I'd befriended helped me land a product role at Yodlee (backed by Sequoia and Accel). Small catch: I had to commute by plane from LA to SF every week. I was young and unattached, so I said, “Why not?” Six months later my Director gave me an ultimatum: relocate or leave. I wasn't ready to move, so I left.

Back in Chicago, I got rejected from both Booth and Kellogg. Spent the next year on GMAT prep and hired an admissions coach — something I initially thought was a sign of weakness. Turned out most of my b-school peers had quietly done the same thing.

After Kellogg I landed a Director of Product role (through extensive networking). The team disbanded. Then I became Head of Technology inside Redbox's new ventures group. A PE firm came in and shut down the whole group.

My longest stretches of stability came at Allstate, Conversant/Epsilon, and LiveRamp: nearly 6, 4, and 2+ years respectively. In hindsight, even those felt like borrowed time.

I climbed to Director of Product twice. Head of Product twice. 13 full-time jobs total. I can't even count the interviews it took to land them.

Every rung felt unstable, and each one taught me: how to find roles others don't see and how to use your network to land and pass interviews. Now I help others do the same faster and less painfully than I did.

If you're struggling to land offers, reach out. My DMs are open.

Don’t suffer in private. Remember: The skills needed to DO the job are very different from the skills needed to LAND the job. Let my experience help you with that.

I just walked downstairs to head out for a college visit road trip. My four kids’ portraits on the wall across from the banister hit different today. 

Two pics are high school graduation photos. First I saw my oldest. In a suit. I thought: “He’s already moved out.” He’s at UIUC. I rarely see him in person now. 

Then I saw my daughter’s photo. She’s wearing a dressy blouse. Also a senior photo. I’m taking her on the trip to visit a top journalism school. 

Then I see my next two sons. My HS freshman is wearing a henley. Casual but nice. No business attire. He’ll be around a few more years. 

My four year old is in Lollapalooza t-shirt. He’s not even in Kindergarten yet. I still do daily drop offs and pickups for him. 

One kid is gone and another is about to leave. The yearly changing photos on the stairway wall tell a story. When I see my kids dressed up, I think they’ve left or they’re leaving. I cherish the time I have remaining with them living with me. 

Soon they’ll go off to college and make careers of their own.

If your job search plan is “apply and hope”…
You’re playing by yourself. What to do instead:

Most Product Managers say they want top 1% roles.
But their strategy looks like everyone else’s.

- Refresh resume
- Apply to 20–30 roles
- Prep for interviews
- Repeat

And then they’re sad when they get ghosted.

My POV (that's worked with 100's of PMs):

Applications are a visibility tactic.
Networking is a positioning strategy.

If you’re only applying, you’re volunteering to compete.
If you’re networking, you’re building leverage.

My framework breaks landing interviews into 4 parts:

1️⃣ Mindset

Networking isn’t “after you apply.”
It’s the strategy.

You move from transactional job-seeking…
to long-term relationship building.

From “Can you refer me?”
to “Here’s how I can add value.”

When your positioning is clear…
- Who you are
- What you want
- What you’re great at 

…outreach becomes natural.

2️⃣ Methods

1st-degree connections get you 2nd-degree opportunities.

That means:
- Building over 100+ meaningful connections a year
- Identifying super-connectors
- Reconnecting with past coworkers
- Using LinkedIn searches beyond job postings

Most people only search for jobs.
The successful few search for people.

Find hiring managers.
Find people engaging with their posts.
Build visibility before you ever apply.

3️⃣ Messaging

This is where people overdo it.

You don’t need a long message.
And don’t ask for a referral right away.

Keep it short. Be curious. 
Show you actually looked at their profile.

Find a bit of common ground. 
Maybe mention something specific. 
Add a small insight if it makes sense.

Then follow up once or twice if needed. 
Most people just miss your first message.

Remember, you’re not pitching.
You’re starting a conversation.

4️⃣ Management

Networking beats applications because it compounds.
Applications have no residual benefit if you get ghosted.

Networking builds:
- Relationships
- Market intelligence
- Referrals
- Future opportunities

You should aim for:
10–15 first-round interviews
6–7 loops
2–3 offers (at the same time)

That’s leverage.

That doesn’t come from hitting “Apply” 100 times.

Put yourself in the hiring managers' shoes:
They want to hire people they know or people in their network.

You can get into that circle.
But only if you build it intentionally.

So be honest:

Are you trying to win the application lottery…
…or are you building a career moat?

Free Maven Lightning Lesson next week:
12 Networking Message Templates in 30 Minutes
https://lnkd.in/gQjZ7aJ5

Our next cohort starts March 3rd:
https://lnkd.in/ghAtjReZ

“David, I’ve started to feel the magic!” I caught up with a former student 3 weeks after our first cohort. He wanted to share his amazing results:

“For the last couple of weeks, I started feeling the magic you spoke about during the cohort.”

Here’s what that “magic” turned into:
→ 6 total new interview loops
→ 3 from outbound networking, (1 unposted role)
→ 2 inbound recruiter messages, 1 was L7 at eBay!
→ 1 older application resurfaced

I asked what changed. He said something important:

“I updated my headline and focused my outreach.”

That headline shift, combined with narrowing his target company list exactly the way we structured it in the cohort, drove his connection acceptance rate from ~15% to over 50%. 

He nearly tripled his response rate!

“I checked my LinkedIn data. Each second connection request was accepted.”

He picked:
→ 200–500 employee companies
→ e-commerce / marketplace focus
→ California-based
→ Series B+

At one company with no posted job, he found someone with a shared background, built rapport in their native language, and that person advocated for him internally.

That’s what happens when you narrow your positioning, search for advocates, and turn cold contacts into warm connections.

He told me: “It doesn’t bring instant results… but it worked in a couple of weeks.”

He ran the system and momentum showed up fast.

Here’s how I can help you, too:
https://lnkd.in/gbZSfFix

Sign up for Thursday's Lightning Lesson
(Or just watch the recordings)

Check out the course - next cohort starts Tuesday!

Open article: Maven | Unlock your career growth by maven.com

There are 4 main steps to a PM job search 
And most are skipping over 3 of them...

Many Product Managers obsess over interview prep

→ Case frameworks
→ Behavioral stories
→ Mock interviews

But interview prep is step 3

Not step 1

Remember, there are 4 pieces to this puzzle 
Too many over-invest in one that fits later

Here’s how it actually works:

1️⃣ Profile & Goals

Before you chase interviews, you need clarity

- Who are you?
- What roles are you targeting?
- Which companies? Which teams?

Once you clearly define that, you can communicate it

Once you communicate it, networking gets easier

Without this layer, you’re just spraying resumes

2️⃣ Land Interviews

Here's where most PMs struggle without realizing it

- You land 1 or 2 interviews
- You don’t pass
- You assume you need better interview skills

The real issue?
You didn’t build enough pipeline

Instead, aim for 10 first-round screens
That could turn into 6-7 loops…
...and 2 to 3 offers

That gives you leverage

And the only reliable way to create that volume of quality interviews?

Networking.

Not cold applications.

Applications have no residual value if you get ghosted

Networking builds relationships, context, and future opportunities…
…even if that specific role doesn’t work out

3️⃣ Interview Prep

Once you’ve networked, interviews change

You’re not guessing anymore

You already know:
- The team’s pain points
- The hiring manager’s style
- The “gotcha” questions
- The internal context
- The expectations

Interviews aren't interrogations
They become conversations

4️⃣ Offer Negotiation 

You can just accept your first offer
Or you can create options

When you have multiple offers, negotiation becomes a strategy…
…not something you do out of desperation

Here’s the reality:

You can hire someone to rewrite your resume
You can pay for mock interviews
You can even hire an offer negotiation coach

Very few people will help you build the part that actually drives everything else:

Your network.

If you’re getting ghosted by applications…
If you want to get noticed by top companies…
If you’re tired of hoping the ATS picks you…

You probably don’t have an “interviewing” problem
You have a “land interviews” problem

And that’s where I can help:
https://lnkd.in/gbZSfFix

Sign up for this Thursday's Lightning Lesson
Or just watch the recordings
Then check out the course

I’ve coached 100s of PM on how to land top tech jobs. Here’s what most miss:

(I can’t blame them though, I once thought similarly, 20ish years ago.)

They think "Networking" is something you do only after you see a job posting. 

I wish they knew that I landed a Director of Product role at Discovery Media and a Head of Product role at LiveRamp by connecting with the hiring team… before the roles were even posted!

Please, don’t only apply, then search for the hiring manager and recruiter so you can alert them of your application: “Hey, Look At MEEE!!!”

Technically that’s networking, but it’s not the main thing I teach.

In these situations, you’re playing from a position of weakness.

Stop and think about it. 

It’s HARD for hiring managers to get their company to open a new role on their team. When they do have that shiny, valuable new role, they don’t broadcast it out to everyone and anyone so random strangers they don’t know or trust can report to them.

No, that’s the 3rd or 4th best option.

First, hiring managers shop the role to:
Their inner circle
Private text threads
Private Slack channels
Well known PM communities

Next, they post the role on LinkedIn (without turning on Actively Hiring). This alerts their first degree network to see if anyone they know is interested.

Only after these first two options do they start accepting applicants.

When you’re actively networking, you can find the roles at steps 1 and 2 and skip the applicant line. Be in a list of 3-5 insiders instead of 500-1000 applicants.

I understand that at many companies roles have to be posted and applications accepted, etc. 

But don’t you agree that the insiders have a better chance?

My point: 
Many mid-career product managers ask me: 

“David, can you help me network after I submit my application?”

And what I’d like them to understand is that networking can be a very powerful ALTERNATIVE to submitting applications.

Yes. Do both. But let 80% of your time spent landing interviews be networking and only 20% be applications (and of that 20%, most of it should be networking after you’ve applied).

Consider joining my 2nd cohort next week to build your network. 

Improve your career fitness and build a moat around your career - whether you’re currently working or job searching.

taplio

The Battle

Wes Bush

David Speigel 🔮

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taplio

The Battle

Wes Bush

David Speigel 🔮

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Wes Bush's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreWes Bush's LinkedIn Performance