# Lessons from going freemium: a decision that broke our business

<https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-going-freemium-a-decision>

- Host: [lennysnewsletter.com](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/lennysnewsletter.com/)
- Saved: December 4, 2023 (2023-12-05T02:11:41Z)
- Record: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/b27a13554a0c/
- JSON: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/b27a13554a0c.json

## What Jamie wrote

CEO of [Equals](https://equals.com) shares their company journey trying a freemium go-to-market.

> In all of our pursuit of getting people into the product, the thing we forgot is that the goal of onboarding is not for people to complete onboarding. It’s not to just get people into the product. **The goal of onboarding is for people to get their first moments of value from your product.** To get “activated.” And removing friction is actually detached from this goal.

Good reminder that you need to contextualize your onboarding experience for your product and your customers.

## Facts

- Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/)

## Appears in

- [WT272: Weekly Thing 272 / Escape, Fuzzy, Melodrip](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/272/), Notable

## Same host

- [OpenClaw: The complete guide to building, training, and living with your personal AI agent](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/5b61d26f0e56/) (lennysnewsletter.com, April 9, 2026)
- [How tech workers are feeling in 2026: a workforce splitting in two](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/97835a3362b9/) (lennysnewsletter.com, October 19, 2026)

## Saved the same week

- [When the committee decides | Seth's Blog](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/57f83a36a040/) (seths.blog, December 4, 2023)
- [I Fight For The Users](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/195742f34b51/) (blog.codinghorror.com, December 4, 2023)
- [How to Avoid the 3 Biggest Mistakes Leaders Don’t Need to Make - Leadership Freak](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/529bed8c161f/) (leadershipfreak.blog, December 4, 2023)
- [Zoom Fatigue is Real, According to Brain Scans](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/550699773ea8/) (elezea.com, December 4, 2023)
- [Daring Fireball: CNBC Gets an Inside Look at an Apple Chip Lab](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/51a823cc9f01/) (daringfireball.net, December 4, 2023)

## Elsewhere

- Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-going-freemium-a-decision