scaling freemium brent chudoba VP,
business strategy @SurveyMonkey

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

brent & SurveyMonkey

freemium at scale

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?

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

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

taking scale to the next
level

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

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

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

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