Customer Centric LLC

Business Models as Loops (The Series)

John Gusiff

Managing Partner, Customer Centric LLC

Krzysztof Czubak

Founder UserMindful.Design and Behavior System Architect

Why funnels stall, exhaust resources, and never compound—while loops store value and get stronger every cycle.

Loops vs. Funnels

An overview of the 5 non-overlapping loop types (User, Content, Trust, Skill, Capital) and the assets they compound.

The Five Loop Types

How different B2C and B2B companies turn retained value into growth, engagement, and revenue engines. Not funnels.

Retained Value in the Real World

How to spot existing loops inside your product, GTM, or operations—often unseen but already influencing your trajectory.

Interactive Q&A

In Talk 2, we'll cover how to design loops using the Business Loop Canvas—triggers, actions, outputs, reinforcements.

Coming Next in Series

_____________07:00 PM (19:00), GMT+2, five sessions over 2.5 Weeks_____________ More and more B2B SaaS companies with great products simply die because they cannot reach their audience to create a commercially successful product. (Product-led) "Growth" is the art of connecting users as cost-efficiently as possible to the value your product offers. It connects the promises made by Marketing with the experience your Product teams build. Yet, most B2B SaaS companies do not have a dedicated Growth function or talented Growth PMs to master this distribution model. It's a hot potato that is commonly passed around between product, marketing, and sales. The top quartile SaaS companies between 5 and 20m in revenue are growing over 70% year over year, with an 8 month CAC payback, 110% Net dollar retention while having an 85% Gross Margin with an average Annual Revenue of over 250’000$. (Source: Growth Unhinged 2023 Report) All these companies have one thing in common: a deep understanding of Product-led Growth. * How do we in B2B address the growing problem of everyone asking for an improved buying experience and self-serve? * How do you package your offering with freemium, trial and/or interactive demo? * How do we activate individuals, teams and accounts in B2B as cost efficient as possible to drive our pipeline? * How does Product-led Growth work with an existing Sales motion? * How do we structure a strategy to bring product-led growth into our business? Leah Tharin brought product-led growth as an operative, executive, and Advisor to dozens of B2B scale-up companies&nbsp;to optimize their user acquisition, retention, and monetization. She's recognized as an Industry leader on the topic, having written some of the most referenced Product-led Growth &amp; Sales material to date. She evaluates B2B SaaS scale-up Growth Motions for Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds. Understand and structure a (product-led) growth strategy that works for your business. It is designed for leaders and product managers from all functions who want to understand and not just blindly execute. The course runs over 2.5 weeks (5 live recorded Zoom classes). All sessions have prerecorded material for you to study in your own time, the live sessions are solely focussed on world-class guest speakers, collaborative group exercises and your questions. You can expect per week about 2-3 hours of study for the asynchronous material at your own pace + 60-75 minutes per live session. Over 20 Guest speakers from past cohorts for example :* Adam Fishman, SVP new products @ Mozilla, Investor &amp; Advisor* John Cutler, ex- Evangelist @ Amplitude &amp; Toast* Itxaso Del Palacio, General Partner @ Notion VC* Benjamin Lamson, Head of Paperspace Revenue @ DigitalOcean* Casey Hill, Sr. Growth Manager @ Active Campaign* Henrique Cruz, Head of Growth @ Rows.com* Sara Gattoni, Senior Lead Growth PM @ Lokalise* Andrew Davies, CMO @ Paddle...and many more This course is not a good fit for: * Companies pre product market fit which are extremely early in their journey. * Non-software or D2C companies * Highly regulated industries that deal with government contracts

How experienced Growth operators use PLG in B2B SaaS

Course syllabus

We use the majority of the time to discuss as a group your specific challenges and questions you had from the async learning materials and to address Q&amp;A questions.

6 x one - hour long sessions with Leah

Before every session you get ~30min videos to ease you into the topics including some interactive exercises for you to prepare beforehand.

Asynchronous learning material

Miss a session? Not a problem, you will have access immediately afterwards.

All sessions are recorded

Course schedule

Senior level product, growth &amp; marketing leaders in B2B who want to understand and leverage PLG as a distribution model to optimize growth.

Ideal for companies in B2B with some revenue traction post product-market fit.

GTM leaders wanting to understand why PLG is disrupting many classical distribution models.

Who is this course for

What you’ll learn

<ul><li>Review the core principles of product-led growth (PLG), beyond just trials and freemium</li></ul> <ul><li>Look under the hood of leading industry examples</li></ul>

Understand PLG and its impact on B2B growth initiatives

<ul><li>How to objectively measure customer success and operationalize it with meaningful, outcome-driven team goals</li></ul> <ul><li>How to establish growth in your organization that sticks with growth teams and culture</li></ul>

Increase the efficiency of your distribution model

<ul><li>How to move from activating individuals to teams and subsequently to accounts.</li></ul>

Individual vs. Team vs. Account Activation

<ul><li>How to find, define, and identify meaningful ICPs (Ideal customer profile)</li></ul> <ul><li>Driving them through our acquisition funnel and retaining them for long-term revenue</li></ul>

Find ICPs in Product-led Growth

<ul><li>How to combine the best from PLG and Sales-led Growth: Product-led Sales</li></ul> <ul><li>How to apply the principles of customer success signals, and their ICPs to qualify deals and drive efficiency in mid-market / enterprise segments.</li></ul>

Combine sales and Product-led Growth: Product-led Sales

<ul><li>Create a long-lasting Strategy to acquire customers while they are small and grow into bigger clients with time.</li></ul> <ul><li>Creating the conditions to have a product that grows with your customers</li></ul>

Drive expansion revenue through PLG

<ul><li>Community sessions to network and discuss with other cohort participants</li></ul> <ul><li>Access a dedicated Discord community after the course</li></ul>

Interactive community & special material

Understand Product-led Growth to formulate a strategy that includes PLG without wrecking your existing business.

Usercentrics

GotPhoto.com

Smallpdf

Notion Capital

Microsoft

Leah Tharin

B2B Product & Growth executive / PLG Advisor, Board Member, VC Advisor

Cohort 9

Cohort 10

You’ll learn the psychology of why people gather, and get tactical playbooks for ideation, design, member engagement, and creating impact.

Pinterest

Maven

Compass Real Estate

Cameo

Mercury Bank

Mallory Contois

Community architect, founder, GTM leader & 6x high-growth startup operator.

July

February 2026

In a world increasingly saturated with AI-generated noise and surface-level interactions, brands and individuals who create real belonging and opportunities for identity signaling will win. People aren’t just looking for products or content - they’re craving connection, trust, and spaces that reflect their values and self-perceived identities.Community is no longer a “nice to have." It’s a competitive moat, a loyalty engine, and the most powerful driver of word-of-mouth growth. It's also really, really fun, and more important than ever.In this course you'll get:Lifetime access:<ul><li>20+ self-paced lessons, each with tactical exercises to guide you through best practices and new ways of thinking about community as a product, a growth tactic, or a passion project</li><li>Exclusive tools created by Mallory to fast-track your progress and spark new ideas</li><li>Membership to a virtual community of values-aligned community builders</li><li>Continued option attend to live discussion sessions</li></ul>During the 4 week course:<ul><li>2 optional live group sessions each week, focused on concept discussion, problem solving, and brainstorms, paced to match the lesson progression.</li><li>Async 1:1 access to Mallory for specific, personalized Q&amp;A</li></ul>

Build and scale impactful, human-led communities that cut through the AI noise.

Design a community blueprint aligned with your values and goals

Create onboarding flows that spark trust and early engagement

Build retention loops that turn members into loyal advocates

Apply growth tactics that fuel word of mouth and lasting impact

Stand out by designing spaces and experiences full of delight and magic

Growth Marketers &amp; Operators Design community-driven growth engines that turn users into advocates.

Founders &amp; Brand BuildersDifferentiate your brand with a loyal, high value, identity-aligned competitors can’t copy.

Aspiring Community LeadersTransform your passion into a thriving IRL or virtual community.

Get executive buy-in, build your long-term brand plan, and connect brand to growth from day one.

Cohort 8

Brand expertise from Notion, Brex, Gusto

Later

Notion

Brex

Gusto

Kira Klaas

VP, Corporate Marketing & Global Brand (Later, Notion, Brex, & Gusto)

Cohort 7

I've spent 10+ years learning how to de-silo brand from growth and how to brand-build successfully when starting from a place of ambiguity and low buy-in.There are so many resources out there about branding, advertising, and theory, especially from agencies and measurement providers. They’re great if everyone’s already bought into “doing brand.” But no one’s talking about the realities of running brand at tech companies that tend to be product-first, founder-led, and performance-obsessed.As a full-time marketer who moonlights as an advisor &amp; writer, I have deep experience driving org-wide alignment around brand strategy, shipping powerful brand campaigns, and helping companies scale to multi-billion dollar valuations (Notion, Brex, Gusto). This course is how I'll teach you to do the same.I made this course for:• Brand operators at growth-stage companies who need practical advice—like templates, not theory—to get execs on board.• Marketers facing pressure to connect brand initiatives to business/growth outcomes.• Leaders looking to influence C-suite decisions and secure budget/headcount.• Teams who want to lead, not follow—and transition from execution to strategic brand direction.

Insider Look: Building Multi-Billion Dollar Tech Brands

25+ proven Notion templates from hypergrowth startups

Translate brand to growth metrics that convince execs to invest

Learn how to run your team (& campaigns) like big tech

Marketing leaders (Director-level and up) <span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); font-family: &quot;Superhuman Adelle Email&quot;, color-emoji-override, sans-serif, &quot;Apple Color Emoji&quot;, emoji-flag-fallbacks, &quot;Segoe UI Emoji&quot;, &quot;Noto Color Emoji&quot;; font-size: 14px; white-space-collapse: collapse; background-color: rgb(255 255 255/var(--tw-bg-opacity));">at Series B–D+ companies responsible for brand strategy

Mid- to senior-level brand marketing ICs ready to find your path to leadership and up level your org's brand strategy

⚠️ This is not for you if you want Branding 101—we're going beyond the fundamentals and deep into daily operating rhythms

Open to marketers of every background and experience level, The Marketer in The Loop teaches you how to use leading AI tools like Base44, Character.ai, Krea, QuickReply.ai and Runway, across market research and marketing strategy and tactics. We borrowed our name from 'the human in the loop,' the idea that AI should be programmed to return to humans for approval, rather than humans becoming the tool of the AI. We want it to be you who decides how AI plays its part in enhancing the foundational marketing skills we'll teach you in this two-week course. Your teachers are award-winning marketing strategist Dino Myers-Lamptey and serial marketing entrepreneur Lee Henshaw. Dino and Lee are joined by prompt engineer Nicole Wan, moderator Krita Barbhaya and several special guests. The Marketer in The Loop is the follow-up to Dino and Lee's Marketing for Startups Masterclass, where they taught basic marketing to more than 1,000 founders on Maven. Before the course, we'll share some of our favourite marketing articles, videos and podcasts with you. And after each module, we'll share videos, podcasts, mind maps and quizzes about the topics we've covered. We've also recorded detailed how-to videos with our guests if you want a deep dive on how to use Base44, Krea and Runway in your work. This new course is divided into three parts, diagnosis, strategy and tactics, and you can join our ten modules live or on catch-up, whichever works best for you. In each module, you'll meet one of our guests, from entrepreneurs who've built the technology to marketers who use it in their work. Diagnosis, strategy and tactics Diagnosis&nbsp;is about understanding the market for your product or service through market research and segmentation. We’ll show you how to run synthetic focus groups and surveys and use Base44 to help you segment your data. Marketing&nbsp;strategy&nbsp;is about choosing which segments to target, how to position your product or service with them and setting your objectives. We'll teach you how to bring your segments to life using Character.ai and create distinctive assets with Krea. You make&nbsp;tactical decisions around the famous four P's of marketing: Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Here we'll teach you how to automate customer service with QuickReply.ai, build your own Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter with Base44 and create video ads with Runway. With The Marketer in The Loop, we hope to give you a career high as we demonstrate that the future of marketing isn't about humans versus machines, it's about marketers in the loop using AI to deliver marketing plans that put the customer at the heart of everything you do.&nbsp;

Develop the skills to design and direct AI-powered marketing campaigns.
 

If your events are recurring and at the same time, it might be easiest to use a single line item to communicate your course schedule to students

Mondays & Wednesdays

Feel free to type out dates as your title as a way to communicate information about specific live sessions or other events.

May 7, 2022

Schedule items can also be used to convey commitments outside of specific time slots (like weekly projects or daily office hours).

Weekly projects

For Marketing Managers who want to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing plans, saving time and money

For Marketing Directors who want to encourage AI adoption across their team, enhancing market research and marketing strategy and tactics

For Chief Marketing Officers who want to demonstrate to the board how an AI-powered marketing strategy will beat the competition every time

What you’ll get out of this course

We'll teach you how to diagnose the market for your product or service, determine your marketing strategy and identify the right tactics for your campaign.&nbsp;

A grounding in basic marketing
 

Our world-class guests will show you how they use tools like AskRally, Base44, Character.ai, Krea, QuickReply.ai and Runway in their work.

An introduction to best-in-class AI marketing tools

The Marketer in The Loop group on LinkedIn is exclusively for students of the course to chat with Dino and Lee, our guests and each other.&nbsp;

An invite to join a community of AI-first marketers
 

For example, the real-world diagnosis of your market would easily cost you £50,000 and take several months, but now you can do it for a few hundred pounds in a couple of weeks.

Save tens of thousands of pounds

Save months of experimentation by mastering tested AI-supported workflows that experienced marketers are using in their work.

Save several months of trial and error

Leave with the skills and confidence to teach your colleagues how to apply AI tools where they matter most.

Become the go-to AI marketer in your team

Transform your career by learning how to use best-in-class AI tools to conduct more effective and efficient marketing campaigns.