Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped with Free Trials and Freemium to $13M

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  When we spoke in 2016, SurveyGizmo Co-founder Christian Vanek had bootstrapped the company to $13 million from Boulder, Colorado. He experimented with both freemium and free trial, and managed to monetize nicely. The company is now named Alchemer. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping with Freemium and Free Trials to $13M

SurveyGizmo CEO Christian Vanek has bootstrapped SurveyGizmo to $13 million from Boulder, Colorado. He has experimented with both freemium and free trial, and has managed to monetize nicely. Read more about the strategies that have worked for him. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were

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Bootstrapping to $13 Million with Freemium and Free Trials: SurveyGizmo CEO Christian Vanek (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What kind of conversion rates did you experience? Are you willing to discuss that? Christian Vanek: Sure, we’re an open book. From our website, we have about 1% conversion rate of visitors to trial or free customers. From free customers to paid customers, we have about 0.7% conversion rate. For our trial customers that come

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Bootstrapping to $13 Million with Freemium and Free Trials: SurveyGizmo CEO Christian Vanek (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: I have a few questions on this. First, talk to me about your freemium strategy. What did you offer for free and what did you offer for premium? Christian Vanek: What we offer for free now is probably too much. That comes back down to the cultural problems in my organization. I tend

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Bootstrapping to $13 Million with Freemium and Free Trials: SurveyGizmo CEO Christian Vanek (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You said you that you rank in the first three search results for survey software. As you said, there is lots of competitors. Why do people buy your software over your competitors? What is the key positioning point that you win on? Christian Vanek: We serve two markets. The first market is definitely

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Bootstrapping to $13 Million with Freemium and Free Trials: SurveyGizmo CEO Christian Vanek (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I was about to ask you about the commercial terms that you negotiated with the company that was giving you all this input about what to build. How did you structure the terms? Christian Vanek: The terms were very simple. It was a gentleman’s agreement to be honest and we still are upholding

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Bootstrapping to $13 Million with Freemium and Free Trials: SurveyGizmo CEO Christian Vanek (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How long did you stay at this? Christian Vanek: I stayed at it for two and a half years before I ran out of money. Sramana Mitra: That brings us to 2001? Christian Vanek: Yes. Sramana Mitra: What did you do next?

Bootstrapping to $13 Million with Freemium and Free Trials: SurveyGizmo CEO Christian Vanek (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the evolution of your career as a software programmer in this travel services company? Christian Vanek: I worked on building the system for that conference company. Then the parent company asked me if I’d like to join them as an actual official developer. I was given more of a traditional developer title.

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