Episode 754 | Broken Freemium, SaaS Plateaus, and More Listener Questions (A Rob Solo Adventure)
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Welcome to another episode of Startups for the Rest of Us. This week, I'm your host, I'm Rob Walling, and this is the podcast for folks who want to build real software businesses, real SaaS companies that sell a real product to real customers for real money. You can be bootstrapped. You can be mostly bootstrapped. Frankly, you can raise a kajillion dollars in venture capital, and I still believe that the content and the thoughts and the ideas and the strategies and the inspiration and the tactics that I present here on this show are applicable to you no matter which of those buckets you fall in. Unless you're planning to have Kid Rock at your launch party and you want to stay pre-revenue forever because your valuation is more important to you than actually making money, then this podcast is not for you. But if you want to build real SaaS companies, real software companies, then this podcast is laser-focused designed for you. Today, I'm going to be answering listener questions.
It's been a minute since I've taken some listener questions on. And if you have a question for the show, you can email it to questions at startupsfortherestofus.com or head to startupsfortherestofus.com. Go to ask a question in the top nav section. As always, video questions go to the top of the stack, although I have been taking text questions that are more intermediate or later stage. Because I've found that the pipeline gets pretty clogged with, how do I choose an idea? And I'm pre-revenue, what should I do? And how do I launch? That's all interesting, but I think answering question after question after question for pre-revenue folks gives an indication that is not true, that this podcast is aimed at beginners, which it is not.
So send your intermediate to advanced to later stage questions as well as your beginner questions. We'll tackle those in upcoming episodes. But before I dive into listener questions, I want to let you know that MicroConf Connect applications are open today through February 5th. To create the best possible experience, we welcome new members in monthly cohorts with applications open for just 72 hours each month. MicroConf Connect is our online community. It is the best online community of bootstrapped SaaS founders. Every month, we put on a special live call with a new guest. And if you remember this month, you get access to a live call with Harry Lawson, where he's going to break down SaaS copywriting essentials. Harry has written for companies like Testimonial.to, Signwell, and Veed.io. And next month, I believe, I am the special guest on the live call where I will do live Q&A. It's always a blast.
If you're interested in becoming part of this worldwide, year-round online community of MicroConf Connect, head to microconfconnect.com to apply. Applications are only open until February 5th. If you miss this window, you will have to wait until March. That's microconfconnect.com. So with that, let's dive into my first question from Idan Masas. This question came to me on ex-Twitter, where I asked about some more intermediate stage questions, and this one's on the edge. But Idan asks, what do you do if there are many free signups, but not many paid conversions, and you have already tried removing the free plan? I'm not sure I fully understand this question. If you've removed the free plan, then you shouldn't have any more free signups.
Or I guess you're saying you have free users that you haven't kicked out of the free plan. You've only removed the free plan for new people. So I'm a little confused by this. I think I'm going to answer it multiple ways. I'll start with the idea that freemium, which is of course different than a free trial, freemium is often what I call forever free, where you're only limited by the number of actions that you take, say signing a document or sending emails, or maybe it's having a certain amount of subscribers and you're capped. And if you go over that number, then it's not free anymore, but it's not a time-based free trial. So freemium should have not many paid conversions. That's kind of how it works. You know, Dropbox brags or bragged back in the day about we get all these signups and 3% convert to paid after a year. So I would call that not many paid conversions for a year, a year, get 3%.
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1 identifiedMore from Startups For the Rest of Us
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