PURPOSE-LED GROWTH FOR PRODUCT-LED COMPANIES
I've led growth from early revenue to the Nasdaq. Now I help founders win with product-led methods.
I build self-serve revenue engines for SaaS companies and run them AI-first, on a fraction of the headcount it used to take. $90M+ of self-serve ARR carried in-house, advising values-driven founders since 2017.
Product-led growth consulting from Chicago, Illinois. I work US through UK hours, remote or on site.
Nicholas Heim
Head of Growth and growth leader across three hyper-growth companies. Product-led growth, monetization, user growth, AI-first methods.
EARLY STAGE
$3.5M to $15M ARR
Growth across my tenure. First marketing hire, no sales team.
GROWTH STAGE
+25% over target
Owned self-serve. Beat my self-serve revenue target in year one, on experiment volume alone.
PUBLIC ON THE NASDAQ
$90M+ self-serve ARR
Built the product growth function. Public in year two of my tenure.
THE WORK
Four things I get hired for
Each one runs in two modes. Pick either:
Full-funnel PLG strategy and execution
It starts before the visit. Organic demand through SEO, AEO, and GEO, then visitors into signups, signups into paying accounts, and expansion after that. New user loops, invite and viral mechanics, onboarding, and conversion rate optimization (CRO).
Pricing and packaging
Value-based pricing, tiering, willingness-to-pay research, live price tests, PQL frameworks. The one I built at Sprout ran about $70K MRR a month.
AI-first growth methods
The triad is over. Product, design, and engineering now ship in each other's streams, and nobody waits their turn in a linear roadmap. What replaces it is method: evals, an explicit quality bar, deliberate skill building, and vendor-agnostic practice with token economics understood on day one instead of month six.
Lean team design and first hires
Product builders and product leads, not three specialists waiting on each other. I find that talent, and I train the team you already have out of the old silos.
Most clients pick two or three, in one mode or the other.
WHY PURPOSE LABS
Its in the name. I believe a company can grow hard and still be additive to the world, so I work with founders who know what their business stands for and haven't signed up for growth at all costs.
FIT
Whether I'm the right person for you
Read the second column too. I'd rather say no early than take on work I can't move.
Sector depth: deepest in martech, visual collaboration software, and DTC consumer brands. It travels across SaaS once I know your product, market, and personas.
DIAGNOSIS
Where self-serve revenue actually leaks
This is what I look for first, and roughly in this order.
1
The product isn't selling itself yet
No free tier or trial, or one that never reaches real value. The pay gates usually sit in the wrong place. Too generous and nobody needs to pay, too tight and nobody gets far enough to want to.
2
Pricing isn't tied to value
Set without jobs-to-be-done work or a real read on willingness to pay, then left flat while the customer grows. You want a ladder that climbs with the value.
3
The playbook is being run the old way
The team is still organized around specialist silos and linear handoffs, so everything ships at the speed of whoever is next in the queue. Experimentation runs without a honed strategy behind it, and the bets get thrown at the wall instead of placed. Downstream of that, onboarding introduces the product the way it did five years ago and the AI in it does nothing a buyer values.
4
Frequency of use goes transactional
Your product has strong fit on one problem, so people only return when they have it. At lower price points that shows up as upgrade and downgrade cycling. The fix is a habit loop, usually a second layered-on use case.
5
Nobody owns the whole path
Each team improves its own stage while the handoffs go unowned, and that's where revenue quietly goes missing. Someone has to hold the whole path and answer for the number.
Single-stage projects tend to just move the leak. So I take the whole funnel.
QUESTIONS
What people ask before the first call
Who is Nicholas Heim?
Nicholas Heim (also goes by Nick or Nico), is a product-led growth consultant based in Chicago, Illinois, and the founder of Purpose Labs Growth Consulting. He was Head of Growth, Product at BioRender, Head of Marketing and the first marketing hire at Hotjar, and Director of Product Growth at Sprout Social, where the company listed on the Nasdaq a year in to his tenure and self-serve reached about $90M ARR at the time of his departure. He has advised founders since 2017 and now does it full time. Reach him at nicholasjheim@gmail.com or on LinkedIn.
What does a product-led growth consultant actually do?
A product-led growth consultant owns the path from demand to expansion revenue, working through the product rather than a sales team. In practice that means the growth model, the free-to-paid conversion mechanics, pricing and packaging, onboarding, and the experimentation practice behind all of it. I either advise your team on that work or embed and build it.
What does it cost?
Pricing is scoped per engagement, because the advisory shape and the embedded shape are very different amounts of work. Every engagement opens the same way: a short diagnosis of where your funnel leaks and what your growth model implies. You keep that whether or not we go further.
What stage of company do you work with?
Pre-revenue up to about $50M ARR. I've led growth at each of those stages, from Hotjar at $3.5M to Sprout Social past $250M and onto the Nasdaq, and the growth problem barely resembles itself from one to the next. Past $50M what you usually need is an org build, which is a different job than mine.
Do I need a free trial or freemium already?
No. Standing up a self-serve motion from zero is some of my favorite work. If you have one already, the question is usually whether the pay gates sit in the right place, and they often don't.
Are you Chicago-only?
I'm based in Chicago, Illinois and work with SaaS companies across the US and the UK. Most engagements run remote, with on-site time in Chicago or wherever your team sits when it earns its place. I hold US through UK hours, so anything east of the UK isn't a fit.
What's the difference between advising and embedding?
Advising means your team keeps the hands on the work and I bring the model, the calls, and the critique on a standing cadence. Embedding means I'm in your stack and your standups, shipping alongside the team. Both cover the same four pillars, and plenty of clients start in one and move to the other.