<
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2023/11/fostering-innovation-in-web-security/>
"I’ve always created growth by focusing on free. It started back in 2003 when I
launched WorkZoo in London. WorkZoo was a job search engine that ended up being
one of
Time Magazine’s top 50 websites of 2005. These days we take free
search capability for granted, but 20 years ago, before Nginx came along, it
was technically very challenging to scale a free search engine on a very small
budget. We did it, and it paid off.
We migrated WorkZoo to the United States in 2004 and it became very popular,
competing with Indeed, which had also recently launched. We eventually sold
WorkZoo in 2005 to a Seattle company. Google had just IPO’d, vertical search
was supposed to be the new hot thing, and it worked out well for us.
Since then I’ve launched many Web applications, all free, and some created
massive – and in some cases viral growth.
So when I sat down with the founder of a very well known security business a
few years ago, I could sense his visceral frustration when he asked me over
drinks: “But why would you give it away for free?”. We were hurting them bad
and they eventually sold the business. They had built their business on driving
revenue by providing site cleanings, and Wordfence had launched free malware
scans and free malware removal as part of our plugin back in 2012. It has
always been a free feature and still is. They were hemorrhaging business at a
furious rate.
In my mind the answer was so obvious that I didn’t take the question seriously:
“Because that’s how you create growth.” It was the only way I had created
growth.
Over a decade since Wordfence launched, I’ve seen many other growth models,
including businesses built on affiliate programs, acquired mailing lists, VC
funded direct response marketing, and more. The question that I had to answer
for almost a decade before I had a fast-growing cybersecurity company on my
hands was this:
How do you generate growth with no money and no traction, out
of thin air?
The answer turned out to be that you write great software and give away the
services it provides for free."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
