Attio’s PLG Journey: Challenging Salesforce’s CRM Dominance

I interviewed 14 people working at and using Attio. This is how it’s using PLG to challenge Salesforce:

Why should you care?

Attio has managed to create a challenger in the red ocean space of CRMs. It’s one of many reasons Salesforce’s market cap is down $100B from its highs.

The company raised a series A from Redpoint last year on the back of its skillful implementation of PLG.

I cover it all screen-by-screen in the deep dive.

Here’s the high level:

Layer 1 — GTM

Attio’s Go-To-Market focus is inbound acquisition. Their main channels are organic search and creator partnerships.

By maintaining a laser focus on their ideal customer profile (ICP), they’ve managed to keep the quality of these prospects the same at higher scale.

Layer 2 — Homepage

“The homepage really matters a lot,” said Nicolas Shapiro, Attio’s CEO. They have a dedicated team of marketing and design experts to constantly iterate.

The goal? Turn visitors into MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) and PQLs (Product Qualified Leads).

Layer 3 — Free to Paid Conversion

Attio has a beautiful free plan. It’s so good that Attio has joined the group of design-led challengers like Notion and Liner.

The big unlock for conversion has been the reverse trial, which they recently implemented.

Layer 4 — Onboarding and Activation

Attio has one of my favorite onboarding experiences in SaaS.

They immediately analyze your inbox and show connection strength and organize data. It’s eliminates the manual entry that plagues legacy CRMs.

Layer 5 — Retention

Attio’s retention superpower is flexibility. Their data model can adapt to changing business needs, so the platform grows alongside its users.

Throw in modern collaboration features and an intuitive design, and that’s why customers stick around.

Layer 6 — Monetization

Attio experimented early on with a single price point. Now it has a standard 4-tier system.

Interestingly, Attio has about a 50/50 balance between self-serve and sales-assisted revenue. It’s true PLG + PLS (Product-Led Sales).

Layer 7 — Expansion

Attio has built a culture of expansion by compensating their sales team on retention and growth rather than landing size.

The secret to sealing the expansion picture? Attio focuses on onboarding. They find happy customers are more likely to expand.

Altogether, it’s a masterful example of how companies, large or small, can implement PLG.