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Faultline Review v0.1
A pre-commitment review of a proposed PLG resource reallocation. Faultline Review identifies the weak point, explains why it matters, and gives the test to run before committing. It does not execute the test.
Hold
Hold the reallocation and run the test. The plan assumes the 10% self-serve conversion lift reflects independent product-led demand, but the current evidence does not separate no-touch PLG demand from enterprise-sales-influenced demand.
Review Verdict
Recommended Action
RUN TEST
Commitment risk
The company may remove the upstream activity that is creating the apparent PLG lift.
30-Second Buyer Summary
The 10% lift may be real, but it is not yet decision-grade. If self-serve conversions are coming from accounts already warmed by enterprise sales, cutting enterprise coverage could remove the input creating the metric. Run the overlap and no-touch cohort test before reallocating.
1. Submitted Plan Anchor
Submitted Plan Anchor
Submitted plan
Reduce enterprise sales headcount or budget and shift resources toward product-led growth because self-serve signups and conversions are up 10%.
Current leaning
Reallocate budget away from enterprise sales and toward PLG work.
Commitment point
Budget and team-shape changes that reduce enterprise coverage before the next allocation checkpoint.
Decision deadline
Before the next planning, hiring, or budget cycle.
Constraint that cannot change
The team needs a resource-allocation decision without waiting long enough for a full 6–12 month causal readout.
2. Faultline Diagnosis
Faultline Diagnosis
Core weak point
The self-serve lift may be a blended signal, not clean PLG traction.
Hidden assumption
Self-serve conversions are mostly independent of prior enterprise sales, marketing, campaign, event, or founder-led activity.
Failure mode
Contaminated Growth Signal
A PLG Mirage caused by sales-influenced self-serve conversion.
Why easy to miss
Standard attribution often credits the conversion channel, not the upstream awareness path. A buyer touched by sales can later convert through self-serve and appear organic.
Cost of being wrong
The company could defund the upstream activity creating the self-serve lift, then discover one or two quarters later that PLG was not independently strong enough to carry the motion.
3. Test Before Commitment
1
Pull every self-serve conversion from the past 90 days with account domain, email, segment, company size, ACV band, signup date, activation status, and paid conversion status.
2
Cross-reference those accounts against CRM activity in the 180 days before signup.
3
Cross-reference campaign, event, content, partner, and founder-led exposure in the prior 90 days.
4
Calculate the overlap rate: self-serve conversions with prior sales or campaign touch divided by total self-serve conversions.
5
Isolate the no-touch cohort and compare activation, retention, expansion, and sales-assist demand against touched cohorts.
Evidence Needed
| Evidence | Why it matters |
|---|
| Self-serve conversion export by account domain and signup date | Establishes the population being used to justify reallocation. |
| CRM activity history for prior 180 days | Reveals sales-influenced accounts that attribution may call self-serve. |
| Campaign and event exposure for prior 90 days | Captures non-sales upstream influence that can contaminate the signal. |
| Cohort performance by touch status | Shows whether clean no-touch users retain and expand well enough to support PLG investment. |
| Sales-assist requests by segment and ACV band | Tests whether self-serve signup actually means self-serve buying, onboarding, and expansion. |
Thresholds
Thresholds should be calibrated to company stage, segment, ACV, and sales-cycle length.
| Signal | Interpretation | Decision implication |
|---|
| Overlap below 20% | Independent PLG is plausible when no-touch retention and expansion are comparable or stronger. | Move toward NO-HOLD / PROCEED, preferably with phased reallocation. |
| 20–35% | Mixed signal with material upstream influence. | Keep HOLD and size any PLG increase to clean cohort performance only. |
| 35–50% | Signal is materially contaminated. | Keep HOLD and do not reduce enterprise coverage yet. |
| Above 50% | Likely enterprise spillover. | Keep HOLD because broad reallocation is unsafe as written. |
| No-touch activates, then fades | PLG acquisition exists, but value durability is unproven. | RUN TEST or REDESIGN before reallocating. |
| High sales-assist demand | Self-serve signup does not mean self-serve buying in the target ACV band. | REDESIGN; preserve sales coverage while improving PLG handoff. |
Wrong-If Signal
The hold is likely wrong ifAccount matching shows overlap below 20%, the no-touch cohort activates, retains, and expands at rates comparable to or stronger than touched cohorts, and sales-assist demand is low enough in the target segment to reduce coverage without damaging pipeline quality.
What Would Change The Recommendation
- Clean account-level matching shows most self-serve growth is not preceded by sales, campaign, event, or founder-led activity.
- No-touch cohort performance is strong enough to support a budget shift on its own.
- A prior sales pullback already occurred in the same segment without delayed decay in self-serve conversion, activation, retention, or expansion.
- The reallocation is phased and includes rollback thresholds tied to no-touch cohort health.
4. Decision Gate
Decision Gate
Recommended Action
RUN TEST
Safer path
Do not reduce enterprise sales coverage yet. Run the Growth-Signal Integrity Test, then reallocate only against validated no-touch cohort performance.
Caveats
This review does not say PLG is weak or that enterprise sales must remain unchanged. It says the current plan uses a blended conversion signal as if it were clean evidence of independent PLG traction.
Optional Next Product
Want help running the test? Faultline Test Kit can turn this review into the account-matching worksheet, cohort comparison plan, threshold memo, and final decision update.
Supporting Analysis
Why standard attribution does not catch this
Most CRM and analytics attribution models credit the last touch or the channel of conversion. A self-serve signup that was preceded by a sales outreach email 90 days ago can be logged as a self-serve conversion. The prior email is in the CRM, but it is not credited in the attribution model.
The result is that self-serve conversion rates can look stronger than the underlying causal path supports. Leadership may see PLG working when part of the signal is enterprise sales activity converting through a different channel.
Why timing makes this failure mode worse
Reallocation decisions from enterprise sales toward PLG tend to be made when self-serve numbers are improving, which is exactly when contamination risk can be highest. The signal and the mechanism it depends on peak at the same time.
If enterprise sales coverage is cut today, the effect on self-serve conversion may show up one or two quarters later, long after the original attribution window has expired.
How to interpret mixed results from the diagnostic
A 25% to 35% overlap rate does not mean PLG is fake. It means the self-serve signal is blended. The right response is to separate the signal before acting on it.
A very high overlap rate above 50% also does not mean PLG cannot work. It means the company does not yet have enough clean product-led demand to sustain a major resource shift away from enterprise coverage.
Evidence status: Public sample review. Thresholds are working benchmarks, not calibrated standards. This page does not execute the test or make a final determination about any real company.