There are a lot of ways to use Loom, from getting your team on the same page to sales prospecting and more.

And because of that, Loom is now worth $1.5 billion, which is four times what it was worth before its $130 million Series C funding round.

In less than ten years, how did they become a unicorn and a verb?

They leveraged a product-led growth (PLG) strategy to achieve their success, which is a business strategy that relies on using your product as the main source of demand and revenue, instead of relying on sales and paid ads.

According to a report from Gainsight, product-led growth is the go-to-market strategy companies are betting on to drive product adoption and expansion. And PLG is especially useful for SaaS companies because it reduces the long sales cycle.

In a time where people can educate themselves through social media, websites, and review pages, there’s no need to sign up for a demo just to understand how the product works.

Customer obsession

Loom didn't try to copy its competitors as it built and shipped features. Instead, it focused on what users wanted. It took a customer-focused approach to increase retention and the team learned from users by paying close attention to feedback and feature requests, and actually following through with them.

Some of the features that helped for Loom in its early days include:

1. Notifying users when someone watches their video.

2. Allowing users to record their entire desktop.

3. Improving its recorder’s speed and performance.

This would then have their early users spread the word about the new features and updates they were regularly shipping to amplify their presence in the market. Creating momentum for the product as well as free marketing is a win-win symptom of a product-led go-to market strategy.

User feedback is also the most effective way to create a product that scales over time. You create features that represent the voice of the customer, not just competitive research data.

It's a good idea to look at the competitors, but then you’ll more likely be one step behind by just following what they do.

The billion dollar shift

By 2020, Loom was focused on attracting the biggest brands to adopt its tool for internal communication.

They started with messaging that would position them as a premium tool for teams, so they rebranded from "free screen & video recording software" to "video messaging for work."

The wording on the landing page also changed. Changing the hero section from "video recording simplified" to "say it with video."

The message portrays them as more than just a chrome extension, but a change in how teams communicate together to work more efficiently.

And the launch couldn’t have come at a better time.

Companies needed to strengthen team communications. With Loom, they could coordinate new hires and boost team collaboration and communication with the unified video library.

Loom went on to gain 4 million users from 90,000 enterprises, including Slack and LinkedIn. And since then, Since then, they reach more than 14 million people from 200,000 companies in the last two years.

Product-Led Growth strategy for your startup

1. Define your ideal customer personas.

2. Find gaps in the market in where your competitors overlooked. This can either be underserved markets or forgotten features.

3. Craft your product’s key messaging to reflect its value proposition. Remember, don’t talk about what they can do, talk about the outcome they will get.

4. Launch a beta version of your product, collect user feedback, and iterate based on the most relevant and requested feedback.

5. Build in public. Be transparent about feature development and let users know where you are with the features they requested