Basil: Right. So, going into the business side now, what do you think is a working business model? Do you think a freemium is the way to go?
Maha: Yes. Yes. And that's been proven time and time again. It started out with Tencent in China and then Chanda followed them up shortly thereafter. I think that it is the best way of monetizing a user base and keeping the user base large and fertile when at the same time, the people who want to pay can pay and the people who want to play for free can absolutely do that.
So, the audience expands when you set a freemium model, and you actually can increase the average price point of a paying user because that paying user might not want to spend $10. They might have wanted to spend $50 or $60, but a subscription model just inherently caps them at a certain amount but a freemium model gives much more flexibility to the user base. I do think that's the wave of the future and it's here to stay.
About the Guest:
“Maha Ibrahim invests in innovative cloud and digital media companies with the potential to become global market leaders. Maha is known in the venture industry for her ability to spot technology trends early, foster growth at her portfolio companies through hands-on operational guidance, and achieve profitable exits for entrepreneurs and investors.”
“Maha joined Canaan’s Menlo Park office in March 2000. She was one of the first investors to recognize the huge potential of social gaming. Maha led Canaan Partners’ early investment in social games pioneer PicksPal (acquired by Liberty Media) and is now a lead investor in Kabam, the world’s largest developer of massively multiplayer social games and InhaleDigital, the first social retail site for online games. Maha also invests in enterprise technology companies leveraging cloud computing to improve business outcomes”
Maha holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT and now serves as a General Partner at Canaan Partners.
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Freemium Model
Maha Ibrahim talks about how freemium business model is the best way to develop a huge user base.
