The "Belief Freemium" Strategy That Took This Startup From $0-$8 Million A Year

Freemium sounds great on paper.

All you’ve got to do is build a product, give free access to a limited portion of it and let users fall in love with it so much that they upgrade to the premium version.

It’s a strategy that is responsible for the success of companies like Dropbox, Zoom, Skype, and others.

But the reason that over 90% of startups fail is because they don’t make enough money.

And using a freemium business model is one of the main reasons that they don’t.

The Problem With Freemium

Only 2% of your market is actively looking to buy what you sell right now.

But, relying on this 2% to grow your business is not a good decision.

This is because they are expensive & hard to reach. What's more, even when you can reach them, you're fighting an uphill battle to stand out from the crowd of all the other solutions that they are looking at.

In order for your startup to succeed, you need to be able to effectively sell to the 98% of your target market that is NOT actively looking to buy right now.

But there's a problem

They aren't looking to buy right now.

As a result, any marketing message that attempts to sell them a product is going to be met with sales resistance and be ignored.

As the saying goes we love to buy but we hate being sold to.

This is why the freemium model was created

By offering access to the product for free, the idea is that you don't trigger sales resistance.

As such, you should be able to capture their attention and incite them to try your product because, “hey it’s free, why not”.

The idea being that, because you would have created such a great, sticky and useful product, they will fall in love with using the free version and upgrade to the paid version to continue benefiting from it/get more of the benefits of the product.

But, unfortunately, for the majority of startups trying this business model, it doesn’t work

Why It Doesn't Work Very Well For Most Startups

1. This business model is no longer new or novel

The part of our brain that manages our attention is called the Reticular Activating System (RAS).

This filters out unnecessary information & allows in only that information that is useful.

The RAS tends to ignore information it already knows and allows information in that is new, surprising or controversial.

It's why you operate on autopilot whilst walking down a street you know but experience sensory overload when you travel to a new and foreign place.

The freemium business model is no longer new or novel - many startups use it these days.

Therefore it doesn’t capture as much attention as it used to and the startup doesn’t get nearly as many free users as those who used the freemium model back when it was new & novel.

2. It's VERY hard

It’s VERY hard to create a product that is so amazing, sticky and essential that free users upgrade en-masse to the paid version.

Not only that, but there's also a complex balancing act between how much of the product to give away and how much to hold back.

If you give away too much, they won’t see the need to upgrade.

But, if you give away too little and you risk not convincing them of the utility of your solution and therefore failing to convince them to upgrade.

All this means that the vast majority of startups using the freemium business model don't generate many free users and they struggle to convert those they do into paying customers.

As a result the startup generates little revenue and so ends up failing like 90%+ of all startups.

But What About Those Startups That Do Succeed With Freemium?

Of course, you're probably thinking right now but what about those startups that succeed with the freemium model?! It clearly works!

Of course, you can still succeed with the freemium business model.

But you’re making life unnecessarily hard for yourself if you do use it.

To use an analogy, it’s like swimming a 1 mile against a strong current. It’s possible, but it’s hard and the vast majority of people that try fail.

Entrepreneurship is hard enough as it is, why make things harder for yourself if you don’t have to?

Why not swim with the current rather than against it?

That’s what you can do with a strategy called The BLUNT Method.

The BLUNT Method - The Benefits Of Freemium Without The Risk

Instead of giving away part of your product for free, you instead give away a specific belief (a BLUNT belief) to your potential customers.

I call this The BLUNT Method.

This is a much more effective way of sidestepping this sales resistance and being able to successful sell to the 98% not actively looking to buy right now.

Why?

Because:

1. As we will see in a second, a BLUNT belief is inherently novel and surprising (& always will be, regardless of how many businesses use it). This makes it incredibly effective at capturing the attention of even the 98% that aren’t actively looking to buy right now.
2. It’s so much easier to create a BLUNT belief that it is to use the freemium model. There’s no balancing act with it - the BLUNT belief is free and the product is paid. There’s no worry about not giving enough away or too little.

So, what is a BLUNT belief?

BLUNT Belief Description

A BLUNT belief is a belief made up of 5 characteristics that are summed up in the mnemonic BLUNT.

• Brand-new: the belief is a brand new belief (that also contradicts their existing belief) about the best way for the target audience to reach a desirable outcome they have.
• Leading: it leads back to what makes the company’s products unique.
• Unfamiliar: it either introduces, or ties into, an element of unfamiliarity in the target audience’s lives.
• No product required: although the belief leads back to what makes the product unique, the target audience doesn’t need the product to believe in and implement the BLUNT belief in their lives.
• Traction: the products that the company sells (and the belief therefore leads back to) already have existing demand.

Example - Bullet Journal

This is exactly what Bullet Journal founder Ryder Carroll did.

He created a BLUNT belief and gave that away to potential customers and by doing so has created a one-man lifestyle business that generates $8 million a year in revenue.

That BLUNT belief was the belief that the best way to be productive & focused was to write everything down in one place - a specific type of analogue journal that Ryder called a bullet journal (named after the use of bullet points within the journal).

This was:

Brand-new

Nobody else was promoting this belief to his target audience and it contradicted what they believed was the best way to be more productive (use multiple different digital tools to stay organised).

Leading

This belief leads back to what makes his products unique.

Now, unlike many of the startups that have used this strategy, Ryder actually created his BLUNT belief before having any products to sell.

As such, he didn’t need to build his belief based on what made his products unique, but was able to build his products from the very beginning to be the only ones that tied into the Bullet Journal belief.*

*Note that, as mentioned above, this isn't necessary. One can create a BLUNT belief based off an existing product as the case studies on my website (www.thebluntmethod.com) show.

So far he has created a physical notebook for customers to use as their bullet journal, as well as a book, an online course and a companion mobile application.

Unfamiliar

It tied into unfamiliarity in the target audience’s lives. They were (& are still) being bombarded with more information than ever before and they were unfamiliar with how to manage such an overwhelming amount of information and be productive.

No product required

As already mentioned, unlike many of the startups that have used The BLUNT Method, Bullet Journal had no products to sell at the beginning so this was automatically the case.

BUT, once products were introduced this remained the case. One can believe in and implement Bullet Journal without buying any of the products that Ryder sells.

Traction

The products that Bullet Journal sells (journals, books, courses, mobile application) already have existing demand - people have been buying these for decades.

So, Why Do BLUNT Beliefs Work?

Capturing Attention

Like freemium, BLUNT beliefs make a free "offer" up front - there is no product required (N in BLUNT) to believe in and implement the belief.

This sidesteps the sales resistance that selling a product does.

BUT, unlike freemium, BLUNT beliefs capture massive amounts of attention.

This is because they are brand new and contradict an existing belief that the target audience holds about the best way to achieve their desirable outcome (B in BLUNT).

This is also why BLUNT beliefs will always capture attention even if every business in the world uses this strategy - unlike the freemium business model which was only novel and new when few businesses were using it, BLUNT beliefs are inherently novel and new and so will always capture attention.

Convinces The Target Audience To Believe It

Obviously a BLUNT belief is useless if the target audience doesn't drop their existing belief and replace it with the BLUNT one.

So why are BLUNT beliefs convincing? Why do people believe in them? Why did people adopt the Bullet Journal belief en-masse?

Well, again, there is no sales resistance triggered because no product is required to believe the belief or implement it.

But, beyond that, it ties into an element of unfamiliarity (U in BLUNT) in the target audience's life.

In other words, it either makes them aware of a change in the world (or is tied to a change they are already aware of) that throws into doubt the existing belief's validity.

Combined with proof that the BLUNT belief is better adapted at achieving the desirable outcome in this changed world, this makes it very likely that the target audience will adopt the belief.

In the case of Bullet Journal, this proof came from the fact that Ryder Carroll created the belief and system in order to deal with his ADHD. If this system worked so well for someone who had spent their entire life living with sensory overload because their brain didn't filter information very well, then it would work for people without ADHD dealing with this new world of information overload.

Convince The Believers To Buy From That Company Only

So, we can see how a BLUNT belief captures the attention of the target audience and convinces them to believe it and implement it in their lives.

But, how does it convince them to buy? And buy only from the company that sells the BLUNT belief at that?

Well, although believers don't actually need to buy a product to help them implement the belief, they inevitably end up seeking out products to help them.

Why??

Because, for better or for worse we live in a consumerist society. We have all been conditioned to buy things to help us do everything - even when we really don’t need them.

And so, as a result of this conditioned consumerism, believers will seek out products to help them.

And, because the belief leads back to what makes the company’s product unique, the only product that they can buy is that company’s - something they don't need to be further convinced to buy because it's a product that they are already aware of (it has existing demand) and as a result there isn't any skepticism behind whether it really works or is worth buying.

How To Use The BLUNT Method For Your Own Startup?

Unfortunately, this?strategy has been understood by most people, including even the companies that have used it like Apple & HubSpot.

It's why I've created?thebluntmethod.com. Visit the website to:

• Read the case studies of other companies (of all shapes & sizes - from bootstrapped indiehackers to funded startups like HubSpot & others) that have used this strategy when they were startups to create breakthrough growth.
• Learn exactly how The BLUNT Method makes sales & marketing messages more persuasive, creates more word-of-mouth growth, increases the size of one's target audience, enables businesses to sell more things to existing customers and create unbeatable long-term differentiation.
• Learn how to apply this to your own startup to create breakthrough growth.

About Chris

Chris has spent nearly two decades (and counting) marketing and selling products, services and software, both on and offline, in multiple countries around the world.

He has worked with businesses of all sizes – from startups to companies like Microsoft, Google, SAP, Oracle, Groupon and others, and has also created, marketed and ran multi-million dollar industry conferences in many different industries and countries around the world.

Chris is also, an accomplished writer, having written for numerous publications including The Times, one of the United Kingdom’s most well known newspapers.

Chris helps startups find breakthrough growth using?The BLUNT Method.?