[john_moscow]

>This is a classic "bottoms-up" model that is quite viable (eg Dropbox, Slack, Zoom, Elastic, MongoDB). None of which are profitable.

>In fact, I would be wary of software companies without a base of free users, as that means the company needs to keep spending a lot of its revenue on sales and marketing. I am much more wary of companies that keep or burning cash for years and years with the only excuse that "Amazon did that as well".

[akulkarni]

> I am much more wary of companies that keep or burning cash for years and years with the only excuse that "Amazon did that as well".

I think about this a little differently. Spending money on free users is actually a much more efficient "marketing expense" than classic outbound strategies (e.g., online advertising).

[john_moscow]

Yes, but if your marketing expenses systematically exceed the revenue from the paid customers, your business isn't viable.