Stop guessing, start listening — building customer-led growth in SaaS (w/ Georgiana Laudi)

Has your SaaS growth stalled? It’s not your funnel. It’s who you’re listening to (and who you’re not).In this week’s episode, I sat down with Georgiana Laudi, co-founder of Forget The Funnel and author of Customer-Led Growth.She’s one of the few people in SaaS who’s been shaping how founders think about marketing long before “PLG” became a buzzword. Her frameworks have guided hundreds of SaaS teams to connect the dots between customer insight, positioning, and growth — without the fluff.🧠 What you’ll learn:00:00: Why SaaS founders still overcomplicate growth02:00: Georgiana’s journey from marketer to customer-led growth advocate06:00: The real reason teams keep guessing instead of researching10:30: AI, layoffs, and why marketers are more reactive than ever16:50: The story of a social media SaaS that targeted the wrong audience20:40: How to know *who* to listen to and filter bad feedback28:00: Why old research data can quietly kill your growth33:00: The UserVoice case: when your customer changes but your messaging doesn’t37:10: Customer-led growth in plain English40:20: Three steps to make it real inside your company45:00: Building recurring systems to stay close to your customers53:00: The SaaS wake-up call: why “good enough” products won’t survive58:00: Mindset shifts founders must make to keep growing💡 Steal these quick wins:1/ Talk to 10 recent customers — not all your usersFocus on *recency + retention*. These people reflect today’s market reality, not last year’s. You’ll uncover what’s actually driving purchases *right now* and which problems are still worth solving.2/ Record and review your last 5 sales callsStop guessing your messaging. Your customers have already told you what matters — how they describe pain, what made them choose you, and which results they value. Listening back reveals the exact words that should be in your copy.3/ Filter customer feedback — don’t treat all of it as gold.Most teams get trapped by the “vocal minority.” Learn to distinguish *who to listen to*: the ones with high retention, strong usage, and willingness to pay. This prevents you from building for noise instead of value.4/ Run a weekly 1-hour onboarding audit.Onboarding decay is silent but deadly. Products drift as features change, and first-time experiences quietly break. A weekly walkthrough keeps everyone close to the real user journey — faster activation, fewer cancellations.5/ Turn customer research into a system, not a side project.Insight compounds like product debt. Formalize it: recurring interviews, Slack summaries, quarterly synthesis. The teams that operationalize customer understanding outpace those who only do it “when growth slows.”Keywords: SaaS, marketing, customer-centric, product development, customer feedback, growth strategies, user experience, marketing research, customer signals, product onboarding