Freeing a Service to Educate a MarketFreemium Summit

Owen Tripp, COO and Co-Founder

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

A little bit about ReputationDefender

• Founded in 2006. Based in Redwood City, CA• Comprehensive suite of privacy and

reputation tools focused on controlling publicly visible, online data

• Customers in over 100 countries• Direct to consumer marketing (70%),

distribution partnerships (30%)• Backed by Maples Investments, Kleiner

Perkins, Bessemer and JAFCO

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

2010 Press Coverage

3

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Paid membership growth

2006 2008 2010

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

So why in the heck would we pursue Freemium?(and why have I been invited to speak here?)

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Creating a category is hard…

• You need to invent a lexicon• You need to prove that anybody cares (to

partners, investors, your colleagues, yourselves?)

• You need to ask somebody for some of their precious time

• You need to establish the flow of how the experience should work

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

…and expensive

• Demand generation media is $$$• UI iteration and testing takes investment• Evangelism means time and money• Experimentation necessarily means total ROI

is less than ideal

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Plant a few seeds…

Knowing where to plant:• Isolate unique pain points

within your product solution

• Find the “greatest common factor” in how people relate to your product flow

• Lower the barrier to entry to a painfully low point

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

…then weed

Kill relentlessly:• Toss out ideas that don’t

meet a minimum metric threshold (conversion, engagement, etc.)

• Diagnose which of your key assumptions might have been off

• Shelf concepts which lack a diagnosis

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Now try to catch as many as you can

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

The seeds we’re planting

①Turn heads, don’t stop iterating until ‘wow’

②Demonstrate irrefutable expertise, leadership

③Provide path to paid in a consistent manner

④Demand metrics but don’t halt product innovation because of tracking issues

Our Current Projects:

PRIVACY:MyPrivacyFree ResultsMyPrivacyFree for AllPrivacyDefenderuProtect.it

REPUTATION MONITORING:-> RepAlertsSocial Proof (RIP)Idiot Friend of the Day (RIP)

FAMILY PRODUCTS:-> KidAlerts

Principles of reverse freemium

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Sample concept: RepAlerts

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Sample concept: RepAlerts

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Sample concept: RepAlerts

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Sample concept: RepAlerts

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Free Take-Aways

• Spend time thinking about your greatest common factors before launching your tests

• Feed your best LTV opportunities with paid media (also, understand the differences between cohorts)

• Educate through Freemium models• Don’t forget that free is not a business model

FREEMIUM SUMMIT: Freeing a service to educate a market

Help us try ‘em out!

www.privacydefender.netwww.kidalerts.comwww.reputationdefender.com/freehttp://uProtect.itwww.reputationdefender.com/freeprivacy

Thank you!