Brent Chudoba discusses how SurveyMonkey scaled its freemium business model. He covers three main topics: achieving discipline and simplicity early on to drive virality; raising capital at the right times to support growth; and taking the business to the next level through international expansion, optimization of key metrics, and strategic product expansion that builds on core strengths.

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