We added a free tier to show people how many of their users were account sharing
An interesting challenge we have is businesses being unaware of how many of their users are account sharing, so we added a free tier to show them!
Any other industries have a similar challenge of making people aware of the magnitude of the problem/opportunity?
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Like the idea of a data-gatherer free tier! I thought it would seem like a pretty obvious upsell opportunity (which it is of course) but what new users do get access to seems really useful and actionable. Nice job. (Would you mind if we referenced you in a write-up or similar btw? Always collecting great growth hacks for future DIY Startup School updates)
Had a similar line of thought as @netoff though. Do you see a lot of account sharing at a scale that's seriously detrimental to the businesses you work with?
Hey @mekkie, of course you can reference us.
It isn't about being a detriment, it is more about being a huge opportunity for growth. If you are a streaming service with 25% of users account sharing, that is an opportunity to double or more the revenue for that 25%.
They are the easiest users to convert if you know who they are because they use the product, love the product and are willing to jump through some hoops to make use of it. Compare that to acquiring a new user, getting them on a trial, getting them to pay and retain converting an account sharer is a much better proposition
Thanks!! And that makes a ton of sense (saw your other reply, too); I love the approach you're putting forth, actually. It's a business proposition, but it's a user proposition, too! If you're gathering this information you can harness it to fill in gaps and speak to that ghost user group. Hopefully without hurting or penalizing the legitimate users as well. You've pretty much sold me on this hahah
This sounds very nice, but I think there is an inherent problem with this approach. It is like addressing symptoms and not the root cause of the issue. Applications that are easily shareable, and that people tend to share, have something wrong at the conceptual level, and no tool will ever be able to solve the issue for them. Netflix, which everybody mentions, is an extreme and unique example of this. Applications that are well thought out have no problem. Would you ever share your Gmail account with anybody? Well-designed products discourage account sharing and make it impossible or impractical. If something can be shared then it should be shared. No technical measure should ever be in place to prevent this, as long as you are fine with it. On the other side, Netflix already has a limitation on the number of devices that can be used at the same time, so anything beyond this should not be ever present. If this is not enough for Netflix(or any other company) then they should rethink their business model and if doing it is feasible for them. There is only one place for not-profitable businesses.
Hey @netoff!
I agree not all products are sharable, it is unlikely you are going to share your payroll account with another employee.
However, not every product is able to be designed to be not shared. Gmail accounts are shared all the time, especially by small businesses, as are marketing tools, commercial data tools, education tools, entertainment and more.
The general things that make the accounts not sharable are high value/risky accounts (eg. bank accounts, personal email, personal chat) or where there is simply no value in sharing the account (free tool, HR tool). Personalization helps but the value from sharing often overcomes that (eg. Linkedin accounts are shared regularly to give multiple people access to Linkedin Recruiter without paying per seat).
We have seen limitations on simultaneous streams, total device count or number of ip limits but they prove often ineffective and hurt the legitimate user experience. Netflix has invested significantly in detecting and monetising account sharing users.
From a business model perspective, this isn't about lost revenue or it being a huge cost on the bottom line, account sharing is about turning users who love the product but just aren't paying the right amount into happy paying customers. There experience will be better if they have their own account (collaboration, personalization) and the business will gain additional revenue.
In the B2B world account sharing is so common 1password exists to give structure to password sharing. Often the people account sharing would love their own account, but their company or boss is saying we just use one between everyone. Detecting that and using sales to overcome the budget challenges helps everyone be in a better place.
What we do in practice is help identify these users in real time, say when they are signing in with a friends account and help nudge them to try their own account for free.
I hope that shines a little bit of light on the space. cc @mekkie since they also were asking too.
Thank you for the elaborate answer, I really appreciate it 👍 I am sure there is a need for such a product and there is probably a huge market, no doubt. However, with due respect, whatever I build in the future, I would try to avoid having this problem in the first place. Otherwise, I would avoid doing it altogether. If there is highly likelyhood that I would have this issue, then it is too much risk for an indie hacker to take.
Another possibility: Structure your pricing in a way, this does not affects you. For example, pricing per the organization/account, with the unlimited users, instead of the per user pricing. Based on nuber of websites served, number of messages sent or the amount of the files processed, etc... This is both fair and practical. Because CPU time used and GBs transfered is what incures costs on my side, not the database records occupied by the user email addresses and passwords.
Can you use Netflix as an example to make them relate and see the necessity?
Examples from others is a great idea! We see that content companies get that it can be a huge boost to revenue, but because they haven't seen it before many in other industries aren't sure how it could work for them.
Good luck!
Interesting project. Do you focus more on B2B or B2C? Of course, I was aware of this issue in B2C because of Netflix etc. Is it also a serious problem in B2B?
We see lots in both. B2C has a higher number and in some cases percentage of account sharers, but at a lower price point. In B2B I have seen 7 figure enterprise deals done based on heavy account sharing within an organisation.
B2B account sharing is super common, sometimes more common than in B2C. Someone within an organisation starts using a tool and shares it with a colleague and so on. 1Password and similar tools purpose is to make account sharing in a organisation more secure.
Never knew this was such an issue! Luckily, I do B2B, where this is less common.
Funnily enough account sharing is super common in B2B, 1Password is proof of the scale of account sharing in B2B!
That's a good point lol.
Even more funnily enough though, account sharing doesn't matter with my business model, because it's pay as you go.
So you're just running up the costs of someone else's account if you account share, which still ends up paying me.
Basically, Evoke charges a very small fee per API call dependent on GPU seconds, so account sharing isn't an issue.
Great example of a a pricing model that matches the value nicely no matter if it is one person or two hundred!
Cool product btw!