The company sells a service (incident response, implementation, consulting, trials run for the customer) that puts it inside the buyer's problem, and that engagement becomes the route to a product subscription.
How Services-Led Entry works
A paid service puts the company inside the buyer's problem, which is the most convincing evaluation of the product that follows.
How companies won with Services-Led Entry
From the win chains in Strategy Canon case studies: what the winner did, and what its rival did at the same step.
vs. Cylance
CrowdStrike
Breach response as the tip of the spear
What it did
Incident-response practice under ex-FBI Shawn Henry from April 2012, before the product
Cylance
Did response work too (OPM, 2015), but sold a prevention claim through heavy marketing
Which service came first, and how many service customers bought the product?
Who names it
Author
What they call it / where it appears
CrowdStrike +
Incident response as the first engagement
Note. Near miss: Paid onboarding bundled with a signed subscription. Does not count: Implementation services sold with the product after purchase (Professional Services, Product layer).