GTM Built Around Customer Progress
Earl Lee, co-founder and CEO of HeadsUp, on the modern data stack value chain
In product led SaaS, revenue is increasingly won after the signup, which turns customer success into a selling function. The same rep may spot a usage spike, help a team set up the product correctly, train new users, and then turn that momentum into a larger contract. That is why teams like sales assist or product specialist sit between classic account executives and post sales success managers, especially when expansion depends on users reaching value inside the product.
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HeadsUp describes a common workflow where reps watch product usage, like a user adding teammates or hitting activation milestones, then step in with help or an upsell. That is not a clean handoff from sales to success. It is one continuous motion tied to product behavior.
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Airtable shows what this looks like at scale. It lands bottom up, then customer success and services teams drive expansion by training users, designing workflows, and helping more teams adopt the product. The post sale work is also the growth engine.
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Arrows shows the same blur inside onboarding. Once a deal is closed, onboarding determines whether usage based businesses actually earn revenue. That makes post sales execution a direct input to retention, expansion, and even the original sale economics.
The next step is a go to market org built around customer progress instead of departmental boundaries. Growth handles the fully automated conversions. Human teams focus on moments where a user or account is close to unlocking more value. The companies that win will treat sales, onboarding, and success as one operating loop driven by product usage data.