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Great questions & solid framing. Most importantly, investors do not think alike. You are actually choosing kinds of investors when you choose your GTM. If you
by sirspacey 3y ago
Great questions & solid framing.
Most importantly, investors do not think alike. You are actually choosing kinds of investors when you choose your GTM.
If you have the option to go free first, you can focus on being sticky.
If you do both, you can focus on conversions.
Generally in a strategy conflict you need to discuss the context level first.
So model it out & discuss - what matters more for our success, conversions or retention?
You’ll be wrong most likely, whatever you decide, but it will give you a HUD to guide your future decisions with.
Common startup experience:
“Retention matters more because X”
Turns out X doesn’t matter
18 months later you’ve crushed adoption but now can’t retain
“Retention is what we’ve got to focus on”
But then your Board helps you attract capital on growth alone
And so on
The point is - strategy is a steering wheel.
Reality, the version happening right now, is the road.
- noraft 3y agoI'm more concerned about the fact that we're about to start pitching: like, we've had introductions and we've got one-pagers out there circulating, and angels/VCs are asking to meet, and I think if we get in front of investors and say "It'll be nine months until the free version is ready for open release, and three or more months after that for the paid version," we're going to blow those pitches. VCs aren't commodified, and there are a few where we could get great commercial partnerships that I don't want to blow, so I'd like to get opinions on whether I'm in error and we're not going to get doors slammed in our faces when we tell them we plan to launch the free version first and the paid version later, or he's in error and we are.