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by AlchemistCamp 2343 days ago
> 5. When you're boostrapped (which is where this report is skewed toward), you don't have the time or resources to provide support to non-paying customers.

I'm highly skeptical about this one. Very, very few freemium services actually struggle due to the cost of supporting free users. Unless you're doing something unusually resource intensive or nobody is paying, the infrastructure costs of having free users is usually a rounding error.

I'd estimate that around 99% of people who use the tutorials on my site do so for free, but the only cost I even really notice is for my email provider. Even at 100x the current usage, I'd still be on the same $10/month server.
1 comments
Axsuul 2343 days ago
Sorry, I meant customer support costs, not infrastructure costs.
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AlchemistCamp 2343 days ago
How much support to you really need to offer to the free tier, though?

I.e. if you had 10,000 more free users and 10 more paid users, would that be a financial loss? It would be a gain for every product I've worked on.

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Axsuul 2343 days ago
It wouldn't be a financial loss but it can hurt your growth. Free users are a huge distraction since what they ask for can be very different from what paying users ask for.

As a bootstrapped startup, your goal is probably to get to ramen-profitability as soon as possible so you can quit your job and focus on it full-time. You're not gonna get there fast enough by making free users happy. Paying users are what move the needle.

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AlchemistCamp 2342 days ago
Can't you restrict feature voting (or whatever kind of request prioritization) to paying users?

> "your goal is probably to get to ramen-profitability as soon as possible... You're not gonna get there fast enough by making free users happy"

But I already have! Making my free users happy has lead to a portion converting to premium and many more sharing my offerings :D

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Axsuul 2342 days ago
That's awesome! There's no one way to do this so if it's working for you, then keep doing what you're doing. Are you running a B2C startup by any chance?
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AlchemistCamp 2341 days ago
It's prosumer. A few customers are businesses, many are freelancers and most are employees.
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