Product-Led Doesn’t Mean Feature-Rich
When most people hear “product-led growth,” they picture a slick, feature-packed app with a frictionless free trial and a viral loop baked into onboarding.
But what I’ve learned—from building products, funding startups, and interviewing founders like John Rush—is that real product-led growth doesn’t start with features.
It starts with the founder.
The truth?
You don’t need a breakthrough feature.
You need a breakthrough alignment between your product and your worldview.
And if you get that right, you don’t need funding, a sales team, or a massive marketing engine to grow.
Let me explain.
John Rush Has Built 25 Startups—Without Raising Capital
When I talked with John on Product Driven, he shared something that stopped me cold:
“I only build products that are 100% aligned with how I think.”
That’s not about ego.
It’s about leverage.
Because when you build something that matches how you think, how you work, and what you wish existed in the world…
You know the problem intimately
You use your own product every day
You spot friction faster than any PM or customer report ever could
And that’s where the growth comes from—not from features, but from fluency.
Why “Product-Led” Gets Misunderstood
A lot of startup founders hear “product-led” and think it means:
Ship fast
Add more features
Let the product “sell itself”
But that’s not how it works in real life.
In real life, most bootstrapped products are scrappy.
They’re opinionated.
They’re built around a very specific user, with a very specific pain.
That’s where product-led growth shines—not because the product is shiny, but because it’s sharp.
Feature-Rich ≠ Growth-Ready
John said something else that stuck with me:
“People think they need 10 features to get one user. But you can get 100 users with one feature—if it’s the right one.”
And he’s right.
I’ve seen teams overbuild because they didn’t trust the simplicity of a clear problem.
I’ve seen founders waste 6 months on v2 when v0.5 was already working.
Product-led growth isn’t about volume.
It’s about velocity—of understanding, of adoption, of value.
And that velocity only happens when your product feels inevitable to the person it’s built for.
The Real Playbook: Start With Founder Fit
✅ Don’t build “for the market.” Build for your past self.
If you’ve lived the problem, you’ll spot details no competitor can copy.
✅ Simplify until the value is obvious.
One clear outcome beats ten vague features.
✅ Make it impossible to use wrong.
John designs his products so they almost force the right action. That’s not UX magic—it’s alignment with what the user already believes.
✅ Trust small signals.
Before you build “the full version,” build the one that solves one small job for your dream user. Then stack from there.
If you’re overbuilding…
If you’re second-guessing your roadmap…
If you’ve ever thought “maybe we just need more features”...
Take a step back.
You don’t need more.
You need sharper.
That’s the lesson I’m taking from builders like John.
And it’s the approach we’re using at Full Scale Ventures, too.
🎧 We broke this down in the latest episode of Product Driven—including how John thinks about stacking tiny products into a self-funding growth engine.
👉 Go listen to the full episode here.
You’ll never think about “product-led” the same way again.