[superasn]

Sometimes the free product helps you get traction during the initial hard phase of your business when nobody knows your name.

A lot of businesses do this as a growing strategy so don't fully discount the backlinks, leads, social media it gave you.

[rmbyrro]

Freemium can work, but without VC it's really hard to sustain.

For bootstrappers and small ventures, I'd rather spend the free subsidy in ads. If you do it right, it just works.

I hate ads, but they work.

[rozenmd]

I learned this lesson the hard way - 11 months of freemium, decided to add a trial because "why not?" - now something like 95% of new users choose the trial of the Pro plan, instead of the free tier.

[rmbyrro]

Nice! Mind if I ask whether it improved conversion to paid and what was the impact to your CAC?