Product-led growth (PLG) is a go-to-market strategy where the product itself drives user acquisition, activation, retention, and expansion. In a PLG model, users typically experience the product through free trials or freemium versions, and value is delivered before a sales conversation ever happens.

Key traits of PLG include:

• Self-serve onboarding and activation
• In-app prompts and guidance to encourage deeper engagement
• Product-qualified leads (PQLs) based on usage behavior
• Viral growth through referrals, sharing, or team invites
• Upsell and expansion from within the product itself

This strategy is common in SaaS, especially with tools that are easy to adopt and demonstrate value quickly (e.g., Slack, Notion, Zoom). PLG lowers the barrier to entry, shortens sales cycles, and creates a more scalable, user-centric growth engine.