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Product / Growth Case Study

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Guru Light Users

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Creating a freemium motion inside Guru teams by introducing a new user role.

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The user & business problem

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"Does this person really need a license?"

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Guru is a knowledge management platform. Our expansion motion was constrained by per-seat pricing. Existing teams hesitated to invite people who only needed light access as full paid seats, but we wanted Guru to expand across every department in the company.

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The signal

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Knowledge wants to spread. Per-seat pricing held it back.

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100K+

unique anonymous viewers hitting a dead end on Guru cards every week

55%+

of the anonymous traffic came from Slack & MS Teams

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The Hypothesis

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If we remove cost as a barrier to sharing and adoption, then Guru will spread across departments more naturally. Those users will find value and eventually we can convert enough Light Users into paid Core users to outperform our existing paid-only model.

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Potential solutions

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I chose the option that matched the behavior we wanted to unlock.

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Option	Upside	Why we didn't choose it
Full Core trial	Full value exposure	Cliff after trial; doesn't solve ongoing sharing
Guest / link access	Fast, lightweight	Weak tracking & admin control; harder to convert
Volume discounts	Familiar to Sales	Still requires a purchase before value; not true PLG
Light Users	Durable freemium loop	Chosen — best match to behavior (accepts permission complexity)

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Making the proposal

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Align across leadership

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Making the proposal

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For this to work, we needed to do the following:

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Step 1

Drive adoption

Make adding a user nearly frictionless and let anyone invite, not just admins.

Step 2

Convert to Core seats

For any account, Core users had to outpace the seats they'd have bought under the old model.

Step 3

Grow total ARR

The hardest part is that early on, all-paid teams look better because every seat is paid.

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The operating model

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A three phase model

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We approached the experiment in phases rather than treating it as a single huge project to cut down on over-investment.

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Phase 1

Prove adoption

Signup paths & lightweight upgrade mechanics. Does removing seat friction change behavior?

Phase 2

Earn monetization

Activation, conversion, and admin controls. Can adoption become durable revenue?

Phase 3

Scale the model

Sales-driven expansion and wall to wall deployments. How far can it go without risk?

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Phase 1 · Prove adoption

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Ship the smallest version we could responsibly build.

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Signup paths & new team exposure
Pricing page experience & variants
Lightweight upgrade mechanics
Experiment flags and routing
Avoided building every edge case

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Phase 1 · Engineering

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Where PM/EM partnership mattered most.

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We had to separate requirements for launch from nice-to-haves after we saw signal.

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PM clarity	EM sequencing
What are we trying to learn?	What has to be true technically to learn it safely?
What is the minimum viable Light User experience?	Which entitlement and permission work must ship now?
Where should we avoid overbuilding?	Which edge cases can wait without creating risk?
What risks are we accepting?	How do we preserve QA time before launch?

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Phase 1 · Engineering

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The Light User role

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Translate Core functionality into Light user product experience.

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Phase 1 · Metrics and decisions

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+47%

more users added by variant teams

+30%

more MAU per team

+91%

higher conversion rate

-19%

average MRR per team

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Decision gate

Roll out experiment 50/50 to all new teams while keeping existing customers on their current experience. Continue monitoring revenue quality and expansion behavior.

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Phase 2 · Earn monetization

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Turn adoption into durable monetization.

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Our experiment roadmap consisted of onboarding experiments, clear, contextual paywalls, and improved Admin UI and dashboards so managers understood why a user would need to be upgraded to a full paid seat.

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Phase 2 · Metrics and decisions

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+51%

more users added by variant teams

+40%

more MAU per team

+70%

higher conversion rate

-6%

average MRR per team

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Decision gate

Roll out Light Users for all new teams because adoption gains remain, but Product Growth will prioritize upgrades and admin controls to improve monetization quality.

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Phase 3 · Scale the model

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Using Light Users to win new deals and expand existing accounts

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Support MM / Enterprise motion around internal comms + intranet
Help Sales win new opportunities by removing the "pay for everyone upfront" objection
Create expansion paths in existing accounts through wall-to-wall deployment
Give Revenue a self-serve internal tool to enable Light Users without Eng intervention

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Phase 3 · Metrics and decisions

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New opportunities: win rate for internal communications and intranet deals using the Light User motion
Existing accounts: expansion ARR opps influenced by Light User deployment
Deployment depth: team penetration at close

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Decision gate

Proceeded because Light Users improved deal viability for new opportunities, created expansion paths in existing accounts, and supported broader wall-to-wall deployment commitments.

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OUTCOMES

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Measurable results and a repeatable operating model.

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Validated Light Users as more than a packaging experiment
Used each phase to surface the next hardest question
A cross-functional model for deciding when to move forward, hold, or adjust
PLG moved from funnel optimization to company strategy