How a live wedding painter made millions with PLG?

Sold out, live painter

Rebekka is an award winning live wedding painter. And her entire business is built on product-led growth.

Strong PLG strategy

In fact, her PLG execution made sure she was booked out 2 years in advance! That’s an income of around $500k-$1M per year as a solopreneur. Not bad!

Here’s how the process works:

1. You submit a form on her website. Prices are publicly displayed so lead quality is high.

2. If you can book her for your wedding, she’ll arrive an hour earlier to the venue before the guests arrive. This gives her time to paint the background.

3. She’ll paint live for 7 hours during the wedding ceremony.

4. At the end, she’ll have the bride and groom take a picture with the painting.

5. She’ll take it back to the studio to add final touches and add varnish so it lasts the test of time.

6. Then, she’ll ship it to you.

Build in public with live painting

Painting it live is a ‘build-in-public’ kind of a more experiential process. She’ll usually be close to the couple so other guests can see she’s painting. She doesn’t necessarily need the bride and groom to spread the word of mouth. Just by attending the wedding and displaying her work-in-progress, people notice her and might ask for her business details.

Guest list is the share loop

Weddings are an emotional affair. Lots of people attend so your pool is much larger. The longer the guest list, the better the growth loop. Indian weddings have around ~1000 guests, so the share loop would be much higher but the quality might take a hit since not everyone is as close to the couple as in more intimate wedding ceremonies.

People look best!

People also look best in their wedding outfits. Which creates her end product more shareworthy.

Clear, upfront pricing

Her pricing is at the top of the page. It’s not hidden behind a pricing page. It’s front and centre.

No free tier necessary

PLG doesn’t have to be free. Her lead gen is driven by PLG. But her conversion motion is completely sales-driven, much like an enterprise sales process. This is what Algolia does too!

Emotional social proof

If she actually does a great job, the couple often go up on stage and give her due credit. That kind of social proof is much stronger than posting on social.

Watermark is ok as long as its artistic

Painters often leave their signature on the painting.

Since a live painting is ‘timeless’, people are likely going to put this up in their living room. Everyone that comes to their house will see it.

As long as your signature / watermark looks like art, people are ok to have it. Hotjar’s feedback clutters up the interface and I’ve seen product designers hesitant to add it to the interface. This is one of their biggest growth loops but it could work better if stuff looked like art.

Bake the cake before you serve it

The fact that she takes it back to the studio is probably done to keep her quality high. But it also has a share loop. The better the product, the more proud are people to share it with others.

Plus, it allows her to command a higher price. The painting will take 4-10 weeks to arrive and it makes it seem that a lot more work goes into it than just 7 hours.

There’s a perceived value in waiting. It’s commonly used in websites and restaurants. If your meal arrives 2 minutes after you order it, you’ll likely not think of it as a premium product.

Says no to weaker growth loops

1) No painting from old photos: I discovered that she's open to creating paintings from old photos, rather than painting live. However, this offering has limited spots and is often unavailable. And rightfully so, as painting in solitude means losing half of the shared experience. Sure, people will still display the paintings in their living rooms, granting you access to their friends indefinitely. But, you miss out on engaging with the guests who attend the wedding.

2) No painting anyone else but the couple: Others are going to be less incentivized to share and may not have the willingness to pay $5k for a painting.

Clever word choice (Similar to De Beers)

The copy she chose is also quite clever. She uses words like "timeless," "forever," and "memory preserver" to talk about the outcome.

This makes sense. It's tough to sell art. Not many people want to buy a painting. But, if the painting is about their happiest moments, then people don't mind paying, even if the alternative is to use a camera.

Thanks for reading!

And feel free to drop a comment if you feel like it :)