Jason M. Lemkin discusses the continuity between classic freemium models and modern Product-Led Growth (PLG), arguing PLG largely repackages long-standing freemium practices enhanced by better analytics. He uses Canva as a case study—attributing its strong growth to macroeconomic strength and consumer/SMB demand—and cites Canva revenue of $2.3 billion growing ~40%.
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$2.3 billion
~40%
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I think, you know, you had Aaron Levy here the other day too, right, from box that, you know, he said something a couple years ago. He's like, PLG is just what, like we used to do, just with a new label. PLG is just freemium with better analytics. We all. We've been doing freemium since the early days of the Internet, right? A lot of us started. I started freemium. Box started freemium. A lot of the OG folks started freemium, right? Even Salesforce started very SMB, almost, almost freemium at the edge. So I don't think that's new. PLG is just a new way to describe more sophisticated motions. But this is not new in software. We have been trying software on the Internet since Webex, since the early days. So I think Canva more is a reflection of two things. One, the US Economy and most of the global economy remains strong. Unemployment's almost nothing, right? And so Canva is selling to normal consumers and small businesses, and they're growing 40% at 2.3 billion in revenue, 2.3 billion revenue. It's essentially accelerating.
