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Opinion: Why the Freemium Model Works

I just read this article on “Why the Freemium Model Doesn’t Work“, and while he makes some good points, he wraps up the article by saying “The reality is, the freemium model doesn’t work for the majority of companies who try it.”  No shit Sherlock!  The reality is, no model works for the majority of companies who try anything.  The majority of companies fail within 5 years.1

 

The 4th Type of Freemium

In his examples of successful freemium models he mentions Evernote, Dropbox, and Spotify.  He also suggests that fremium models are limited to only 3 scenarios, egregiously missing my favorite type of freemium: pay for additional features. Read more

How Pinterest Changed My Life

I was thinking of titling this post “What it feels like to give up and still win” or something like that.  Then I thought about some clever title about perseverance and how we saw value where no one else did, which would be true.  But in the end it’s better to give credit where credit is due; so there you have it: How Pinterest Changed My Life.

My last company, Chick Approved, was just officially acquired by Seattle-based Lockerz, Inc…and it feels great!  You can read all about it, but that’s just the inspiration for the post and really beside the point.

So what is the point?

The point is: I’m not sure we deserve it.

We built a great product, had 2 people on full time managing the community and our ambassador program, and I spent just about every weekend for the better part of a year working my ass off iterating and iterating on the product. So why don’t I deserve it? Read more