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Julia Hartz

03/13/14

@ Y Combinator

In hindsight, we shouldn't have launched with a free service in the first place; we ended up becoming a truly premium model based on ticket prices. We won't monetize a free product, which allows us to undercut our competitors and led to thousands of free events being published on our platform.

Video

Julia Hartz at Female Founders Conference 2014

@ Y Combinator

Julia Hartz at Female Founders Conference 2014

03/13/14

Related Takeaways

Mathilde Collin

10/25/18

@ Y Combinator

We started with a freemium model, but realized it distracted us; we shifted to a paid model and consistently increased prices over time, which helped us focus on serious customers.

Julia Hartz

03/13/14

@ Y Combinator

Kevin and I are notoriously horrible at monetization; we launched Eventbrite with a basic service and a premium service, but we never put anything exclusive in the premium service, which confused our customers.

Diane Greene

10/26/13

@ Y Combinator

We decided to offer our product as a fully functional free beta for 30 days, with a commercial price of $299 for companies and $99 for hobbyists, trusting users to pay based on their usage.

Luis von Ahn

12/01/23

@ The Logan Bartlett Show

We decided to implement ads in a way that wouldn't degrade the user experience, ensuring that our free users still receive a quality product while generating revenue for the company.

Brian Halligan

05/08/19

@ Y Combinator

If I were to start HubSpot again, I would implement a freemium model to attract users more naturally before converting them to paying customers.

Jessica Mah

03/13/14

@ Y Combinator

Initially, we thought we were on the path to success, but I later realized that we were not converting users into paying customers because we were too focused on fundraising and PR instead of creating a product that people actually needed.

Daniel Lereya

04/27/25

@ Lenny's Podcast

In the early days, we avoided free trials to ensure we received feedback only from customers who truly valued our product, which helped us stay focused on delivering real value.

Luis von Ahn

12/01/23

@ The Logan Bartlett Show

Our goal is to democratize education, and while we initially thought we could monetize through user-generated translations, we found that a freemium model was more effective for our growth.

Luis von Ahn

05/10/25

@ Stanford Graduate School of Business

We launched Duolingo with a premium model where users can learn for free but see ads, or pay to remove ads, which allows us to fund the platform while keeping it accessible.