How to price your product | Naomi Ionita (Menlo Ventures)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Naomi Ionita is a Partner at the venture capital firm, Menlo Ventures. She started her career in engineering in 2002, shifted to product in 2006, and built product growth and monetization teams starting over a decade ago as one of the first PLG leaders in B2B. She was an early mentor at Reforge and her expertise is in building full-stack growth teams and cultures, launching new products, and helping existing products monetize and retain their users. Consider today’s episode a master class on monetization and pricing. We talk about common mistakes made by founders, specific experiments for how to determine pricing, and why initial growth sometimes comes at the expense of revenue. Naomi also introduces the concept of the Modern Growth Stack, how AI will play a role in growth, and what she’s most excited about for the future.
-
Find the full transcript here: www.lennyspodc...
-
Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:
• Miro-A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life: miro.com/lenny
• Notion-One workspace. Every team: www.notion.com...
• Vanta-Automate compliance. Simplify security: vanta.com/lenny
-
Where to find Naomi:
• Twitter: / npilosof
• LinkedIn: / naomipilosofionita
• Website: www.menlovc.co...
-
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: www.lennysnews...
• Twitter: / lennysan
• LinkedIn: / lennyrachitsky
-
Referenced:
Disclaimer: Lenny is an angel investor in a few startups mentioned in this episode: Eppo, Endgame, Pocus
• Evernote: evernote.com/
• Figma: www.figma.com/
• The Van Westendorp pricing model: www.forbes.com...
• OpenView: openviewpartne...
• SaaS business model at Profitwell: www.profitwell...
• Envoy: envoy.com/
• Invoice2go: invoice.2go.com/
• Gas: apps.apple.com...
• Endgame: www.endgame.io/
• Pocus: www.pocus.com/
• Optimizely: www.optimizely...
• Eppo: www.geteppo.com/
• Amplitude: amplitude.com/
• Chargebee: www.chargebee....
• Zuora: www.zuora.com/
• Metronome: metronome.com/
• Orb: www.withorb.com/
• Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price: www.amazon.com...
• Ask the Storybots on Netflix: www.netflix.co...
• Madhavan Ramanujam on Lenny’s Podcast: www.lennyspodc...
-
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Naomi’s background
(06:21) Why Evernote wasn’t able to leverage the kind of growth that Notion did
(08:06) What founders get wrong when it comes to monetization
(12:34) Which features to include in a freemium product
(13:22) Day one vs. day one-hundred premium features
(15:35) Matching price to value for optimal segmentation
(18:50) When pricing should be revisited
(19:38) How to determine price, and why it’s a good idea to have a cross-functional pricing team
(23:06) How to restructure pricing holistically
(25:58) How Envoy learned that they were undercharging
(28:39) The importance of experimentation
(32:19) How to balance growth with revenue
(35:12) What is the modern data stack?
(36:45) The modern growth stack
(42:22) The importance of experimentation in the growth stack
(42:59) Platforms for billing and monetization
(46:13) Why a hybrid model of pricing tends to be most used in SaaS companies
(49:01) Leveraging AI
(49:52) Lightning round
-
Production and marketing by penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
"You can't retrofit collaboration." Such a good line!
This was a very good convo! I downloaded the show, my first of Lenny’s podcast. Thanks Lenny and Naomi!
Pretty impressive that Menlo was able to not only upgrade, but compound the benefit by raising the price. Thanks for sharing Lenny!
Literally starting monetization conversations at the seed stage startup I work at right now. Very insightful!
I'm working on pricing strategy for a new service at AWS and can totally relate with several of your points which go into the decision making. Great insights, thanks Naomi and Lenny!
Great video! Open, interesting speaker!
Love Lenny, but take this installment with a healthy dose of skepticism. Naomi the VC's underlying premise is product folks and entrepreneurs always leave money on the table when pricing their products. The worth of product, she explains, can be measured by talking to customers and surveying them (e.g., Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter). In my many years as a PM, I've distrusted these types of surveys. It's difficult to remove your own bias when administering, and what people say they want and would pay seems to frequently be over stated. She's spot on that pricing should be revisited frequently, and that there's a certain trial and error involved. But maybe she understates the damage over pricing can do. At the end of the day, it wasn't surprising to hear a VC telling us all to push for more, and more, and more, soon, sooner, soonest.
Great feedback 🙏