Analytics
A comprehensive showcase of modern analytics frameworks and methodologies. From GTM strategy to growth loops, I've compiled battle-tested approaches that drive real business outcomes, with SQL queries and implementation details.
This collection compiles best practices from leading companies, with examples and metrics drawn from public sources to illustrate proven analytics strategies.
🚀 How Slack Went from 0 to $27.7B with Bottom-Up GTM
Users Within Two Weeks
8,000 sign-ups day 1, 15,000 after 2 weeks of preview launch
Free-to-Paid Conversion
Teams convert to paid (industry avg: 2-5%)
In ~2.5 Years
One of the fastest at the time (2017)
"We focused on team adoption, not individual users. Once 3+ people used Slack, retention was 93%" - Stewart Butterfield
Sources: Salesforce acquisition (2021), acquired.fm, medium.com
The $10M Question: Where Should You Focus?
Most companies guess wrong:
- • Chase enterprise deals that never close
- • Build features for loud minorities
- • Burn cash on the wrong channels
- • Price too low for valuable segments
Data-driven GTM reveals:
- • Your actual best customers (not who you think)
- • The features that drive conversions
- • Channels with positive unit economics
- • Pricing that captures value
1. Find Your $100M Opportunity: Market Segmentation
Stop wasting resources on bad-fit customers. Use data to identify and size your most profitable segments in weeks, not months.
🎯 From Theory to Revenue: Actionable Market Sizing
💡 Real Example: Market Focus
Successful SaaS companies often find their sweet spot in specific team sizes and methodologies. Focusing on the right segment can enable efficient growth with minimal sales overhead.
🌍 Start Big: TAM
Total opportunity if you owned the market
$600M opportunity
500K businesses × $1,200 ACV
(Fictional example)
🎯 Get Real: SAM
Who you can actually reach and serve
$120M addressable
US/UK markets, Tech sector only
(Fictional example)
💰 Be Honest: SOM
Your realistic 3-year target
$12M target
10% market share = 1,000 customers
(Fictional example)
💎 Your Money-Making Machine: ICP Discovery
⚡ Real ICP Discovery: Superhuman
Rahul Vohra discovered their ideal customer: "Nicole is a hard-working professional who deals with many people... She spends much of her work day in her inbox, reading 100-200 emails and sending 15-40 on a typical day. She prides herself on being responsive." This focus took them from 22% to 58% product-market fit.
Stop guessing. Find your most profitable customers in your data:
🗺️ Customer Journey Mapping
Awareness
Blog, Ads
Consideration
Demo, Trial
Purchase
Convert
Retention
Expand
Advocacy
Refer
2. Choose Your Weapon: PLG vs SLG (Or Both)
⚠️ Why Some Companies Choose PLG Over Enterprise Sales
Companies with strong self-serve adoption often find that organic upgrades drive significant revenue. This enables growth with minimal sales overhead by focusing on product improvements.
🚀 Product-Led Growth (PLG)
When to Use:
- • Low price point (<$100/month)
- • Self-serve onboarding possible
- • Individual users can adopt
- • Value realized quickly
Key Metrics:
- • Time to Value (TTV)
- • Activation Rate
- • Product Qualified Leads (PQLs)
- • Viral Coefficient
- • Net Revenue Retention
Examples:
Slack, Dropbox, Figma, Calendly
💼 Sales-Led Growth (SLG)
When to Use:
- • High price point (>$10K ACV)
- • Complex implementation
- • Requires team adoption
- • Long sales cycles (60+ days)
Key Metrics:
- • Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
- • Average Contract Value
- • Sales Cycle Length
- • Win Rate
- • CAC Payback Period
Examples:
Salesforce, Workday, Palantir, Oracle
🔄 Hybrid Approach
Many successful companies use a hybrid model, starting with PLG for initial adoption and adding sales for enterprise expansion.
PLG → SLG Journey:
3. Win More Deals: Data-Driven Competitive Strategy
📈 How Gong.io Beat Established Competitors
Gong entered a crowded market (Chorus.ai launched earlier). They analyzed 30,000 sales calls and found competitors focused on call recording. Gong positioned on "revenue intelligence" (company claim).
🎯 Competitive Analysis Framework
📍 Jobs-to-be-Done Positioning: Intercom Case Study
Intercom used JTBD framework to identify three core jobs customers hire them for, informing their entire go-to-market strategy:
📞 Lead Generation
Capture and qualify website visitors
👥 Customer Support
Answer questions and resolve issues
💡 Customer Engagement
Onboard and educate users
How this positioning differs from competitors:
4. The One Metric That Matters: Finding Your North Star
💡 How Amplitude Found Their North Star
Amplitude tried tracking signups, DAU, then queries run. Finally discovered: "Weekly Querying Users" (WQUs) as their North Star Metric. Teams with 10+ WQUs showed significantly higher retention. This focus led to strong growth.
North Star Framework
Reflects Value
Measures actual value delivered to customers, not vanity metrics
Leads Revenue
Strong correlation with future revenue growth
Actionable
Teams can directly influence through their work
📊 Common North Star Metrics by Product Type:
B2B SaaS
- • Slack: Daily Active Users sending messages
- • Zoom: Weekly Hosted Meetings
- • Hubspot: Weekly Active Teams
Consumer
- • Spotify: Time spent listening
- • Airbnb: Nights booked
- • Uber: Completed rides
5. Proven Playbooks: How Unicorns Actually Did It
🦄 The Land & Expand Pattern
Studying Datadog, Snowflake, and MongoDB reveals the same pattern: Start with developers, prove value with small teams, then expand to enterprise. Each grew 100%+ yearly by following this playbook.
Slack: PLG Perfection
North Star Metric:
Daily Active Users sending messages
Key Insight:
Teams that sent 2,000+ messages had 93% retention
GTM Strategy:
- • Bottom-up adoption (individuals → teams)
- • Freemium with 10K message limit
- • Network effects within organizations
Result: $0 to $1B ARR in 5 years, 100K+ paying teams
Zoom: Hybrid GTM Success
North Star Metric:
Weekly Hosted Meetings
Key Insight:
Free users who hosted 3+ meetings converted 80% of the time
GTM Strategy:
- • PLG for individuals (free 40-min meetings)
- • SLG for enterprise (dedicated sales)
- • Focus on product quality ("It just works")
Result: IPO at ~$16B valuation (Apr 2019), 300M+ meeting participants (Apr 2020)
6. Deep Dive: GTM Strategies by the Numbers
📊 Notion: The Perfect Freemium Balance
The Strategy:
- • Free tier: Unlimited blocks for personal use
- • Paid trigger: Collaboration (share with others)
- • Expansion: Team workspaces at $8-15/user
- • Viral loop: Public pages & templates
The Results:
- • 2019: 1M users, ~$800M valuation
- • 2021: 20M users, $10B valuation (Oct 2021)
- • Conversion: ~6% free to paid
- • NRR: >100% (expansion within teams)
Key Insight: They found that users who created 10+ pages in week 1 had 80% 6-month retention. Everything focused on getting users to that milestone quickly.
🚀 Canva: Democratizing Design Through Data
The Strategy:
- • Entry point: Templates, not blank canvas
- • Target: Non-designers (teachers, SMBs)
- • Monetization: Premium templates & brand kits
- • Growth hack: SEO on "free [design type] maker"
The Numbers:
- • 2013: Launch with 750K users year 1
- • 2022: 100M MAU (Jan 2022)
- • 2023: >$1.4B annualized revenue (Mar 2023)
- • 2024: 220M MAU, >$3B ARR
- • Key metric: Designs created per user
Data Learning: Users who completed 1 design had 4x higher retention than those who just browsed. They redesigned onboarding to ensure everyone finished their first design.
💰 Stripe: Developer-First GTM Excellence
The Approach:
- • Hero feature: 7 lines of code to accept payments
- • Documentation: Best-in-class API docs
- • Pricing: Simple 2.9% + 30¢ (no monthly fees)
- • Growth: Bottom-up from developers to CFOs
The Metrics:
- • 2010: Launch with YC startups
- • 2020: $7.4B gross revenue
- • 2024: ~$5.1B net revenue
- • Penetration: High YC adoption (internal estimate)
- • Expansion: Strong customer growth yearly
GTM Secret: While competitors focused on enterprise sales, Stripe bet on startups. Many of those startups became unicorns, taking Stripe with them as they scaled.
7. GTM Strategy Decision Framework
🎯 GTM Strategy Assessment
Key factors to consider when determining your go-to-market approach:
1. What's your average contract value?
💳 Under $1K/year
→ Pure PLG (self-serve)
💰 $1K - $25K/year
→ PLG with sales assist
🏢 Over $25K/year
→ Sales-led with PLG elements
2. How complex is your product?
🎯 Simple
10-min setup → PLG
⚡ Moderate
1-day setup → Hybrid
🔧 Complex
Weeks to implement → SLG
3. Who makes the buying decision?
👤 Individual users
→ PLG with viral loops
👥 Team leads
→ Bottom-up expansion
👔 C-suite/Procurement
→ Enterprise sales
Strategic Recommendation:
Analysis shows successful companies often begin with one GTM motion and expand. Examples: Slack initiated PLG, added enterprise sales at $10M ARR. Datadog targeted developers first (PLG), then expanded to executive buyers (SLG). Initial strategy should align with the most efficient path to $1M ARR.
📊 Key GTM Strategy Principles
Common Pitfalls:
- • Copying strategies without context
- • Frequent strategic pivots
- • Focus on vanity metrics
- • Inefficient channel allocation
- • Lack of hypothesis testing
Evidence-Based Approach:
- • Data-driven hypothesis testing
- • Resource concentration on proven channels
- • Leading indicator tracking
- • CAC:LTV optimization
- • Predictable scaling models
Building a Data-Driven GTM Framework
Focus on ICP identification, strategic positioning, and efficient scaling based on metrics.
Analytics Toolkit
Analytics Platforms
Amplitude, Mixpanel, PostHog, Heap, Pendo
Experimentation
Optimizely, LaunchDarkly, Split.io, Statsig, GrowthBook
Customer Data
Segment, Rudderstack, mParticle, Hightouch
Analysis
SQL, Python, R, Jupyter, Mode, Hex
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