Scaling a Freemium Business - Growth and International Expansion

1. scaling freemium
brent chudoba
VP, business strategy
@SurveyMonkey

2. topics
• background and surveymonkey intro
• getting to scale
– discipline and simplicity
– virality
– capital
• taking scale to the next level
– internationalization
– optimization
– product expansion

3. brent & SurveyMonkey

4. freemium at scale

5. discipline and simplicity
• from the perspective of a user, what makes a
service/product the “best” in its category?
– application speed?
– simplicity?
– feature-richness?
– service?
– price?

6. virality
• inherent virality comes in multiple flavors
– network effects: applications can become more
useful and powerful with usage and more users
– viral loops: usage of the application spreads the
brand and demonstrates new use cases to
potential users
• seeding virality is really hard
– a disciplined approach toward pricing, product
innovation and capital raising innovation is critical

7. capital
• at scale
– why?
– when?
– who?
• in order to scale?
– why?

8. taking scale to the next level

9. internationalization
• north america represents <15% of the global
Internet population
– over 50% of Google’s revenue comes from
international markets
• what prevents international customers from
purchasing your service?
– language
– currency
– payment formats

10. optimization
• if you could increase one metric in your
business, what would it be?
– users, virality, conversion, activity, engagement..
• optimization isn’t just page testing
– opportunities exist throughout the customer and
product lifecycle and experience
– a great data team can uncover lots of
opportunities

11. product expansion
• expand where your existing business gives you
inherent advantages
• reinforce the value of your core product
• de-risk decisions
– let data and your user feedback guide your
decisions
– you don’t have to build everything yourself

12. closing thoughts
• think about data early
• engagement drives conversion
– active users are happy users
• breaking down international product barriers
can dramatically increase your addressable
paid user base