Peter Diedrich had a $200 million fund as a venture capitalist. He became the CEO of Mobivox, a company he originally invested in. In this “Lessons learned” segment, Diedrich talks about his three pieces of advice to mobile startups.
– Virality can work both ways. A lot of services are based on virality, he said. “If it’s great, it should lead to some exponential growth. If it’s not a great quality service, you might end up with exactly the opposite. Everybody saying, ‘I’ve had it. I’m not coming back.’ Plan your virality around your ability to execute.”
– On the fremium model – “If you’re going to build an audience based on free, that can only last so long and VCs will never be happy with anything other than monetization plans that are practical and that you can execute on. Plan it early and plan to execute it early.”
– Why the move from B2B from B2C – “Consumer plays require a lot of money to grow. You need a lot of venture backing and a lot of luck.”
