The Freemium business model is a common marketing and revenue model for many startups as well as many large, established companies in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Is this a universally successful model for startups to use - or not? What are the pros and cons? Are there major pitfalls to avoid when implementing the freemium business model?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/04/complete-guide-freemium/

http://mashable.com/follow/topics/freemium/

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-freemium-business-model-2011-4

The goal of this event is to expand, illuminate, educate and foster relationships in the freemium marketing arena.

To that end, this event features top quality speakers on subjects of interest to entrepreneurs and business people in diverse market segments.

Join us for compelling content, insightful pointers, and the opportunity to get your specific questions answered.

What Our Speakers Will Talk About

Our speakers will talk about their close and personal relationship with the Freemium business model and share their experience of what works and doesn’t work.

David Weekly, as the founder and CEO of PBworks (formerly PBwiki) (http://pbworks.com/), developed and marketed a Freemium set of collaboration tools for the SMB market. David will talk about the traction of that freemium offering, and his thoughts using Freemium in his new startup, Gaston Labs (http://gastonlabs.com/).

David Hecht formerly ran sales and marketing at Cloudkick (https://www.cloudkick.com/)(acquired by Rackspace (http://www.rackspace.com/)) which had a freemium offering in the API-driven cloud monitoring space. David will talk about the freemium pricing decision for business services like Cloudkick (https://www.cloudkick.com/), and the role of Sales in freemium pricing models. David, now co-founder & CEO of CloudAmp (http://cloudamp.com/), a sales analytics company for SaaS/Web apps, will also talk about optimizing conversion rates for freemium B2B services.

Don MacLennan, Senior Vice President of product management atAVG Technologies (http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage), a leader in PC-based virus monitoring and security, will explain how AVG successfully used their freemium product to build market share and revenue leading them to an IPO earlier this year (http://investors.avg.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=250967&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1655581&highlight=). For a sneak peek check out this interview:Freemium, Conversion Rates and More: AVG CEO J.R. Smith. (http://www.sramanamitra.com/2012/04/12/freemium-conversion-rates-and-more-avg-ceo-j-r-smith-part-1/)

AGENDA

6pm-7pm: Networking, hors d'oeuvres, Meet & Greet

7pm-7:15pm: What's new in Freemium— Videos, cartoons, questions and audience participation

7:15pm-8pm: Speaker Presentations

8pm-8:30pm: Q & A of Speaker Panel, moderated by Cynthia Typaldos, Kachingle

8:30pm-10pm: Raffles and prizes, networking, wind down

SPEAKERS

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/9/8/0/event_122623392.jpeg

David Weekly (http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=2952&locale=en_US&trk=tyah2), CEO Gaston Labs (http://gastonlabs.com/); Formerly Founder & Chairman, PBworks (http://pbworks.com/),@GastonLabs (https://twitter.com/#!/GastonLabs)

Recently, Business Insider labeled Gaston Labs one of the hottest 25 Silicon Valley companies to watch! Mr. Weekly's previous success story is PBworks (formerly PBwiki), which he created and turned into one of the largest Internet collaboration companies in the world, with more business and educational workspaces than anyone, including teams at half the Fortune 500 and clients like RBC, Facebook, Deloitte, and the United Nations. Mr. Weekly coded the first version of the product, and as CEO built up a team of 25+ (including a top-flight engineering team, enterprise sales, support, and marketing organizations, and ultimately hiring an accomplished CEO), raised $8m+, and headed the company's product, engineering, and IT operations. In November 2011 Mr. Weekly moved to a chairman / advisory role. http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/d/8/4/event_124472132.jpeg (http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhecht) David Hecht (http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhecht), Co-Founder & CEO of CloudAmp (http://www.cloudamp.com/), a Sales Analytics company for SaaS / Web apps @CloudAmp (https://twitter.com/#!/CloudAmp) David has 17 years experience marketing and selling Internet services, and has been involved as an entrepreneur in multiple Internet and Cloud Computing startups. Most recently he ran Sales and Marketing at Cloudkick (and later at Rackspace, after it acquired Cloudkick). Prior to that he was Co-Founder and CMO of GoGrid, a pioneering public cloud infrastructure (IaaS) player, where he handled the Marketing, Sales and Product side of the business. David had earlier marketing roles at eWork Exchange, a freelance job board, and InReach Internet, a regional dialup Internet Service Provider that brought Internet access to many areas of California for the first time. David got a Humanities degree from Stanford University.

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/2/f/b/4/event_124692212.jpegDon MacLennan (http://www.linkedin.com/in/donmaclennan), Senior Vice President, Product ManagementAVG Technologies (http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage) @AVGFree (https://twitter.com/#!/AVGFree) Don served as Sr. VP, Product Management since 2010 and is responsible for defining product strategy and delivering the product development roadmap for AVG, an award-winning computer and Internet antivirus company.

Mr. MacLennan has worked across consumer, SMB and Enterprise sectors, using SaaS and Freemium business models, and held leadership roles in product development and field operations at publicly traded companies including RSA, (security division of EMC), SAP AG, Calico Commerce, Inc., and Pure Atria Corporation. He is deeply knowledgeable about Big Data analytics as a solutions provider and corporate end-user. Among his specialties are sales, marketing, strategic alliances and product management.

Don holds a B.A. in economics from Acadia University, Canada.

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/5/5/2/event_128622322.jpeg

Cynthia Typaldos (http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=24837&locale=en_US&trk=tyah2), Founder Kachingle Premium (http://www.kachingle.com/freemium_conversions/) and Moderator Freemium SF Bay Area Meetup Group

@kachingle (https://twitter.com/#!/kachingle)

Cynthia was formerly employed at BofA and Sun Microsystems, and founded GolfWeb and RealCommunities before starting Kachingle. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley and MIT.

SPONSORS

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=2475+Hanover+Street%2C+Palo+Alto%2C+CA)

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/1/c/c/c/event_128647372.jpegMr. Riccoboni (http://www.pillsburylaw.com/index.cfm?pageid=15&itemid=22538) is a member of Pillsbury's Emerging Growth & Technology practice group in the Silicon Valley office. His work focuses on mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financings, public offerings and other transactional matters, in addition to ongoing general corporate governance matters and company reporting obligations under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Riccoboni worked as a software engineer at BEA Systems, Inc.

Mark Tissing, YourDonation.Com (http://yourdonation.com/)http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/3/0/7/c/event_128832412.jpeg Generously contributed $100 towards food & beverages.

YourDonation will create a simple way to give back for enjoyment and value, regardless of the recipient's revenue model. By nature, the transaction is always initiated by the giver.

This event is organized and publicized in conjunction with Freemium SF Bay Area.

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Freemium Business Model: Gaston Labs, CloudAmp, AVG

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