(2016-01-04) Mayfield Pingpad Consumer Freemium

Ross Mayfield explains PingPad's Consumer Freemium Business Model (in light of EverNote's woes). In my view consumer freemium is the best business model for consumer software because it doesn’t have scale limitations... Consumer freemium, especially for a Viral app like Pingpad, let’s you invest in the product to benefit users instead of marketing to benefit vendors. It encourages you to go for scale, creating network effects that are natural barriers to entry vs. the competition... if someone wants to be a group owner and have control (see the lock on the left), they will have to pay for being an inhibitor of viral growth... The classical reason there is Enterprise vs. consumer is the former demands customization and the latter demands a focused (Coherence) engaging experience at scale. It is by going enterprise you end up a Frankenstein, and it’s how you manage that balance. If you go to early you will be pulled apart by differing enterprise requirements before realizing your core and whole product concept.