Freejit was founded to solve the founder's problem of managing remote servers but saw unintended consumer use for personal remote access support. This led to a pivot to pursue the consumer opportunity with easy setup requiring no IT help. During development of the consumer product, a competitor emerged with large marketing budgets, prompting another pivot to a freemium business model validated by other companies. Google searches for the company eventually surpassed the competitor leading to an IPO filing in the fourth year.

1. Pivots to IPO The Lean Startup SXSWi March 12th, 2010 Sean Ellis Founder & CEO of Freejit

2. Startup Founded to Solve Own Problem Managed 100s of servers around the world Couldn’t find remote server mgmt solution that met needs Developed shareware solution – bootstrapped to profitability Sean Ellis, The Lean Startup SXSWi

3. Pivot 1 Unintended use case of personal remote access Consumers overwhelming customer support We formed new company to pursue consumer opportunity Easy setup with no IT help Significant dev effort Problem Solution Sean Ellis, The Lean Startup SXSWi

4. Pivot 2 During development, new 800 Gorilla emerged via own pivot Gorilla invests $100s of millions in maketing Business model pivot Disrupt with freemium model Validated viability – eFax, AVG… Required tech breakthrough Problem Solution Sean Ellis, The Lean Startup SXSWi

5. Year 1 – Google Searches Us, Them Sean Ellis, The Lean Startup SXSWi

6. Google Searches Over 4 Years Us, Them IPO filing 4th Year Sean Ellis, The Lean Startup SXSWi