Naomi Ionita: evaluation

Transcript context

…Cool. So, to dive into that first topic of monetization, if you think about when you're starting a company, what are some of the biggest challenges you face? Start building a product, especially a B2B product, I always think about pricing and trying to figure out how much to charge, how to charge, your pricing model, how to evolve your pricing, when to charge, all these things. And so I know that you work with founders helping them figure these sorts of things out. And so maybe a first question here is just what do you find startups most often miss or get wrong when they're starting to think about monetization? There's a lot to cover here. I'll cover a few missteps that I think are most common. One is waiting too long to monetize. Another one is underpricing. And this isn't just setting the base price too low, but it's also leaving money on the table by not offering different plans to cater to different segments. And the third one is all too often with pricing, people set it and forget it. So, this idea that when your product development work is never done, neither is your pricing, and you need to combat that along the way. So, those are three areas I think we can cover here. Maybe starting with one, I can jump right in, I think waiting too long to monetize. The beginning of a startup's journey is all about creating something of value. Right? That's the whole point. Hopefully, founders have some unique market insight or some authenticity around a pain point and some novel solution that's going to change the world. So, that business value is really critical. But the other side of the same coin is being properly compensated for that value as a business. I understand the vulnerability of being a new startup. You just want people to use your product. And I view that early free beta user feedback loop as an R&D cost to make sure you're building the best possible product and that they're driving a lot of value. But I see companies way too long to make that shift from building a product to building a business. And I think that's the true signal of product-market fit, is ultimately having people open up their wallets and pay you, so looking for people to get to that end goal. And so again, these things aren't mutually exclusive. You're going to create business value, but you're going to be compensated for it and prioritize your roadmap over time so that you're building based on what people actually want and are willing to pay you for. So, when you don't monetize, I think you're doing yourself a disservice. The things that I see as the pain of leaving money on the table, you're inadvertently cheapening your product. People attribute a lower dollar value or a $0 value to what you've built. You're missing out on critical feedback loops to understand what people are willing to pay. And you're shooting your future self in the foot because this is the other problem, is at some point you're going to start charging, and you're going to experience some backlash. So, it's nice to get ahead of that. A few things to think about, kind of food for thought around delaying and kicking the can down the road from a monetization- So, just to reinforce that, your general piece of advice is if you're building a B2B product, start charging immediately. Don't give it away for free. At least have some... You could probably give it away for free but make it clear, "We're going to charge you this much soon." How do you think about that?…

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