Henrique Cruz on PLG: How Rows Simplified Data Management

In this episode of Smooth Operators Guide by LiveDocs, we had the pleasure of chatting with

Henrique Cruz, head of growth at Rows. He brings a wealth of experience and fresh, innovative ideas. Rows is a game-changing platform set to transform the way we use spreadsheets. 

Unlike traditional spreadsheets, Rows seamlessly integrates with tools like Facebook Ads, Stripe, and BigQuery, enabling users to effortlessly import and analyze data. With advanced AI features, it also empowers users to interact with and interpret their data more effectively, making complex tasks simpler and smarter. 

We're thrilled to have him on this edition of our biweekly newsletter to share his insights and expertise. So, without further ado, let's get into it:

Ani: Hi Henrique, welcome to the Smooth Operators Guide by LiveDocs. Please introduce yourself.

Henrique Cruz: I'm Henrique, leading the growth team at Rows.com. Rows is a modern spreadsheet, similar to Excel or Google Sheets but with extra features. It pulls data from any source, uses AI for transformation, and presents it in beautiful reports. We recently hit a million users and aim to keep improving.

Bold Moves and Big Wins

Ani: That’s fantastic! I remember at SaaS Open you talked about a bold experiment where you replaced the typical landing page with the actual product. Can you share how that went?

Henrique: Sure, it was one of our boldest moves. Since Rows is a full spreadsheet replacement, we realized users are already familiar with spreadsheets. Instead of a homepage, we had users land directly in the product, making it easier to onboard them. This experiment lowered the barrier and worked well because people already knew how to use grids and formulas.

Henrique: Our goal is to showcase our unique features, like pulling data easily and embedding charts in Notion. So, we decided to experiment by making Rows.com a direct landing page for the product instead of a marketing site. 

Users land in Sandbox accounts without needing to sign up initially. While some features are gated, like sharing and embedding, most are open, allowing connections to Notion, GA4, and OpenAI.

To our surprise, this change not only increased product usage but also tripled our conversion rate from desktop visitors to sign-ups, going from around 8-9% to about 25-27%. That means roughly one in four visitors now signs up.

Ani: Wow, those are impressive numbers! How did the conversion from free users to paid users change? What were your activation points?

Henrique: The activation rate initially dropped since we had more users with lower intent landing on the product. However, our net-activated users increased by 3 to 5 times. Users who experienced the sandbox and then signed up were more likely to activate, as they were already familiar with the product. 

Our North Star metric is "power workspaces," measuring users active three days or more in the last week. Interestingly, 5-10% of our power users are sandbox users who engage with the product before signing up.

Ani: That’s fascinating! You weren’t always in growth, right? What attracted you to this field?

Henrique: I initially worked in consulting for manufacturing companies after university. During that time, I got involved with the tech community in Portugal. Eventually, I shifted to product management, which felt like a natural transition, and when I joined Rows, we were still in the pre-product phase with just an alpha version.

Henrique: When I joined Rows, we were pre-product, and I became the first PM, helping to build out the product and the teams. I frequently engaged with customers, which led to the development of our first data pipeline. Transitioning to a growth and marketing role felt natural after that experience.

Product-Led Growth at Rows

Ani: That's interesting! You joined Rows pre-product. With product-led growth (PLG) being a hot topic, when do you think you officially started PLG at Rows? Was it from day one or after a certain point?

Henrique: Our journey is a bit different from most startups. We spent about four years building the product with a waitlist app and onboarding users manually. An important factor is how much funding you have, this influences how long you can focus on product development before needing to monetize. Our strategy may not be advisable for everyone, but our founders secured enough funding to allow us to prioritize product development. 

We always believed that to compete with Excel and Google Sheets, we had to adopt a product-led approach from the beginning, even if we didn’t use those terms initially. Our aim was to create a product that encourages users to "land and expand." There are various paths to success, but our vision was clear from day one.

Ani: That's an interesting perspective. Not all products can adopt a product-led growth (PLG) model from day one. It really depends on the type of product and market, whether it's enterprise-focused or top-down.

Henrique: Absolutely. The key is envisioning your growth strategy. Will users share the product with their team, or will it spread outside the organization? Perhaps you'll start with a larger team using the product from the top down. The growth hypothesis shapes how you build your business.

For Rows, since we aim to be an excellent spreadsheet for reports and analysis, we believe users will naturally share their analyses for feedback and approvals, creating a viral effect. Our goal is to make one user happy, leading to sharing within their team or externally. 

From there, we can boost our top-of-funnel by encouraging more users to invite others and fostering content creation around spreadsheets. There are multiple strategies to explore.

Growth Channels at Rows

Ani: I completely agree! When selecting growth channels, it's often that 20% of them generate 80% of the results. So, what is your 20%? What strategies have proven most effective for your growth—content, influencer marketing, or something else?

Henrique: Right now, we're exploring additional acquisition channels.

Our initial growth, from zero to a million users, was predominantly through word of mouth, around 99%. While this brings benefits like low costs and organic discovery, it can also be unpredictable.

Sometimes, the word-of-mouth audience may have lower intent, meaning they might not be looking to use our product seriously.

To supplement word of mouth, we've layered in content marketing. For example, on our website, we have a section for tools and calculators (e.g., a Facebook engagement rate calculator) that guides users to our product. We also leverage templates for various tasks, so if someone is searching for a Google Analytics report template, they can land on a dedicated page that encourages sign-up.

Additionally, our blog covers industry-relevant themes, such as "top AI tools for marketing" or "how to check backlinks in GA4." These topics are aligned with our ideal customer profile (ICP) and reporting needs. Ideally, I hope that word of mouth continues to be our primary growth driver, while we build additional growth loops to scale predictably.

Launching Landing Pages at Rows

Ani: Interesting! I see a trend here. It resembles programmatic SQL, like how Zepia approached it back in the day. When you launched so many landing pages, it definitely seemed to work well for you. How did it all start? Did you begin with just one or two tools, and how did you identify them? Was it based on user feedback or signals from communities like Reddit?

Henrique: That’s a great question. One key thing to consider is identifying your product's strengths. For us, as a spreadsheet, our core advantage lies in computations and modeling. Many users search online for specific calculations, such as how to calculate an aspect ratio or engagement rate. We also have a viral feature that allows users to embed tables or charts as iframes, making it easy to create landing pages with interactive calculations.

To kick things off, we started with a hypothesis and conducted keyword research to identify useful calculators. We also listened to user feedback, with several asking for specific calculators or templates. 

Based on these insights, we created around 30 calculators in just a few weeks. Since calculators are fundamentally spreadsheets, we just needed a copy to explain each calculator's function, variables, and examples.

Once we launched these, they began to rank well, leading us to focus more on developing calculators and additional tools. We consider the relationship between audience size and conversion rate when creating content. 

For instance, tools like regex generators may attract large audiences but have lower conversion rates, while niche tools like a TikTok analytics dashboard have narrower audiences but higher conversion rates.

This strategy has led us to double down on our efforts. We’re currently hiring a working student to focus on building more calculators and tools over the summer. Interestingly, many existing calculator landing pages have poor user experiences because their creators monetize through ads. We aim to provide a straightforward, ad-free experience focused on delivering valuable calculations.

Metrics and Activation Points

Ani: It sounds like a complete brand play. You want to keep Rows at the forefront of people's minds, not just focus on conversions with calculators or utility tools. 

But why calculators specifically? Why not something else? You mentioned you also created templates, are those not working as well? How do you track this? What metrics do you use? Is it sign-ups, paid users, or just traffic?

Henrique: That’s a great question! Our key event in GA4 is connecting integrations. This event is a strong predictor of upgrades and, later on, retention. We track the number of integration-connected events each week across all product artifacts, templates, blogs, calculators, and tools. 

We’re particularly interested in how many users connect their first integration. So, it’s not about traffic or domain ranking; it’s about how effectively these tools convert into meaningful actions. The templates tend to have a lower audience but a higher conversion rate compared to calculators. 

Ultimately, all of these should lead to users signing up and connecting integrations. The conversion process varies, some tools might need 100 visits to yield results, while others might only need 10.

Ani: So connecting integrations is your activation point, right? If users connect to an integration, they’re likely to return.

Henrique: Exactly! Connecting integrations is a good predictor of future behavior, but activation itself is measured slightly differently. We define activation as viewing or editing a spreadsheet. 

Specifically, a user needs to view or edit a spreadsheet at least 15 times to be considered activated. However, if a user connects an integration, the likelihood of them becoming activated is significantly higher. Once they’ve added something valuable to their spreadsheet, they’re more inclined to create charts or share their work, which helps to keep them engaged.

Tracking Metrics and Integrations

Ani: You mentioned that activation requires 15 specific actions. Is that the actual number, or is it more flexible?

Henrique: No, 15 is the actual number. We conducted multiple analyses with different thresholds and types of actions to determine what constitutes activation. We tested using actions like applying a formula, editing a spreadsheet, inviting others, and creating elements. 

After analyzing the data, we found that the inflection point for activation is around 15 actions. Of course, if it had turned out to be 12 or 11, the outcome would have been similar, but we settled on 15 as the activation metric.

Ani: How do you track all these metrics, like activation, page views, and conversions? Are you using Rows.com for this, or are you employing a separate product tracking tool? How does your tracking setup work?

Henrique: Everything ultimately ends up in a spreadsheet because we utilize Rows for all our tracking. This aligns with our thesis: spreadsheets and docs are the only tools that both the CEO and the intern can understand and use. 

Our stack for tracking starts with collecting events through Segment. For some events with high intensity, we connect directly to Google Cloud Platform since Segment might not handle the load effectively. 

All our ETLs and data reside in BigQuery, which serves as our data warehouse. We write SQL queries in Rows to import data from BigQuery. Additionally, we can connect Rows to Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and other tools to centralize our analysis and share reports. Since we use Rows for our internal tracking, it also helps us identify areas for improvement and discover new use cases.

Ani: You mentioned that you can connect Facebook Ads and Google Ads through Rows. Are those integrations built in, or do you need to implement some code to get them working?

Henrique: All the integrations are built by us. We developed each one individually. Currently, we have over 50 integrations, including services like Stripe and Notion, and we built them all from the ground up.

Leveraging Reddit for Marketing

Ani: I have two more marketing-specific questions. I've always been a big fan of Reddit, especially subreddits that relate closely to the product I'm building. I find the candidness of users there very valuable. You know how raw it can be, it's like the front page of the internet! I remember reading about something you did on the r/DataIsBeautiful subreddit. Can you share your experience with that?

Henrique: Sure! We initially focused on standard social media posts but noticed user interest in our presence on Reddit, especially in r/DataIsBeautiful. Our charts are well-regarded for their quality, so we began posting one chart every other day for 60 to 90 days, which received millions of views and boosted our karma points significantly.

However, the increased visibility didn’t lead to substantial user acquisition due to Reddit's image-only post format. We linked to our spreadsheets in comments, resulting in a few hundred duplicates, but it didn't significantly affect growth.

While our posts averaged around 100,000 views, direct referrals to our website were minimal. In hindsight, combining organic posts with targeted ads could have been more effective in driving conversions. Despite some recognition from users, the strategy wasn't compelling enough for heavy investment.

Bold Marketing Strategies

Ani: You successfully hacked a subreddit for growth, which is impressive! It’s a fun experiment, especially compared to the typical webinar posts. Speaking of creative tactics, what was the logic behind your billboard campaign near Microsoft that read, "Dear Microsoft, your spreadsheet has been outdated for 36 years? It’s time to retire"?

Henrique: The campaign cost under $2,000 and has proven to have lasting ROI since we’re still discussing it years later. We aimed for a fun and provocative message to highlight our modern solution against giants like Microsoft and Google.

We used Blip Billboards to book digital space online during peak hours. After some initial mishaps with timing, we captured images and launched a teaser campaign on social media. 

The campaign went viral, garnering coverage from Forbes and Wired, and it still resonates with users today. We aim to create these memorable brand experiences periodically, like our recent April Fools’ initiative.

Strategies for Viral Campaigns

Ani: Henrique, you run campaigns that often go viral. Is that part of your plan, or do you just aim to think outside the box?

Henrique: We’ve been fortunate to achieve some viral success. I believe in Seth Godin's concept from The Purple Cow, remarkable ideas lead to remarks. Our goal is to create campaigns that spark conversations.

For instance, when we launched our integration with Notion, we wanted to engage the Notion community. We know they love Notion avatars, so we hired a designer and offered to create custom avatars for anyone who commented or shared our post within 48 hours. 

This campaign generated over 500 avatars in just two days and went viral among Notion users and influencers. It provided value to participants and had a low customer acquisition cost, demonstrating the power of thinking differently in our marketing strategies.

AI in Growth and Marketing

Ani: AI is a hot topic right now. How are you using AI in your growth and marketing efforts, and how do you see it evolving?

Henrique: We’re in a transformative period, reminiscent of the internet boom in 1995. AI is already impacting our daily tasks and workflows.

At Rows, we've integrated AI extensively. Our first experiment with OpenAI's API was in December 2022, allowing users to input prompts directly in cells to get data back. We built a robust integration that simplifies interactions without needing API keys.

One of our standout features is the AI Analyst, which allows users to conduct conversational analyses with their data, generating significant engagement, around 30 million views on social media within a week, and 50,000 sign-ups shortly after launch.

On a daily basis, we leverage AI to write SQL queries and draft copy for our templates, speeding up our content creation process. We also use AI creatively in our CMS to generate examples for new formulas, streamlining our internal processes.

Overall, AI has become an indispensable tool for us, providing endless ways to enhance productivity and creativity.

The Simplest Way to Import, Transform, and Share Data

Ani: Does Rows have any sales motion or SDRs, or is everything organic and inbound?

Henrique: Right now, we don’t do outbound sales or have SDRs, but we're considering working with an agency to explore this. Our customer success team uses a land-and-expand approach to identify high-potential accounts based on email domains and activity. 

Occasionally, we send outbound emails based on user behavior, but that’s it for now. While we're focusing on perfecting our PLG funnel, we might hire salespeople in the next 12-18 months to target specific niches.

Rapid Fire Round

Ani: Let’s move into the rapid-fire round, starting with tools. What’s your Swiss army knife in your tool stack?

Henrique: Well, obviously Rows! As a growth person, everything starts or ends with data, so I rely heavily on spreadsheets. Another tool I love is Screen Studio, which helps make product demos look great on mobile by zooming in and out automatically. 

I use it several times a week. I also use Vid.io for adding subtitles and doing small edits. Internally, it’s mostly Rows, Slack, and Notion. These cover about 80-90% of my work.

Ani: Is there a lesser-known tool, like Screen Studio, that you swear by?

Henrique: Definitely Screen Studio. Every time I post a video, someone asks what tool I used. It’s great for demos, and their business model is solid, just a one-time subscription for teams.

Ani: I use Screen Studio as well. It’s a fantastic tool! Moving on to metrics, what’s the first one you check every day?

Henrique: I focus on power workspaces. I have a report that tracks workspaces using Rows three days or more in the past seven. It’s linked to BigQuery and refreshes daily. The report includes metadata like members, integrations, and charts they use. I also check content conversions every other day to see which content is driving clicks and sign-ups, whether it’s from blogs, templates, or tools.

Ani: And what’s your North Star metric, the one you track less frequently but ensures you're on the right path?

Henrique: ARR and power workspaces are our North Stars. We monitor these every week. We also track our conversion funnel, looking at things like how many new accounts converted, connected integrations, faced errors, or upgraded. This helps us see if our onboarding improvements are working.

Ani: So, Rows recently raised 8 million euros in funding. What's the future looking like? What are your plans for expansion? Any new markets you're targeting?

Henrique: We're at the most exciting stage in the company’s history. Previous rounds were focused on building the product and proving the spreadsheet concept. Now, with this funding, we’re shifting to go-to-market strategy, scaling from hundreds to thousands of customers. 

The future of Rows is all about simplifying how people import, transform, and share data in spreadsheets. Integrations will continue to play a big role, and AI will dominate the transformation process, making data analysis accessible to everyone. 

We also want to improve the sharing experience, making it seamless across platforms like Notion, PDFs, and mobile. Our vision is to democratize data access through a spreadsheet, and we’re moving quickly on these fronts.

Ani: Exciting! Any final thoughts? Where can people connect with you?

Henrique: I’m active on LinkedIn and Twitter. You can search for Henrique Cruz from Rows to find me. I’d challenge growth and marketing folks to try Rows’ no-homepage experience at openrows.com and give me feedback, was it valuable? Confusing? I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can also reach me at henrique@rows.com.

Ani: Fantastic, Henrique! This was one of the most action-packed episodes we’ve had. Thanks so much for joining!

Key Takeaways

#1 Removing the homepage and having users land directly on the product can significantly increase conversions and sign-ups.

#2 Product-led growth (PLG) can be achieved by building landing pages with helpful tools and calculators that attract and engage users.

#3 Tracking the metric of connecting integrations can be a good predictor of upgrades and retention.

#4 Using Rows as a tool to track and analyze metrics allows for a uniform and user-friendly experience.

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