Ben Williams is a go-to mentor for high-performing teams. His extensive experience at leading companies like IBM and Snyk now fuels his passion for guiding others in crafting and executing impactful growth strategies.

Want to learn about how Ben started his career and go through his most notable work? Keep on reading.

Who is Ben Williams?

Popularly known as the Product-Led Geek, Ben Williams has spent over 20 years as an executive, helping startup founders and product leaders succeed. He’s skilled at building and mentoring high-performing teams and has a knack for scaling growth across different areas, like PLG, PLS, user onboarding, and retention.

Having previously worked with giants like IBM and Snyk, Ben now uses his experience to guide others in creating sustainable and impactful growth strategies.

How did Ben Williams begin his career?

Ben Williams started his career after earning a degree in Computer Science from The University of Manchester. He began as a Senior Solutions Engineer at QSS, where he provided critical pre and post-sales support.

His journey then took him to Telelogic, where he quickly moved up to lead the product management team, focusing on key platform components. At IBM, Ben played a significant role in shaping the strategy for the IBM Rational portfolio and led integration efforts following an acquisition.

Later, he led engineering services at Temenos, driving improvements in development processes and tooling. As VP of Products at both CloudBees and Snyk, Ben was instrumental in driving exponential growth and launching successful new products. Now, he shares his expertise as a strategic advisor to companies like Neptune.ai, Gearset, and Beyond Identity.

Top picks from Ben Williams newsletter

Every Tuesday, Ben shares insights on scaling B2B software companies using product-led growth and product-led sales techniques to over 7,500 subscribers. Here are some of our top recommendations to get you started:

• The ultimate guide to reverse trials: This newsletter dives into reverse trials (a blend of freemium and free trials). It shares practical tips on how to use them, pitfalls to watch out for, and how they can drive growth.
• The PLGeek guide to product qualified accounts (PQAs): Ben explores why Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) alone aren’t enough in the B2B space. He introduces Product Qualified Accounts (PQAs) as a better approach, detailing how to leverage them for effective sales engagement.
• The ultimate guide to product-led onboarding: Phil Vander Broek, along with Ben, shares a comprehensive playbook on crafting effective self-serve onboarding for product-led growth, featuring actionable patterns, best practices, and expert insights to enhance user activation and retention.
• Product x Design collaboration in high performing growth teams: This newsletter explores the role of design in growth teams within a PLG framework. It emphasizes how user-centric and UX-centric approaches drive acquisition, retention, and monetization.
• The PLGeek guide to ICPs in PLG: Ben reinforces how crucial a well-defined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is for product-led growth. It helps align teams, improve user acquisition, and boost product metrics by focusing on the right customers.

The best of Ben Williams webinars

Dive into Ben Williams’ top webinars, where he shares real-world advice on mastering product-led growth and customer engagement. These sessions offer practical insights to help you drive meaningful results.

• How to learn faster to grow faster: Ben shares how to build a reliable growth engine focusing on acquisition, retention, and monetization, with a blueprint for accelerated growth. View it here.
• A product manager’s guide to defining your ideal customer profile: This webinar covers how to build an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to drive product-led growth while optimizing engagement and messaging.

• Ben Williams webinar with Leah Tharin: This webinar covers product-led growth, data centralization, engagement metrics, and Ben’s approach as a consultant and advisor in PLG.

Top podcasts featuring Ben Williams

Give a listen to the below podcasts, where Ben Williams weighs in on interesting discussions and offers valuable insights related to product-led growth:

• How Snyk built a product-led growth juggernaut: In Lenny’s Podcast, Ben discusses Snyk’s growth strategies, team structures, and lessons learned from their self-serve monetization challenges.
• Introducing PLG when you are doing sales: Ben explores integrating PLG with sales strategies, sharing insights on overcoming challenges, improving lead qualification, and developing effective growth models.
• The PLGeek guide to product-influenced revenue: This episode explains why product-influenced revenue is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your PLG strategy and how it impacts your go-to-market efforts.

Conclusion

Whether you’re a startup founder or an established leader, Ben’s insights and strategies offer a practical blueprint for success.

If you’re looking to implement his impactful growth strategies, there is no better tool for the job than Userpilot. Book a demo to learn more.