Answer
Oct 02, 2017 - 08:15 PM
You could think of this as a company going from publicly traded stock (Wall Street) to taking it private. Sometimes, being a publicly traded company isn’t always the best business strategy. It does not imply failure. Your obligation as the leader is to make the best possible decisions that will enable the business to thrive and be successful in the long run and for the benefit of your shareholders.
What you are describing is possibly the freemium business model.
Giving the product away for free and then charging for premium feature can definitely work. If you’ve made that decision already, you can write a private message (or press release) for your current customers to inform them that you are changing course-
1. To let them know the reason why, so they have the opportunity to plan accordingly. Transparency is the best policy.
2. Your current customers have invested in your business success by purchasing from you. Chances are that switching to a competitor will be time consuming and potentially expensive for them. So they want your company to be successful, to remain viable to continue to provide excellent and competitive service or product at reasonable price.
There are companies that either pivoted from paid to freemium or started out offering freemium and have done so successfully. These include –
It is worth studying these business models and how they pivoted or launched with freemium. The strategy, features or services that enabled them to be successful can be informative and useful for your pivoting strategy?
See (Harvard Business Review) article & chart
What you are describing is possibly the freemium business model.
Giving the product away for free and then charging for premium feature can definitely work. If you’ve made that decision already, you can write a private message (or press release) for your current customers to inform them that you are changing course-
1. To let them know the reason why, so they have the opportunity to plan accordingly. Transparency is the best policy.
2. Your current customers have invested in your business success by purchasing from you. Chances are that switching to a competitor will be time consuming and potentially expensive for them. So they want your company to be successful, to remain viable to continue to provide excellent and competitive service or product at reasonable price.
There are companies that either pivoted from paid to freemium or started out offering freemium and have done so successfully. These include –
- Spotify
- MailChimp
- Box
- OneDrive
- Evernote
- SurveyMonkey
- Skype
- Hootsuite
- Buffer
- Office 365 offers some freemium products/services
It is worth studying these business models and how they pivoted or launched with freemium. The strategy, features or services that enabled them to be successful can be informative and useful for your pivoting strategy?
See (Harvard Business Review) article & chart
Add New Comment