Freemium Business Model: SurveyMonkey, plus 2 World-Class Marketing Consultants

Join us this month for presentations by Bennett Porter, VP MarComm, SurveyMonkey, and two Marketing Consultants with world-class experience in the Freemium business space. Enjoy networking, hors d'oeuvres and a chance to get your specific questions answered. We have opportunities for Sponsors (https://www.meetup.com/Freemium/pages/Sponsorship_Details/) and are open to suggestions for speakers & topics. (See below for more information.)

This month's event will be held at http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/6/4/7/0/event_135505712.jpegpariSoma in San Francisco (http://www.parisoma.com/). They provide a fully functioning coworking, meeting and class space in the heart of innovative downtown San Francisco. Please see more detail on our Sponsors Page (https://www.meetup.com/Freemium/sponsors/).

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/4/a/0/event_137853952.jpeg

Kachingle (http://kachingle.com/) provides funding every month for venues and food. Kachingle Premium (http://www.kachingle.com/freemium_conversions/) is an App bundling platform that accelerates conversions from free to premium. Please see more details on our Sponsors Page (https://www.meetup.com/Freemium/sponsors/).

What Our Speakers Will Talk About

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

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/6/f/b/0/event_137848592.jpeg Bennett Porter, Vice President, Marketing Communications at SurveyMonkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/) will relate what it was like to be Freemium before "Freemium" and how they grew with a strong viral component to their offering. SurveyMonkey has taken an unconventional (for Silicon Valley) route to success...learn how they did it.

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/9/b/b/6/event_137679862.jpegChris Weltzien, Entrepreneurial Advisor, will talk about his experiences at previous companies including: Zone Labs: startup that used Freemium in 2000 eventually sold for $290 mil in 2004; Tenebril: startup that pivoted into Freemium - did not work; Exploit Prevention Labs: startup that used Freemium to drive awareness and users (not revenue) sold to AVG in 2 years at 6x to initial investors; Avira & Avg 100M+ user bases leveraging Freemium to become global consumer tech companies.

http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/0/5/a/event_135508762.jpegLee Amon, Visionary Marketing Professional & Principal Consultant at MarketQwest Associates (http://marketqwest.com/) and Adjunct Professor, will share his experience in guiding his startup clients on their selection, or not, of the Freemium business model for monetization. He will describe the analysis they went through as they selected Freemium, and what tipped them to go one way or another. Additionally he will detail how they plan to trigger the Premium purchase. Lee is also familiar with several sites that are profitable using Freemium and he will share insight into what they are doing to make this so. See Lee’s recent blog post: “Freemium pricing – Do’s and Don’ts (http://marketqwest.com/freemium-pricing-dos-and-donts/)."

AGENDA***Note time change. We're starting at 6:30.

6:30pm-7pm: Networking, hors d'oeuvres

7pm-7:15pm: Introduction to Freemium— Videos, cartoons, questions and audience participation plus sponsor messages

7:15pm-8:15pm: Speaker Presentations

8:15pm-8:45pm: Q & A of Speaker Panel, moderated by Cynthia Typaldos, Kachingle

8:45pm-10pm: Raffles and prizes, networking, wind down

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS

http://photos1.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/6/a/2/e/event_137847182.jpeg (http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=24837&locale=en_US&trk=tyah2)

MODERATOR: Cynthia Typaldos (http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=24837&locale=en_US&trk=tyah2), Founder Kachingle Premium

@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.

Bennett Porter, Vice President, Marketing Communications, SurveyMonkey

Bennett joined SurveyMonkey in May 2011. Previously, she was VP, Marketing of Yahoo!'s Emerging Markets practice, overseeing all marketing functions in Southeast Asia, South America, India, the Middle East and Africa. Bennett also managed the Yahoo! Buzz Marketing team and developed award-winning programs for non-traditional marketing. Prior to that, she worked at Ogilvy and Manning, Selvage and Lee in New York City. Bennett received a BA in English from The Colorado College and a MS from the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Chris Weltzien, Entrepreneurial Advisor

Chris began in the Freemium space in 2000 as Vice President of Consumer Business at Zone Labs, where he transform the company’s consumer/SOHO business from its freeware roots to a global provider of security solutions with more than 30 million users. As President and COO of Exploit Prevention Labs Chris lead the freemium software company from inception through sale to AVG anti-virus. Other industry roles have included VP Business Development at AVG and Managing Director, North America for Avira -- both freemium anti-virus vendors with more than 100 million users. Chris is an advisor to PrimaDesk Inc (https://www.primadesk.com/) a freemium online productivity solution.

Lee Amon, Visionary Marketing Professional & Principal Consultant at MarketQwest Associates (http://marketqwest.com/)

Since January 2000, Lee has been Principal Consultant for MarketQwest, (http://marketqwest.com/) a Marketing Communications and Strategy company. His areas of expertise include all aspects of crafting and executing marketing plans, including Internet-based strategies such as social media and web-presence, branding and identity, as well as traditional forms of marketing communications: direct sales, print advertising and collateral materials design, sales development and channel strategy. His prior experience includes directing marketing and business planning for Silicon Valley Accountants, (http://www.svacpa.com/) MDL Information Systems, and Chips and Technologies. He was also Adjunct Faculty at Upper Iowa University and University of Phoenix.

General Information

Members! Send us Speakers. We are actively looking for speakers to be on our monthly panels. If you would like to be considered or have any suggestions for speakers, please email Cynthia Typaldos at cynthia@kachingle.com, or contact us through Meetup's email capability.

Sponsorships Available (https://www.meetup.com/Freemium/pages/Sponsorship_Details/): In order to help members achieve visibility and cover costs of food and room rental, we offer two Sponsorships Levels: Venue Sponsor and Premium $100 Sponsor. Sponsors are highlighted on this Freemium SF Bay Area Meetup site, on the Sponsors (https://www.meetup.com/Freemium/sponsors/) & Past Sponsors Pages (https://www.meetup.com/Freemium/pages/Past_Sponsors/), honorable mention by Cynthia Typaldos—Moderator, before the presentation, and more (https://www.meetup.com/Freemium/pages/Sponsorship_Details/). We limit Premium Sponsorships to the first 5 paid. To register your Sponsorship, please contact charlotte.monte@kachingle.com. Thank you!