196. Ines Lourenço, VP of Product Growth, Usercentrics. Growth = Product Distribution: How Usercentrics Hit €100M ARR with Activation-First Pods
SaaS

The SaaSiest Podcast

196. Ines Lourenço, VP of Product Growth, Usercentrics. Growth = Product Distribution: How Usercentrics Hit €100M ARR with Activation-First Pods

The SaaSiest PodcastOct 15, 2025

AI Summary

In this episode, Inês Lourenço, VP of Product Growth at Usercentrics, explains how she scaled a 50‑person growth organization into cross‑functional pods that treat growth as product distribution, putting activation ahead of acquisition. She details the evolution from manual signal detection to an automated routing system that directs users to self‑serve, low‑touch, or high‑touch experiences based on early AOV predictions, and how each pod owns metrics like ARPA growth, activation time, and NRR. The discussion highlights the importance of product‑specialist outreach, pod‑level accountability, and tight collaboration with product, marketing, sales, and customer success, which helped Usercentrics reach €100 M ARR.

Why It Matters

Embedding growth inside the product experience turned Usercentrics’ consent platform into a scalable revenue engine, offering a replicable blueprint for SaaS firms seeking profitable expansion without heavy sales spend. This underscores the strategic value of activation‑centric pods for accelerating ARR and improving unit economics.

Episode Description

In this episode, we’re joined by Inês Lourenco, VP of Growth at Usercentrics, the privacy-led MarTech company that is powering consent on 2M+ websites & apps across 200 countries for 600k customers. 

Inês unpacks how she built a 50-person growth org of cross-functional pods (Monetization & Pricing, Acquisition & Virality, Activation, Partner Experience, CMS Integrations, and Retention) around a simple thesis: growth = product distribution. She details the early, scrappy phase with manual signal detection, nightly queries, and “product specialist” outreach - through to a scalable system that routes users to self-serve, low-touch, or high-touch paths based on predicted AOV, with a hard-earned lesson to start with activation before everything else.

We spoke with Inês about turning signals into revenue, structuring pods, and creating an operating cadence where every pod owns its metric such as ARPA growth, NRR/GRR, activation time, and virality share, while collaborating tightly with Product, Marketing, Sales, and CS. 

Here are some of the key questions we address:

How do you define growth as product distribution and design pods that actually move revenue, not vanity metrics?

What signals predict AOV early, and how do you route users to self-serve vs. low/high-touch experiences accordingly?

Why did “product specialist” outreach outperform SDR-style messaging, and how do you structure those “baby-step” nudges?

If you’re starting from scratch, why begin with an Activation pod and what are the first experiments to run?

How do you set pod-level metrics (ARPA growth, activation time, virality share, NRR/GRR) and avoid cross-metric collateral damage?

What collaboration model keeps Growth aligned with Product, Marketing, Sales, and CS, and who should Growth report to?

When shouldn’t you build a growth team (and what to do instead if your top of funnel is small)?

How do you evolve from consent management to a privacy-led marketing platform, while staying profitable and fast?

🎧 Tune in to learn how Inês turned signals into a system, building a growth engine that’s rigorous, cross-functional, and activation-first, proving that modern growth isn’t a channel, it’s product distribution by design.

Show Notes

The SaaSiest Podcast

Do you want to know what the secret sauce is of the most successful SaaS companies?

This show follows founders and leaders of the most prominent European SaaS companies on their way to global success. Learn from their go‑to‑market strategies, how they scale, build winning teams and great products. If you are a SaaS founder or leader looking for tips and tricks from the best‑in‑class founders and companies then this is a show for you. Direct, informal and to‑the‑point discussions with a great level of hands‑on advice for the listeners. The show is brought to you by two experienced SaaS professionals, Daniel Nackovski and Thomas Sjöberg, founders of SaaSiest.


Episode 196 – Inês Lourenço, VP of Product Growth, Usercentrics

Growth = Product Distribution: How Usercentrics Hit €100 M ARR with Activation‑First Pods

Wednesday Oct 15 2025

In this episode we’re joined by Inês Lourenço, VP of Growth at Usercentrics, the privacy‑led MarTech company that powers consent on 2 M+ websites & apps across 200 countries for 600 k customers.

Inês unpacks how she built a 50‑person growth org of cross‑functional pods (Monetization & Pricing, Acquisition & Virality, Activation, Partner Experience, CMS Integrations, and Retention) around a simple thesis: growth = product distribution. She details the early, scrappy phase with manual signal detection, nightly queries, and “product specialist” outreach – through to a scalable system that routes users to self‑serve, low‑touch, or high‑touch paths based on predicted AOV, with a hard‑earned lesson to start with activation before everything else.

We spoke with Inês about turning signals into revenue, structuring pods, and creating an operating cadence where every pod owns its metric such as ARPA growth, NRR/GRR, activation time, and virality share, while collaborating tightly with Product, Marketing, Sales, and CS.

Key questions addressed

  • How do you define growth as product distribution and design pods that actually move revenue, not vanity metrics?

  • What signals predict AOV early, and how do you route users to self‑serve vs. low/high‑touch experiences accordingly?

  • Why did “product specialist” outreach outperform SDR‑style messaging, and how do you structure those “baby‑step” nudges?

  • If you’re starting from scratch, why begin with an Activation pod and what are the first experiments to run?

  • How do you set pod‑level metrics (ARPA growth, activation time, virality share, NRR/GRR) and avoid cross‑metric collateral damage?

  • What collaboration model keeps Growth aligned with Product, Marketing, Sales, and CS, and who should Growth report to?

  • When shouldn’t you build a growth team (and what to do instead if your top of funnel is small)?

  • How do you evolve from consent management to a privacy‑led marketing platform, while staying profitable and fast?

🎧 Tune in to learn how Inês turned signals into a system, building a growth engine that’s rigorous, cross‑functional, and activation‑first, proving that modern growth isn’t a channel—it’s product distribution by design.

Download: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-mtnug-1994252?download=1

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