Customer Centric LLC

From Product-Led Growth (PLG) to Progress-Led Trust (PLT)

Citi

lululemon athletica

Wellhub

G Adventures

Humana

John Gusiff

Managing Partner, CustomerCentric LLC

Understand how Product-Led Growth was designed for predictable, observable user journeys—no longer the case with AI.

Why PLG Breaks in AI-First Products

Learn how growth in AI moves from optimizing usage to earning user confidence through felt progress.

The Shift: Product-Led Growth → Progress-Led Trust

Identify the four experience pillars that determine whether users trust an AI product enough to rely on it.

The Four Pillars of Progress-Led Trust

Learn a simple, repeatable method to assess trust gaps in your own AI product and prioritize what to fix.

Applying PLT: Practical Audit

See how progress-led trust compounds over time to drive retention, expansion, and defensible growth.

Closing: The New Growth Engine

_____________07:00 PM (19:00), GMT+2, five sessions over 2.5 Weeks_____________ More and more B2B SaaS companies with great products simply die because they cannot reach their audience to create a commercially successful product. (Product-led) "Growth" is the art of connecting users as cost-efficiently as possible to the value your product offers. It connects the promises made by Marketing with the experience your Product teams build. Yet, most B2B SaaS companies do not have a dedicated Growth function or talented Growth PMs to master this distribution model. It's a hot potato that is commonly passed around between product, marketing, and sales. The top quartile SaaS companies between 5 and 20m in revenue are growing over 70% year over year, with an 8 month CAC payback, 110% Net dollar retention while having an 85% Gross Margin with an average Annual Revenue of over 250’000$. (Source: Growth Unhinged 2023 Report) All these companies have one thing in common: a deep understanding of Product-led Growth. * How do we in B2B address the growing problem of everyone asking for an improved buying experience and self-serve? * How do you package your offering with freemium, trial and/or interactive demo? * How do we activate individuals, teams and accounts in B2B as cost efficient as possible to drive our pipeline? * How does Product-led Growth work with an existing Sales motion? * How do we structure a strategy to bring product-led growth into our business? Leah Tharin brought product-led growth as an operative, executive, and Advisor to dozens of B2B scale-up companies&nbsp;to optimize their user acquisition, retention, and monetization. She's recognized as an Industry leader on the topic, having written some of the most referenced Product-led Growth &amp; Sales material to date. She evaluates B2B SaaS scale-up Growth Motions for Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds. Understand and structure a (product-led) growth strategy that works for your business. It is designed for leaders and product managers from all functions who want to understand and not just blindly execute. The course runs over 2.5 weeks (5 live recorded Zoom classes). All sessions have prerecorded material for you to study in your own time, the live sessions are solely focussed on world-class guest speakers, collaborative group exercises and your questions. You can expect per week about 2-3 hours of study for the asynchronous material at your own pace + 60-75 minutes per live session. Over 20 Guest speakers from past cohorts for example :* Adam Fishman, SVP new products @ Mozilla, Investor &amp; Advisor* John Cutler, ex- Evangelist @ Amplitude &amp; Toast* Itxaso Del Palacio, General Partner @ Notion VC* Benjamin Lamson, Head of Paperspace Revenue @ DigitalOcean* Casey Hill, Sr. Growth Manager @ Active Campaign* Henrique Cruz, Head of Growth @ Rows.com* Sara Gattoni, Senior Lead Growth PM @ Lokalise* Andrew Davies, CMO @ Paddle...and many more This course is not a good fit for: * Companies pre product market fit which are extremely early in their journey. * Non-software or D2C companies * Highly regulated industries that deal with government contracts

How experienced Growth operators use PLG in B2B SaaS

Course syllabus

We use the majority of the time to discuss as a group your specific challenges and questions you had from the async learning materials and to address Q&amp;A questions.

6 x one - hour long sessions with Leah

Before every session you get ~30min videos to ease you into the topics including some interactive exercises for you to prepare beforehand.

Asynchronous learning material

Miss a session? Not a problem, you will have access immediately afterwards.

All sessions are recorded

Course schedule

Senior level product, growth &amp; marketing leaders in B2B who want to understand and leverage PLG as a distribution model to optimize growth.

Ideal for companies in B2B with some revenue traction post product-market fit.

GTM leaders wanting to understand why PLG is disrupting many classical distribution models.

Who is this course for

What you’ll learn

<ul><li>Review the core principles of product-led growth (PLG), beyond just trials and freemium</li></ul> <ul><li>Look under the hood of leading industry examples</li></ul>

Understand PLG and its impact on B2B growth initiatives

<ul><li>How to objectively measure customer success and operationalize it with meaningful, outcome-driven team goals</li></ul> <ul><li>How to establish growth in your organization that sticks with growth teams and culture</li></ul>

Increase the efficiency of your distribution model

<ul><li>How to move from activating individuals to teams and subsequently to accounts.</li></ul>

Individual vs. Team vs. Account Activation

<ul><li>How to find, define, and identify meaningful ICPs (Ideal customer profile)</li></ul> <ul><li>Driving them through our acquisition funnel and retaining them for long-term revenue</li></ul>

Find ICPs in Product-led Growth

<ul><li>How to combine the best from PLG and Sales-led Growth: Product-led Sales</li></ul> <ul><li>How to apply the principles of customer success signals, and their ICPs to qualify deals and drive efficiency in mid-market / enterprise segments.</li></ul>

Combine sales and Product-led Growth: Product-led Sales

<ul><li>Create a long-lasting Strategy to acquire customers while they are small and grow into bigger clients with time.</li></ul> <ul><li>Creating the conditions to have a product that grows with your customers</li></ul>

Drive expansion revenue through PLG

<ul><li>Community sessions to network and discuss with other cohort participants</li></ul> <ul><li>Access a dedicated Discord community after the course</li></ul>

Interactive community & special material

Understand Product-led Growth to formulate a strategy that includes PLG without wrecking your existing business.

Usercentrics

GotPhoto.com

Smallpdf

Notion Capital

Microsoft

Leah Tharin

B2B Product & Growth executive / PLG Advisor, Board Member, VC Advisor

Cohort 9

Cohort 10

Combine behavioral science and proven growth strategies to create a diverse roadmap, get buy-in, and drive impact with high quality.

Founder Growthmates • Ex-Miro 

Kate Syuma

Founder @Growthmates • Ex-Miro Head of Growth Design 

Cohort 3

Cohort 4

Growth leaders are expected to deliver impact fast — but many fall into local optimization traps.👉 What’s good for the user is good for the business.The biggest wins for Miro, Notion, and Figma came from combining world-class UX with ethical Product-Led Growth.Common challenges: 🚨 Endless A/B tests with no real impact 🚨 Hard to uncover new Activation or Habit opportunities 🚨 Struggling to get buy-in for meaningful product changesAfter 6+ years leading Growth at Miro (from 1 to 15 teams), founding Growthmates, and advising 10+ SaaS &amp; AI companies, I built a course to help you solve these challenges.🎯 Result: a prioritized roadmap of Quick Wins, Meaningful Shifts, and Big Bets — plus personal Loom feedback on your project.You get: ⚡️ Personalized feedback on your completed project ($990 value) ⚡️ 4 live interactive sessions ($1,190 value) ⚡️ 30+ real product flows from Notion, Canva, Dropbox &amp; lifetime accessThis course is not just theory — it’s real product practice and user-centric growth you can apply immediately.

Create your Product-led growth roadmap — from Quick wins to Big bets.

Define a  user-centric PLG strategy

Analyze and improve Growth product flows

Prioritize initiatives for Growth Roadmap

Apply personalized feedback from Kate Syuma

PMs and Product Designers working on Growth — apply frameworks and feedback to produce a roadmap to immediately take into work

"Growth team of one" — Product and Design Leaders who drive several parts of growth simultaneously (like Activation, Habit-forming, Upgrades

Growth Marketers, User Researchers, and other Product members who want to deepen their knowledge of PLG practices and Behavioural psychology

Apply Product-led & Marketing-led Growth principles. No 'hacks' but a structured approach to growth by creating value for users and business

Product Growth & Marketing enthusiast

Ekaterina Gamsriegler

Head of Growth & Marketing @MyGroove, Product 50's Top Growth Product Leader '24

Cohort 8

Is your app getting traction and showing the signs of a product-market fit? Do you have dozens of ideas, features, and marketing tactics to test now? During the course you'll discover the key concepts of product-led and marketing-led growth as well as ready-to-apply tactics that will help you grow your app business. You'll explore all the app marketing channels and PLG mechanisms worth focusing on and prioritize your work on them

Take a structured, full-funnel approach to growing your app's userbase & revenue

Find the most impactful growth levers aka 'big bets'

Develop your user acquisition strategy

Define and test product-led growth strategies

Increase LTVs and revenues and achieve viable unit economics

Implement growth processes and align the teams around the meaningful goals

Founders (Seed-Series A/B) who want&nbsp;to learn the mechanics and design a winning strategy for scaling the app's revenue and acquisition

Paid UA, ASO, CRM experts trying to break into growth roles, build a holistic approach to marketing, and work closer with product teams

Product Managers who want to understand the value of marketing and approach growth not only through the lens of product features and UX 🚀

The Leadership Crisis No One Talks AboutIt's 2:47 AM and you're staring at the retention dashboard. Again. Your "AI-enhanced" feature launched to fanfare three months ago... great press, executive excitement, promising initial adoption. Now you're watching 73% of users abandon it after the first session. Tomorrow's executive product meeting is focused on exactly this: the design problem causing the retention cliff. You need to present research findings and lead a strategy discussion that could reshape your entire approach to AI. This isn't just about fixing a feature, it's about defining what AI design leadership looks like. Why This Moment MattersYour credibility was built on predictable delivery. For years, you shipped experiences that worked consistently. Now you're pioneering something entirely new, and that positions you to lead the industry standard. The paradigm has fundamentally shifted: Traditional UX Design:- Deterministic systems with predictable, consistent experiences- One-way interaction where users experience a fixed interface- Success measured by users completing intended paths AI Systems:- Non-deterministic learning systems where every interaction changes future behaviour- Bi-directional adaptation where both human and AI evolve through each encounter- Success measured by the quality of the evolving relationship﻿ 54% of people don't trust AI systems despite 61% of respondents using them daily. (University of Melbourne and KPMG, 2025) That retention cliff isn't a failure; it's feedback. Users sense the mismatch between predictable tools and learning entities. You're uniquely positioned to solve what no one else has figured out yet. The OpportunityThe leaders who master relationship design first won't just solve their retention problems; they'll become the case study everyone else studies.This is your chance to define what trustworthy AI design looks like, rather than follow standards someone else sets. A Leadership Transformation in Three MovementsThis intensive journey rebuilds your leadership approach for the relationship design era: 1. Leading Through UncertaintyHow to guide teams building systems that learn and adaptCommunicating AI value to executives without overpromisingMaking decisions about technologies you're still mastering 2. Building Trust-First TeamsEstablishing design processes for non-deterministic systemsCreating quality standards for evolving AI relationshipsDeveloping team capabilities in trust signal design 3. Scaling Relationship DesignImplementing frameworks that work across your entire organisationMeasuring success in dynamic, learning systemsBuilding competitive advantage through trustworthy AI ﻿For Design Leaders Under PressureDesigned for leaders who must deliver AI transformation while maintaining team confidence and executive credibility—who recognise that relationship design isn't just a new methodology, it's the fundamental shift that determines whether your organisation leads or follows. Whether you're currently:A UX Design Leader orchestrating team transformationA UX Research Leader scaling insights through AIA Strategic Design Leader defining AI-enhanced experiencesWhat unites our participants is their recognition that leading AI adoption requires something more nuanced than traditional management approaches. The Essential Leadership Outcomes You emerge with:Frameworks to guide teams building learning systems you can't fully predictLanguage to communicate AI value without technical BS to executivesProcesses that maintain quality while embracing non-deterministic outputsMetrics that prove relationship design delivers measurable business impactA network of leaders defining the standards everyone else will follow Most importantly, you join a community of leaders pioneering this emerging discipline; professionals who understand that the most valuable AI systems won't be those with impressive technical specifications, but those designed with profound understanding of human trust dynamics. A Limited ExperienceLimited to fifteen participants per cohortFocused on meaningful exchange and personal attentionA deliberate practice developed through engagement with fellow leaders "The leaders who recognise this shift first won't just survive the transition—they'll define what relationship design looks like for everyone else." ** This course can you considered as an Add-On to the Human-Centred AI : Building AI Systems People can Trust. https://maven.com/ai-flywheel/human-centred-ai

Lead with Trustworthy AI: Design, Innovate & Inspire

Weekly LIve Ethics Lesson 90 minute sessions where we unpack 1 ethical principle in depth and have peer to peer conversation.

Thursdays - Live Workshops

You'll be given<ul><li>&lt; 60 min of e-learning modules per week</li><li>practical exercises</li><li>micro-habits to apply learnings directly to your AI use in your daily work</li></ul>

Self paced learning 

You have access to BONUS lessons to build your personal AI literacy - this optional session is a group coaching opportunity for any questions or challenges you have using AI for your own work.

Optional - AI Help Office Hours

UX &amp; Design Directors : Balancing executive AI demands with your team's creative integrity and fear of replacement.

UX Research Leaders : Scaling research with AI whilst preserving methodological rigour and meaningful human insights.

Service Design Leader : Reimagining end-to-end experiences with Human+AI interactions whilst maintaining human agency and trust.

What you’ll get out of this course

You'll leave being able balance innovation with user trust, giving you confidence to lead AI initiatives that executives support.

1. Strategic AI Roadmap for Design Teams

Master proven design patterns that increase user trust in AI features by 30%. You'll learn exactly where transparency, human oversight, and error correction mechanisms create measurable improvements in adoption and retention.

2. Trust-Building Design Patterns 

Transform your designers from AI-overwhelmed to AI-empowered with frameworks that show exactly where AI enhances rather than threatens creativity. You'll restructure workflows that boost productivity whilst preserving your team's unique human value.

3. Team Transformation to AI-Enhanced Operations

Establish yourself as your organisation's trusted authority on Trustworthy AI design. You'll master the language, metrics and case studies that convince skeptical stakeholders, positioning you as the strategic bridge between technology and human experience.

4. Leadership Positioning Strategy

The live weekly sessions we unpack 1 ethical principle using a real world case study of an AI implementation that went wrong. Having peer-to-peer discussions and practice applying the ethical principle to a new case study. Allowing you to practice applying in safe space.

5. Real-World Implementation of AI Ethical Principles

Design leaders are under pressure -  expected to adopt AI, guide teams through change, protect creativity, and build trust at scale.