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From “Pay Per Usage” to “Pay For Performance” – Pricing Transitions for #Startups

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Pricing Transition for Startup

Over the last few weeks I had a chance to review 89 of the companies to understand their free to paid conversion and also a chance to talk to 13 companies. What I learned was that time spent on the pricing page was a key indicator of conversion and you can A/B test your pricing page for colors, position of your highest and lowest prices, number of plans showed, feature listing and your call to action.

The names of your pricing plan also has a significant signalling effect on your customer’s perception of your product.

I wanted to showcase today the biggest transition pricing plan pages will have over the next decade.

The move primarily affects B2B companies, but is being driven by consumer Internet companies currently such as Uber with their surge pricing.

There are 3 steps towards the maturity of the pricing model that I foresee.

The first step is the transition from perpetual pricing or “pay unfront” pricing to subscription billing or “pay as you go“.

The second step is the transition from subscription billing and “pay as you go” models to utility billing or “pay for usage“.

The third step is the transition from utility billing or “pay for usage” to outcome billing or “pay for performance“.

Why was perpetual pricing or “pay upfront” popular?

Perpetual pricing was easy to understand, for most accounting and finance teams.

Paying for software and amortizing it over a period of time was easy to register on the financial records. The initial assumption was most of this software was going to be in “perpetuity” or forever.

It was over 20 years from 1980 to 2000 that most folks realized this was not true. Software changed constantly, had to be upgraded and the 20% annual maintenance did not pay for the new versions.

Why did we transition to pay as you go?

When finance and accounting teams realized that only a fraction of the software that was purchased, is going to be used, and much of it was “shelfware“, they were loathe to pay for “things that were not being used”.

So, they decided to move from a CapEx (Capital Expenditure) to an OpEx (Operating expenditure) mode. This transition moved the costs of software from the balance sheet to the income statement.

The second problem was the high cost. Perpetual pricing assumes a 4 year fee for the software would be paid “upfront” and so the cost of that software was pretty high. Which meant, most smaller and mid-sized customers were unable to afford it.

Finally, once the sale was done, there was no “skin in the game” for the software provider. The success or lack of the deployment or usage of the software was upto the customer. Obtaining value from the software was also something the customer was on the hook for, not the provider.

Why is there going to be a transition to pay for performance?

While the problems of lack of usage, high upfront cost, and the “skin in the game” can be solved by Software as a Service (SaaS) models, which ensures payment to the software partner once the software is being used and only for the amount it is being used, the problem of “obtaining value from the software” still exists.

The problems with SaaS pricing (usage) are 3 fold:

1. Inability to predict the “constant amount” each month – since it is be based on usage, instead of a fixed amount each month.

2. The need to focus on “success” instead of “best effort” for customers. Instead of the provider saying “this is what we will provide” the provider and consumer jointly will have to agree on the “desired outcomes” and the share of value they will each obtain from the transaction.

3. The need for providers to capture more of the “value” associated with the pricing instead of the “cost plus profit” model.

Which is why the next transition will be towards subscription billing or variable pricing not on usage but on “outcomes“.

What are outcomes?

Here is an example that most folks can relate to:

Imagine if you had to go from location A to B for a meeting by 6 pm. You are late and leave at 530, and expect it to take you 45 minutes to get there, but you’d really like to get there by 6 pm. You are willing to “pay extra” to get there on time.

Instead of charging you for the distance, which is what the taxi charges you, the cab instead charges you more for the “desired outcome“, being there on time. That means, for someone who left at 5 pm the cost would be less than for you, even though both of you went the same distance.

Here is another example.

If the desired outcome from a startup joining an accelerator is to A) Get a follow on round of funding and B) get some early customers instead of paying (a percentage of your startup, not an actual amount) a fixed %, startups will transition to paying for those outcomes or not paying at all. Or associating a variable payment based on the level of achievement of that outcome.

I believe the biggest transition that pricing pages will have to reflect over the next decade will be the move from “usage based pricing” to “outcome based pricing”.

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Creating Artificial Constraints as a Means to Innovation

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Artificial Constraints

Many of the entrepreneurs I know have created new innovative startups thanks to real constraints they had. For example, I was hearing AirBnB’s Brian Chesky, on the Corner Office podcast and he mentioned that when he and his cofounder were trying to get some money to get started and the only way to keep afloat was to “rent” their air bed they had in their room. That, then led to Air Bed and Breakfast, which is now AirBnB.

This was a real constraint they had – no money to “eat” so they had to make it happen somehow.

I have heard of many stories of innovation where in the protagonists had real constraints of either financial, technology, supply, demand, economic, social or any number of other characteristics.

The interesting story that I have also recently heard of how Facebook has “pivoted” from being a desktop offering to getting a significant part of their revenue from mobile is how they were given the arbitrary constraint of only accessing Facebook via the mobile phone.

So there are ways that you can create “artificial” constraints to force innovation to happen.

Most larger companies and some smaller ones as well, have to constantly find ways to create artificial constraints – to find a way to innovate and be more be a pioneer.

While some constraints are good – lack of funds at the early stage for example and lack of resources, there are entrepreneurs that are stymied by these constraints and those that will find  a way to seek a path to go forward.

I think this is a great way for you to think about innovating in a new space. If you have constraints, find a way to use it to your advantage.

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The Great Mobile App Migration of March 2020

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Mobile App Migration

Over the last few weeks as many in the world have been in lockdown, there has been a temporary “mobile app migration” happening. There are new apps downloaded and they replaced existing apps on the “home screen”.

While some of these apps are likely temporary use, for e.g. I have 6 “conferencing apps” – Zoom, Uber Conference, Webex, Google Hangouts, Blue Jeans and Goto Meeting. That is because of the many people I have conference calls with – each company seems to have chosen a different web conference solution.

Other apps seem like they will have staying power – Houseparty, for e.g. which has games, networking and video conferencing all built into one app to keep in touch with friends and relatives.

Houseparty

The apps that have moved away from my “home” screen, which I expect will come back once the crisis will be behind us include – Uber, Lyft and all the airline apps from Delta, Alaska and United.

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Perseverance with the Ability to Pivot on Data: 21 Traits We Look for in Entrepreneurs

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Perseverance with the Ability to Pivot

There are 5 key inflection points I have noticed which makes founders question their startup, to either make a call to continue working on their startup, pivot to a new problem or quit their startup altogether.

It is at these points that you really get to know the startup founder and their hunger and drive to be successful. I don’t think I can characterize those that choose to quit as “losers” or “quitters” because of many extraneous circumstances, but there is a lot of value that most investors see in entrepreneurs who face an uphill part of their journey to come out on the other side more confident and stronger.

These five inflection points are:

  1. When you have to get the first customers to use and pay for the product you have built after you have “shipped” an alpha / beta / first version. Entrepreneurs quit because they have not found the product-market-fit – because the customer don’t care about the product, there is no market need, or the product is really poorly built, or a host of other reasons.
  2. When you have to start to raise the first external round of financing from people you are not familiar with at all. Entrepreneurs quit because while it is hard to get customers and hire people, it is much more harder to get a smaller set of investors to part with their money, if you do not have “traction”, or “the right management team” or a “killer product”.
  3. When you have to push to break even (financially) and sustain the company to path of being self sufficient. Entrepreneurs quit at this stage because they have now the ability to do multiple things at the same time – grow revenues and manage costs, and many of them like to do one but realize it is hard to do that without affecting the other. So, rather than feel stuck they decide to quit.
  4. When you have to scale and grow faster that the competition – which might mean to hire faster, to get more customers, to drive more sales, or to completely rethink their problem statement and devise new ways to grow faster. Entrepreneurs quit at this point because they are consumed by the magnitude of the problem. They overassess the impact the competition will have on their company, give them too much credit or focus way too much on the competitors, thereby driving their company to the ground.
  5. At any point in the journey, when the founders lose the passion, vision or the drive to succeed. Entrepreneurs quit a these points because they have challenges with their co founder, they don’t agree with the direction they have to take, or encounter the “grass is greener on the other side” syndrome.

While I have observed many entrepreneurs at these stages at  discrete points in time, I have also had the opportunity to observe some entrepreneurs in the continuum, and I am going to give you my observations on 3 of the many folks I have known, who, have quit.

Perseverance separates great entrepreneurs from good ones
Perseverance separates great entrepreneurs from good ones

One went back to college to finish his MBA after getting a running business to a point of near breakeven, another found the business much harder than he originally thought he would and got a job at a larger company and the third was just unable to have the drive to go past 11 “no’s”‘ from angel investors.

Over the last 8 years, if I look at my deeper interactions with over 90 entrepreneurs, who I would have spent at least 100+ hours each, I would say that of the 24 people that are not longer in their startup, the one thing that stands out among the ones that persevere is that it is not “passion” or “vision” at all.

It is the inherent belief that they are solving a problem that they believe is their “calling”. They also don’t believe that there is any other problem that’s worth solving as much, even though there may be easier ways to make money.

So most of my questions of entrepreneurs to test whether they will pivot or quit are around why they want to solve this problem (which I am looking to see if they know enough about in the first place) versus any other one.

The answer to that question is the best indicator I have found to be the difference between the pivots, the leavers and the rest.

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