đĄ JCNews #42
Freemium vs. Free Trial, que choisir ? (et une petite vidéo sur les perles de nos concurrents)
Chers amis, fans de bonnes lectures,
Bienvenue aux 86 personnes qui nous ont rejoints depuis mardi dernier ! Si vous lisez ceci et nâĂȘtes pas encore inscrit, rejoignez vite les 2 140 personnes qui ont dĂ©jĂ eu la bonne idĂ©e de le faire. Câest juste ici đ
Cette semaine encore, je vous propose mes lectures les plus intĂ©ressantes, en mettant notamment lâaccent sur un article principal et en vous partageant mon avis dessus. JâespĂšre que cela vous sera utile.Â
Ecrivez-moi pour en parler, sur Linkedin ou sur Twitter. Les JCNews sont aussi disponibles sur le Blog Alan. Je compte sur vous pour les partager đ
đĄMust-read de la semaine
đFreemium vs. Free Trial (David Sacks)
Freemium compared to Free Trial
Freemium products offer a free basic tier with a paywall to unlock premium functionality, whereas Free Trials typically offer all of the functionality for a limited time, after which the user must pay or stop using the product. In other words, the choice is between a functionality-based or time-based paywall.
I usually recommend that SaaS companies go with the Free Trial approach because itâs easier to implement in the product and coordinate with sales and marketing efforts.
However, Freemium is better for viral or networked products that want to encourage user-generated content, network effects, or bottom-up adoption.
TrĂšs bonne explication des diffĂ©rences entre âfreemiumâ et âfree trialâ. Est-ce quâil vaut mieux donner accĂšs, pendant un temps limitĂ©, Ă une partie des fonctionnalitĂ©s, ou Ă toutes les fonctionnalitĂ©s ? Si vous cherchez la viralitĂ©, partez sur le freemium.
What Worked at Yammer
Freemium was essential to Yammerâs growth. (...) Yammer was able to separate from the pack because of its viral freemium model. Like Slack, which adopted a similar model 5 years later, employees signed up for free and were placed in their company network based on a verified email domain. (...) The product urged employees to invite their coworkers. Once the network hit critical mass, our sales team would reach out. We built a dashboard for the sales team called Mission Control, which surfaced active networks.
Because Sales was prospecting into our own free accounts, every lead was âwarm.â (...) We also did no paid marketing, although we spent a lot of time on earned marketing (evangelism) to encourage the initial employees to join their company networks. (...) Companies would buy Yammer for the admin features, to get control over the network and derive more value from its use.
Yammer (comme Slack) ont eu une stratĂ©gie de freemium pour le B2B, ce qui est trĂšs rare. Ils ont permis dâavoir des clients âentrepriseâ par le bas, parce que les salariĂ©s le voulaient, sans avoir Ă passer dĂšs le dĂ©but par les Ă©normes processus dâachats des groupes.Â
Cela leur a permis aussi dâavoir une Ă©quipe commerciale beaucoup plus efficace.
Pros and Cons of Each Model
First, although our sales team liked the ability to prospect into warm accounts, they complained that there was little urgency to buy. Most of our users were quite happy on the free version.Â
Second, a lot of product management goes into creating and maintaining a functionality-based paywall.
Third, paid marketing is much more complicated with a Freemium model. Itâs hard to assess the ROI of a paid marketing campaign when it can take many months or even years for a lead to convert into a revenue-generating account.
Free Trial risks user attrition in a way that Freemium doesnât, but at least Free Trial forces a decision in a reasonable amount of time.Â
Our users, especially the early adopters, didnât control the budget so it didnât make sense to try to force them to pay.Â
As the network effect grew, it strengthened our case with IT and our chance to win the deal. Because of the viral growth, and the fact that we never had to spend any money on user acquisition, we could afford to be patient with conversion. It just never made sense to kick out any users.
Cela coĂ»te trĂšs cher de maintenir une offre âfreemiumâ, car il faut sans cesse itĂ©rer sur ce qui est dâun cĂŽtĂ© de lâoffre et de lâautre cĂŽtĂ©. Ceci Ă©tant dit, cela a du sens dâavoir un modĂšle freemium, si ceux qui l'utilisent ne sont pas ceux qui contrĂŽlent le budget.
đŻConstruire une entreprise
En plus dâarticles triĂ©s sur le volet, je partage un principe de leadership dâAlan par semaine. Le mĂȘme que je partage en interne et Ă nos investisseurs tous les mercredis.
đAvoir lâamour du dĂ©tail (Healthy Business)
La plupart des entreprises ne prennent pas le temps ni le soin de rĂ©flĂ©chir aux dĂ©tails. Une grande partie de ce quâelles font est par ailleurs âautomatisĂ©â, comme par exemple la plupart des rĂ©ponses mail qui sont impersonnelles.
Nous essayons dâavoir l'amour du dĂ©tail. Les gens remarquent les dĂ©tails. Nous Ă©vitons autant que possible le ton automatique et impersonnel dans les relations que nous entretenons avec nos membres. Une rĂ©ponse mail qui ferait sourire, avec un jeu de mots, ou tout simplement trĂšs bien Ă©crite, peut faire la diffĂ©rence entre un moment dĂ©sagrĂ©able et une belle attention.
âLe diable se cache dans le dĂ©tailâ dit Nietzsche. Chez Alan, nous pensons que le bonheur aussi.
đMarc Andreessen On Productivity, Scheduling, Reading Habits, Work, and More (a16z)
âI find if you donât schedule enough free time, you get resentful of your own calendar. (...) Weâve often spoken about how some of the most interesting, influential people in the world tend to have large chunks of open space.â
âVenture capital is too elongated an activity. We donât really know whether something is going to work or not work in the first five years of its life after we passed. And so itâs â okay, what do I learn?âÂ
âNaval Ravikant talks about how he doesnât finish books anymore. He let go of the guilt of needing to finish books.âÂ
âOne of the things I talk a lot about is this concept of âstrong views weakly heldâ. I think in any business you do want to commit, you do want to act, you do want to bias towards action.â
đDans lâactu
đ±Monde des technologies
đTwilio investment analysis by Bessemer in 2009 (BVP)
Unit Economics: at the same time, theyâve been able to bring down their unit cost significantly to the point now where each minute costs them 0.6 cents while they can charge close to 3 cents (discounts accrue with volume). This has resulted in a blended gross margin of 56%.
đ„ SantĂ©
đText-based primary care platform 98point6 raises $118M in Series E (GeekWire)
Healthcare is one of many industries that have adopted technology at a rapid pace over the past several months due to the pandemic.
Robbie Cape, 98point6âs CEO, expects permanent changes in consumer behavior and the perception of remote care.
đ AlanÂ
đRĂ©ponses aux intox de nos concurrents (Blog Alan) : ce nâest pas notre habitude de rĂ©agir Ă ce que fait la concurrence ; mais quand elle sâattaque Ă nos clients en racontant nâimporte quoi, on est bien obligĂ© dâen parler. Câest ça aussi, la transparence.
đAlan passe la barre des 100 000 membres ! (MoneyVox) Quatre ans tout juste aprĂšs la crĂ©ation de lâentreprise.
đMon intervention sur Europe1 pour un management fondĂ© sur la libertĂ© des salariĂ©s (Europe1) : il faut libĂ©rer la prise de dĂ©cision en responsabilisant et en gĂ©rant par le contexte plutĂŽt que par le contrĂŽle.
đđșLivres et sĂ©ries
đJe conseille fortement cette sĂ©rie documentaire de Ken Burns : The Roosevelts.Â
Un chef d'Ćuvre pour comprendre la politique amĂ©ricaine et le virage des Etats-Unis de la fin du XIXĂšme Ă la moitiĂ© du XXĂšme.
Câest dĂ©jĂ fini. A vous de jouer maintenant. Invitez vos amis Ă sâinscrire đ
Et Ă©crivez-moi pour en parler, sur Linkedin ou sur Twitter. Les JCNews sont aussi disponibles sur le Blog Alan.