top of page

From Freemium to Premium: What is the Secret?

  • Helen Zhao
  • May 8, 2019
  • 6 min read

A re you running a startup, starting your business, or thinking of launching your idea soon? No matter which stage you are at, here is an enviable and tough question to think about:

How

to

convert

Freemium

to

Premium

?

Colin Bramm, CEO and Co-founder of Showbie inc. had an answer for it. He shared his journey behind building a successful company at Rainforest's Lunch without Lunch on April 24, 2019. From his story, you will find out the answer to this question. Alright, here is Colin's story.

Showbie Inc.

#1. The initiative

Prior to launching Showbie Inc, Colin worked as a educational technology consultant for several years. Around that time, classrooms started to adopt iPad for teaching, and he saw this great business opportunity: developing an app that could make everyone's blend classroom experience enjoyable and fun.

#2. Launching Showbie Inc.

In 2013, Colin founded his company based on this initiative and named it Showbie. The company features education apps and launched two brands: Showbie and Socrative. The first one, Showbie, is a school work assignment manager and teacher's feedback tool: it makes no hassle for students to turn in an assignment. Showbie also does a good job in accommodating different types of assignments by providing a variety of choices in platforms. Its digital annotation tools also allow teachers to give feedback on students' work.

Still confused? To visualize this, imagine if you were to e-signing a document: it enables the teacher to mark the homework and in a timely fashion and give feedback through leaving voice messages. Online notifications keep both students and parents in the loop of the process.

Socrative, another brand, was acquired by Showbie in 2018. It is a real-time classroom response app that makes the class time fun and engaging. Besides offering features like online testing, Socrative also allows teachers to give live quizzes and polls during class and to see the feedback on their smartboard, laptop, tablet or phone.

Anyone could have unique ideas but not everyone can execute on a great idea while being able to sell it for money. Colin is capable of doing both: a successful entrepreneur who knows how to turn an idea into profit. Showbie Inc. operates a B2C2B (Business to Customer & Customer to Business) model, which eases the process.

Colin started with a lightweight free version of the app that allows teachers to sign up to experience for free of charge. through getting their feedback over regular communication, Colin then developed and marketed a pro edition based on the previous model. Converting Freemium customers to Premium customers is what Colin is good at.

You ask : What's the secret of selling your ideas to customers?

Colin's Answer : there is really no secret. I just need to listen to my customers, talk to them on a regular basis, and ask for feedback! Knowing customers' need is the key: you build the product based on it, which they will be happy to pay for.

Both Showbie and Socrative have a variety of Premium features to entice teachers and their organizations to pay for the upgraded editions.

#3. Target Market

Data analytics is the key to identify the target market. The freemium model helped to spread Showbie's apps through word of mouth, and the result was quite significant. Colin then used the data gathered from product utilization to determine specific regions where the apps could be popular. Then, he formulated his market strategy for those particular areas. In some places, this involves reseller partners and in others, his team at headquarter in Edmonton is servicing the area remotely through telesales/email/online meetings, etc.

Six years of ups and downs running Showbie Inc. has taught Colin important life lessons, which he summarized them into four points.

Lessons Learned

#1 Have A Vision

Colin wasn't able to make the impact he desired during his early career life in consulting business, due to its structure. With a vision of improving the life of people, Colin decided to pivot his career and realized his potential in building and offering product based services to create the impact he desired.

#2 Experimenting and Testing

Rather than going "all in", Colin likes to test ideas first. Sharing his ideas with others in the technology industry using devil's advocate, and "what if" scenarios is his way of validating if he should go further with an idea he has. For any existing ideas, Colin utilizes data whenever possible to justify potential solutions.

Colin never rushes to present his finding: when an idea pops into his mind, he would carves out some time to explore it fully himself. For instance, when hearing anything strange or interesting, from customers, partners, or a unique opportunity, Colin usually tries to explore it by meeting people, ideally in person.

#3. Trust Your Gut Feeling

No one has confidence from the get-go: it is something you gain and is built up over time. It took some time for Colin to realize he does not need to ask permission in making decisions; he has the capacity to do it on his own through all the channels available to him to help him decide.

#4. Have a Balance

Colin used to sacrifice his family time for Showbie's growth. Working long hours put him under a lot of stress. These days, he is spending more time with his family and has learned to better balance work and personal life. Spending time away from work helps Colin to reset and generate new ideas. Having such a balance is a critical path to productivity and creativity.

After Colin's presentation, he also answered questions from the audiences

Questions and Answers:

Q: How do you build trust with your team?

A: Transparency is the key: holding my commitments, being open and vulnerable when things didn't turn out a planned. Sharing is also important: sharing things about my life and listening to others talking about theirs. Getting to know everyone on a personal level helps to create bond and connections: it is my way to build a culture of trust through influencing others than coercing them.

Q: How do you innovate?

A: Innovation starts through listening to customers' feed and needs, as well as analyzing existing data. Based on the information gathered, we come up with ideas on where the market is going so that we can build a product that we think will help us address the growth of future needs. After launching the product, we anticipate the outcome and see if our expectations were met. If expectations were met, we repeat the cycle. If not, we modify and improve upon the existing model.

Q: How do you convert freemium users to premium users?

A: We started with launching a free offering then used the user feature requests as a base to find out what customers value and how we can help them. We then marketed and launched the Pro edition, and were able to re-sell it off the popularity of the product features. We also asked teachers if they would sign up for our apps. Once getting a small group of teachers started on it, we worked with them to see if the school might be a good fit for the premium editions of our products. In short, there is no secret to it: talking to your customers on a regular basis, finding out their needs, and asking for feedbacks are the key to sell.

Q: How do you define your target market?

A: We achieved great results from word of mouth of our apps from the freemium model. We then use the data gathered from product utilization to determine specific regions where the apps could be popular. Then, we formulated our market strategy for those particular areas. In some places, this involves reseller partners and in others, our team at headquarter is servicing the area remotely through telesales/email/online meetings, etc.

Q: How do you create buy-in for your ideas with potential investors, business partners, and employees?

A: We are lucky to build products that have a positive ripple effect on educational purpose. There is also a real social impact side to the work we do that goes beyond simply building good software products and generating revenue. I trust that everyone can intuitively understand this social benefit. In addition, we recently started to invite teacher users to speak at our all-hands town halls to ensure everyone knows about this life-changing 'mission' they are part of. Such has created some magic buy-in that's impossible for someone like myself to directly provide.

About Colin Bramm

Colin leads an amazing team with a mission of empowering teachers and students with tools for creativity and productivity, striving for a paperless classroom. He co-founded Showbie in 2013 and acquired Socrative in 2018.

To learn more about Showbie Inc, check out their blogs: https://www.showbie.com/blog/

Social Media

- Twitter: Showbie@Showbie

- Address: 10113 104 St NW #403, Edmonton, AB T5J 1A1

Additional Comments:

Above content describes a real life story. This blog is published with Colin Bramm's permission.

Disclaimer:

The information contained in this article is not legal advice, and is intended solely to provide general guidance on matters of interest for the personal use of the reader, who accepts full responsibility for its use.

Reference:

Photo Credit:

#1. Colin Bramm, Co-founder and CEO of Showbie Inc.

 
 
 

Comentarios

bottom of page