Monetizing Free Users And Recapping MicroConf

FounderQuest

Show Notes
Links:
Gather
Roblox Vs. Second Life

Docsketch
Ruben Gamez

AppSumo
Intro CRM

Full Transcript:
Ben:
Yeah, the party doesn't start until you show up, Josh.

Josh:
I'm a party animal.

Starr:
Yeah, that's true. How's everybody doing?

Josh:
Good.

Ben:
I had a good last week. How are you, Starr?

Starr:
I'm doing pretty good. I got to dive a little bit into our sort of usage data for free users, and that's always fun when I get to do that. I got to use JupyterLab a little bit, brushing up on my Python skills, and yeah. So, I had been... whenever I do my sort of deep dives in the numbers and stuff, I would always just make a bunch of Ruby scripts, and use Ruby scripts to kind of process the data and make it understandable to me. But, it turns out there's a whole fricking ecosystem around this this and Python, and it's... yeah.

Starr:
There's a system called JupyterLabs. You can get it as part of this bigger distribution that's basically... it's called Conda, which is a Python distribution that just has all of the data science stuff built into it. And so, yeah. So, it's just this little web app you run, and then you can... it's really kind of awesome. It's like if you took an IRB shell or something and put it inside of a text editor and let you write markdown around it, and then also included a whole bunch of tools for doing really complicated stuff with tables of data, and doing that in one or two lines of code.

Josh:
That's cool.

Starr:
Yeah.

Josh:
That reminds me a little bit of what I've seen of org mode and Emacs. Isn't that the thing where you can embed code, and generate tables, and stuff like that, I think? It's super-

Starr:
I don't know, I've never used that.

Josh:
It's a pain in the ass.

Starr:
Well, this is surprisingly not a pain in the ass. It's actually pretty cool, so yeah. So, I've got some... I'm not done with it, but I'm going to have a little report to share at our marketing meeting, which I think is next week, and yeah, about how to squeeze more blood out of our free users. So, get ready, guys, because it's not going to be pretty. I'm just kidding.

Josh:
Well, we've been very generous to our free users, so there's a lot of potential there.

Starr:
Yeah.

Ben:
I have a suggestion for helping our free users, add value to us.

Josh:
Is this just our monetization model now? We just rant at our free users in this new podcast? It's just like, if you want to hear us stop bitching then sign up for our paid plan.

Ben:
We'll annoy you until you pay us. So, we had a free user upgrade just a little while ago, just this morning, and I went and looked at their account, and they've been a free user for a few months, and the trigger... what I was interested in was, why did they upgrade? And I was actually going to email them because I've been spending all morning emailing new signups and reaching out to people who have signed up recently.

Ben:
Anyway, so I was going to contact this person and say, "Hey, why did you sign up?" But I went and checked their account and it turns out they sent a whole lot of errors, like today or yesterday. And so, they reached the quota limit and so they had to upgrade so they could actually get their errors. And so, my idea is we just send every new signup a bottle of whiskey and tell them that they can only drink it while they're coding, right? And so then can go like, "Oh, a bunch of errors."

Starr:
Oh, there you go. So we sabotage their... yeah.

Ben:
Exactly, exactly. Exactly.

Starr:
We sabotage their code. Our discussion along these lines is really reminding me in a weird way of The Godfather or something. It's like, "Okay, free users: we've been very generous to you over the years. Have you doubted our generosity? No. So, now it's time for us to ask a little favor."

Ben:
I like it.

Josh:
I don't know if it works that way on the internet.

Starr:
No, I don't think so.

Ben:
We need to get a new illustration of the honey badger as the Godfather.

Starr:
Oh, there you go.

Ben:
I can just see him sitting behind the oak panel desk, in the overstuffed chair, smoking a cigar.

Starr:
Yeah, that would be something. I'm not sure people would immediately... we'd have to caption it.

Ben:
Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Starr:
Yeah, because otherwise he's just like an executive, right?

Ben:
Yeah.

Ben:
A fat-cat CEO boss, right?

Starr:
Yeah, exactly. We're not about that. We're the exception monitoring tool for the 99%.

Josh:
Is that why we're so cheap?

Ben:
Buy exceptions.

Starr:
Must be, must be.

Ben:
Yeah, I've been doing this outreach this week, getting started. We mentioned in the last episode that we're working with a sales team coach, concierge app combo, whatever you want to call it. I couldn't remember the name, unfortunately, last week, but this week I can remember the name because I've been doing it, working with them all week, and it's Harris from IntroCRM.com, and they are fantastic. We just started working with them on nurturing our inbound leads, because we do get people signing up all across the spectrum. We get a bunch of those free users, but we also get people signing up who are developers at very large organizations. And so, we're trying to develop a scheme where we optimize our time and reach out to people who... a little more personal approach to people who might be at those big orgs, who might end up being a bit bigger customer.

Ben:
So, this week I've basically just been reaching out to a whole bunch of people, regardless of their company size or whatever. I'm just trying to get into the groove of emailing people and saying, "Hey, what do you think about Honeybadger? Is there something I can do for you?" And then, over time, we'll refine that process and hopefully fill up the pipelines so I can even start doing demos or something crazy.

Starr:
Oh my god.

Josh:
Yeah.

Ben:
Yeah. So, it's been great working with them.

Josh:
You have to get out the old clip-on tie.

Starr:
Yeah. We're going to have to get you some Oxford shirts and a clip-on tie.

Josh:
Do they make some that are just like they just need to cover your shoulders, basically, and just halfway down you torso, just like-

Starr:
I'm sure they have those.

Josh:
It's what we see on Zoom, so.

Starr:
It's like a bib.

Josh:
Yeah, right.

Starr:
A child's bib.

Josh:
It's a sales bib.

Starr:
Or like when you go to eat ribs.

Ben:
Actually, I'm still tying a tie once a week, every week. Yeah, even though I'm still doing church online-

Josh:
On Sundays?

Ben:
Yeah, on Sundays. I'm still putting on the white shirt, putting on the tie, and yeah.

Josh:
I mean, it's got to be kind of comforting to keep some sort of weekly tradition like that during the past crazy... yeah. Groundhog Day.

Ben:
Exactly. I have switched out the suit pants for sweatpants, but other than that I'm still-

Josh:
Nice.

Starr:
Haven't we all?

Josh:
Well, one of the interesting things, that I thought was interesting with that, because we have a Slack Connect channel, now, with the introtoCRM folks, and so they've been givi...