Roundtable Recap: October 13 – FREE Is Not A Business Model

At today’s roundtable, we had a chance to discuss a topic that continues to bother me endlessly – the Internet’s obsession with FREE.

MyStream
Richard Zelson, from New York, New York, discussed MyStream, a music streaming app that allows multiple people to listen to the playlist of one individual, serving, roughly speaking, the function of a headphone splitter. Richard is currently offering the app for free but will begin charging $1.99 for it in November. He currently has 30,000 customers. He asked if waiting until November to start charging was a good idea. I think he should start charging now. Giving stuff for free is a dangerous game, and it is difficult to sustain operations that have large numbers of free users. You then become dependent on outside financing, and that is a slippery slope. It is much better to grow organically with revenue. So Richard, please move forward with your plan to charge money for the value you offer.
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Roundtable Recap: September 15 – Do Your Homework First

At today’s roundtable, we had entrepreneurs presenting from Brazil, Israel and India. In fact, I was pleased to even see an entrepreneur from Kolkata, India, the city in which I was born and raised.

Estate Lister
First up, Siddhesh Joglekar from Mumbai, India, pitched Estate Lister, a real estate portal along the lines of Zillow, targeted to the Indian market. Siddhesh has already validated his business and is catering to home buyers, sellers, and brokers, generating revenues from advertising and sponsorships as well as brokerage revenue sharing.
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