James Edwards (Digital Innovation Lead EMEA at Kimberly-Clark) Are Free Trials good or bad? The question that never seems to go away.

Host: Ken Valledy (Partner/Co-founder at Progressive)
Progressive helps organisations unlock and commercialise new growth opportunities more rapidly than their competition and more effectively than traditional innovation programmes.

The Catalysts Podcast focuses on the key benefits of corporates and startups working together and how these partnerships can become a catalyst for change for the future. In each episode we will discuss a key topic area behind these partnerships with either a startup or a senior corporate stakeholder.

In today’s episode, I want to address the topic of Free Trials, are they a viable option to quickly ‘open the door’ and kick off a partnership with a corporate client or are they a recipe for failure leading to lack of commitment from a corporate who has no ‘skin in the game’ 

 To help me in today’s episode, I am really pleased to have as my guest James Edwards (Digital Innovation Lead EMEA at Kimberly-Clark).  We cover many questions including, what are the advantages and disadvantages of offering a free trial? Are they just an easy way of avoiding getting into a price negotiation? Shouldn't  large corporations just pay startups for their services anyway?

James' contact details:
James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-edwards/

To find out more about Progressive, please contact us on:
Email: Ken@thisisprogressive.com
Website:  https://www.thisisprogressive.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18066213/admin/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Progressive_HQ

Transcript

Ken Valledy  0:03 
Hello, and welcome to series two of the Catalyst podcast. My name is Ken Valledy Partner and co founder of Progressive and this is a podcast series about the power of the startup corporate partnerships and how if they're carefully managed, they can become a true Catalyst for change for the future. Every episode I will discuss the key topic with either startup founder or industry leader who have experienced the benefits of these partnerships firsthand and are willing to discuss and share their key learnings and insights.

In today's episode, I want to address the topic of free trials. Are they a viable option to quickly open the door and kick off a partnership with a corporate client? Or are they a recipe for failure leading to lack of commitment from a corporate who has no skin in the game? To help me in today's episode, I'm really pleased to have as my guest James Edwards, who is a digital innovation lead EMEA at Kimberly Clark. James, welcome to the show.

James Edwards  0:58 
Thanks, Ken. Really looking forward to our discussion today. superbe and it's going to be a really juicy topic.

Ken Valledy  1:03 
So James to kick off, can you provide our listeners with a quick introduction to yourself your background and your current role at Kimberly Clark,

James Edwards  1:10 
My current role in Kimberly Clark is the digital innovation lead EMBA, it's really my job to give everyone within Kimberly Clark in my region the opportunity to look a bit further forward to the future to kind of look into those horizon 2 horizon 3 spaces and I think it goes without saying that within the CPG industry, the consumer goods industry that people like Kimberly Clark, the Unilever's, the masses of these world, they're all fantastic at horizon 1, and sustainable and iterative innovation, we're all very good at doing that. But when it comes to the horizon 2 horizon 3, there's always room for improvement. And that's what I'm here to do in Kimberly Clark, and I say to everyone, I'm here to help them deliver today, but design the future of tomorrow for Kimberly Clark and all of our consumers. So that's my current role. Prior to Kimberly Clark, I started my career out in Unilever, where I was mostly working in market research and consumer insight. I then transitioned industries working to the insurance space and again, working on proposition development and seeing how we can launch our personal life insurance brand here in the UK. One of the most exciting aspects of my career is actually going out to work in Germany for two years, I worked at an accelerator called Allianz Digital Accelerator at the time, now known as Allianz X, which is now a Venture Capital firm. My job was to find startups & entrepreneurs with exciting business ideas, test them and see their market validity and take them through like a lean startup process to really kind of see if there was a future for that idea, hopefully helping the entrepreneur out on their journey to creating a successful startup, but also giving Allianz the opportunity to have an early investment in that startup as well. So yeah, I've worked across multiple different industries within the big organisations within the kind of startup environment as well in the SAAS industry, but also in incubator space as well. So multifaceted, that's for sure. But right here, right now, in Kimberly Clark, looking on that kind of transformational innovation space.

Ken Valledy  3:10 
On this subject of free trials, James and again, this is a really juicy subject, we did a poll last week, the back end of last week, where we asked people on LinkedIn, what they feel about free trials, do they work, or don't they work? And the results were at 22% of people came back and said, Yes, they do. 24% of people came back and said, No, they don't. And 54%. The remainder said, it really depends on circumstances. So all in all, not surprisingly, it really has gone right down the middle, you either 'for it' or 'you're not' or 'it depends'. And then is some really great feedback. JACK said it's really important if you do a free trial to have success measures agreed upfront, so it can be tracked throughout the trial. And that that helps deliver. Mick was talking about it's important to have skin in the game for corporates, so technically, they should they should pay for a trial. But it does depend on circumstances, GUY was talking about how the cost of onboarding comes into it and then KYRIACOS  was saying that they do free trials and funnily enough, they were going to stop but had been so successful, they're going to carry on. So some really, really good feedback from people on LinkedIn and thank you everyone who contributed in that poll. To kick off Joe's, where's your head when it comes to free trials? I mean, what do you think about the whole subject based on your experience previously and now in your new role?

James Edwards  4:23 
Yeah, obviously, since you brought this topic to my attention a few days ago, Ken, I've been thinking about it and mulling it over in my mind, and I think some of the comments there that we saw on LinkedIn were really, really great. And I think they point out a number of really kind of important factors when it comes to this free trial argument. Ultimately, I think I stand in the camp of I think it depends, I think it depends on the circumstances. I think it depends on the two parties involved in the product or service that we're talking about here. The stage of the startup that we're actually having actually tried to approach the other organisation as well. Ultimately, I I think that the key determinant is and someone did mention it, I think there has to be skin in the game for both parties for this to be a success. I have seen it on both sides, I've seen where there have been really great free trials and it's always been at the point where the startup is trying to kind of get the door open into that larger organisation. and they truly believe that they have the product or service that will ultimately lead to a full adoption, but ultimately, you can't go to an organisation to offer something for free without them having to have a vested interest in what the end of that trial is going to be, the person you kind of have that contact with has to have something on the line, they have to be either trying to prove out what you're trying to prove out from the startup perspective, or they ultimately have to have that real kind of desire to actually give it a fair test of what you're actually trialling. So ultimately, I think absolutely free trials can work. But it absolutely does depend on the situation, the product and solution, the stage and the engagement with the organisation that you're trying to approach as well.

Ken Valledy  6:04 
So I fully buy into that and I think that's, that's really true. I know, I've experienced free trials, myself, when I was client side, if I'm honest, not a lot of them progressed past the trial. I don't think that was because the tech was wrong, or the company was wrong or even the brief was wrong. I just think it was this skin in the game thing. If I'm really being candid, I think a lot of the time, because it was a free trial, I didn't really have much skin in the game from the client side, and it kind of got put on the back burner and then it led to when it came to the end of the trial, I got a notification from the startup saying how's it all going and I thought, oh, my goodness, I had forgotten about it and then you are kind of running around and it just never really hit its full potential because maybe my fault, maybe the startups fault, I didn't really have that focus and commitment at the start. It was Yes, let's do a free trial. Tell us what you need and just go ahead with it, but the next day was another day in the office and it got pushed to one side. On that note, do you think sometimes a free trial is great, but it isn't just a case of getting the nod from the corporate to say yes, let's do it, it is also to do with building an ongoing relationship?

James Edwards  7:12 
100% agree, from the startup perspective, I think you have to identify a pain point with the client, that you have to prove out and almost make it so painful that they can no longer do without your offering at the end of this trial. And it's like we talked about when we talk about product and solution development, we always talk about, what's the pain point that we're trying to solve here? Well, you need to go back to the kind of lean startup approach and identify what pain point you trying to solve with the free trial, when you will start up going to that organisation. And as long as you have that hook, I see no problem with there being a free trial, as long as you can absolutely feel that you can ultimately satisfy that pain point within that organisation. And I think a really good example of this would be if you're going to offer a research package, you need to identify ultimately, why do they need the research package? What problem internally is that going to solve and who is the person you need to influence in order to make that that research that they didn't have before is something that they can no longer do without. And when you put all those pieces of the puzzle together, and it you know, sometimes it almost feels like you're redesigning your product to fit customer, but that's ultimately the only way that you're going to sell it through a free trial. So it's about making sure that the end result of that free trial from the startup perspective is so of value to the organisation they can no longer do without it. And if you have that, I think you're you're in a really good space.

Ken Valledy  8:46  
So just flipping it, if you don't have that, then I think it can lead down into a colder sec. And what I mean by that is a corporate will still say yes, it's let's have a go at a free trial. But sometimes it feels like it's just, that's that job done, I can move on to my next problem. As a corporate, we do a free trial with a startup. But there's never really a pain point, there's never really an a problem that needs to be solved. It grabs your attention from the client side. So it doesn't doesn't go anywhere. And I've seen quite a lot of startups get the free trial and they're conditioned to think that we've got business with client x, y, nd then it's almost like the door ironically, isn't open it is shut. It's difficult to get in touch with the client, or maybe it's not too bad first of all, and then it drops off. They don't they can't get back to you so quickly because other things coming up is off their priority list. And then all of a sudden, you get that kind of awful feeling where yes, your technology is working away, but you've kind of lost communication. So you've kind of got that yes, we're working with them technically, but we just don't feel that there's that commitment coming back. And I love your point about the pain point. I wonder if that is it. I wonder if it is because they never really catch your attention. They never really identify that wound is that needs to be healed or whatever term you want to use. So after the initial yes, let's do it and the euphoria that may come with it, communication just drops off because of that.

James Edwards  10:02 
Yeah, I've sent I've been in trials where, where that's that has been the case. And I've been on both sides of it, where that engagement has been created. There's that epiphany of Oh, my God, we're from the corporate side, we're trying to do something new. And we've got it for free. And then from a startup perspective of we're working with client x, it's everyone's at the all time high. But if there's no kind of gravitas and actual substance to what that free trial is going to be, there's no agreed sort of KPIs as to what set success looks like and there's no understanding from the actual startup itself, what the value they're actually bringing can kind of fizzle away. And again, like, I've been very much part of that as well. But again, it's like, as long as you identify what the problem you're trying to solve, and what success looks like, with the two parties together, there's no reason why a free trial shouldn't bring value. So from my perspective, as long as you have that, you do have a setup that is there for success. But if you don't have that, you're certainly going to run the risk of actually burning those bridges altogether. Because if it's likely, you know, unless people change in organisation, it's not often the case you get a second shot. It's people stay places quite a long time, if you don't get it right the first time. And if you're not sure that you're going to provide the value that organisation needs, it's better off not doing it at all,

Ken Valledy  11:23 
One thing that sticks with me when it comes to a free trial, and I kind of go from one side to the other, is are we are at a stage now where corporate should pay for this anyway. I mean, we're getting people's views. I mean, the startup scene is very established now there are lots of large companies now working with startups in many different guises and we've interviewed a few on this podcast. I just feel the whole balance is shifting a bit. Whereas seven or eight years ago, it was a startup would come in and they would present to a large corporate and large corporate would have the power and the balance wouldn't be fair. Now, because there's lots more examples of case studies of companies benefiting from working with startups, are we at a stage now where corporates are expected and should pay for a trial?

James Edwards  12:28 
I really do think it goes down to the kind of perceived value exchange of what's happening. If we you ultimately believe as an organisation that you have found the correct solution for whatever problem you're looking to solve internally or a service that you're looking to kind of onboard and you actually kind of understand that this is something that is already going to add value to the organisation. I think in those kind of circumstances, no matter whether it's a startup or another partner, I think a free trial, then is not always morally correct. I think you should always kind of pay for a service that you're receiving. However, I am also of the opinion on the other side that sometimes you don't know if something is the right solution and I think off it is often more often the case that a free trial is kind of warranted. I mean, just look at the kind of b2c models that we're seeing these days. With freemium, freemium, everything Spotify, ie Canva, Dropbox, it's almost become the new norm that you kind of get to taste the level of something before you buy it. And I think it's now not so morally incorrect for us to be doing that, because that's a way of business as it kind of goes about these days. That being said, there's also other circumstances where I think a free trial is warranted, I think in spaces of horizon three technology. The other day, a startup come to saying, I have this amazing technology that you guys, Kimberly Clark, absolutely want. I'm convinced by it. I definitely wasn't convinced by it because I understood very little about the technology and I didn't understand how it was going to be solving one of my consumers problems that they have currently. And see I just didn't know how it could be integrated into our business. So with those things all together, there was absolutely no chance that I was going to pay for a trial. However. I would never ask for this and I've never asked for a free trial. But if that party came to me and said, I am so convinced that you guys can no longer do business without this and I'm convinced that this you're going to absolutely love this and when you see this with your end consumers that we want to offer you a free trial of this service. I would be open to it, it probably wouldn't be top of my priorities because it doesn't kind of fall into line of what my strategy is, but I would be open to it and it's probably the one way that organisation is going to get through the door. . So it's not always about a large organisation taking advantage of a startup? Absolutely. There's often the case that startups can benefit almost just as much, if not more from a free trial with a large organisation as well. So there's two sides to to answer your question.

Ken Valledy  15:34 
Indeed, and we're seeing it is two sides to this and both sides are very well defended and explained, I mean, you described just then about certain circumstances where a very early stage technology company would come to you and it feels right and it's a very rational approach to have for someone like Kimberly Clark, you know, you'll be taking a risk working with them. So technically speaking, you know, a free trial is a good way to de risk. that opportunity. I wonder, and again, I'm going again, from client side, in the past, and maybe being a bit of a devil's advocate with this, but I wonder if sometimes free trials happen, not because there is a considered approach from the startup, but because there's almost an avoidance of that awful subject when you present to a client, the subject of price. So you're presenting a deck, and it's going really well, and you think this is gonna go really well, we're going to get it and then you come to that question about how much is it going to cost? And I would say, if I'm honest, from a client perspective, that's quite a nervous question to ask. Because if someone's presenting to you, and the tech seems fantastic, you're really praying that when you ask them how much it's going to cost, if it's not detailed in a deck, you're really praying that when they do come back with the cost, it's within the range you have in your head, you don't want to be let down yourself by maybe a cost that is out of your scope or out of your range. But I just wonder if the free trial sometimes comes about because it's an easy way to avoid that awkward pricing discussion and there's so much thought going into how you position it is more like, okay, we do it free? I don't know if you've experienced that, or you feel that or maybe that's just me. Maybe my perception is a bit dated?

James Edwards  17:10 
I can imagine it absolutely happens, but not not so much for myself, I'm always one to want to understand how much something will cost them. I'm always a real advocate of kind of detailed statements of work when it comes to any sort of work with a third party. So yeah, but I absolutely probably think that is the case somewhere else, it's easier to kind of park the hardest conversation of all when it comes to two parties working with one another, right? And I can imagine that absolutely, as a scenario that plays out, the easiest thing to do is to kind of put it on the back burner for a minute, get get everyone interested and kind of move through the system about what it is, before going into that kind of like pricing conversation. But my advice to startups and again, I was , you know working for a startup only about 18 months ago, I would always make sure that the statement of work is very kind of itemised and detailed in terms of where does the money go? Because when you're in a big corporate and you're working with a new organisation, that is always the biggest question when you're actually talking about commercials like, how does this? How would this trial cost 30 grand? Well, you need to as a startup kind of account for that. And part of that is not being afraid to say well, the IP of what our technology or solution is, is worth X amount. That's what a good solution should always have.

Ken Valledy  18:36 
And I think that's a really important point. Because the other view I have on free trials is that absolutely they are an option. But you have to be very clear upfront what the cost of this service is normally. For example, this trial would normally cost you £30K , but for this we will do a free trial or a discounted rate for the first few months. I think that's a really clever way of doing it. I think sometimes where it falls, it will cost roughly this, but for now, for us to get to know you we do a kind of a free trial. And I think it's important that you plant a seed in the the client at a corporate person's head that this is what it would normally cost. One because I think it is just a very good thing to get up front straightaway, even if the money isn't exchanged at that rate. But two, and it'd be good to get your views on this James, when it comes to negotiating the price post the trial assuming it works, you've got that kind of benchmark or that level of investment in the clients head, if you don't park it, if you don't plant the seed at the start it is very difficult to go from £0K and now it's going to cost you £20K. So if you're going to do a free trial, psychologically, I would say make sure that the client and the corporate is aware of what it is going to cost if the pilot works

James Edwards  19:49 
100% I think it's as you said there quite rightly, it's very hard to go up in price it's always often 100 times easier to go down in price. So when the price of a service or what you're actually trialling is very explicit from the start, it makes it the easiest conversation after the trial is over where you go from there. But I also think it's I think it's a really nice kind of almost sales tactic for the startup as well, I agree, like obviously selling something for free, you're often probably taking a hit. But communicating the hit that you're actually taking in the price that you're giving away from the outset is actually a really clever way to saying, well look at what we're kind of offering you, we're going to do this for free, but normally, it would cost x, y, and Z and maybe that's man hours, you know, the day rates of people that are going to be involved licences for a particular solution. If it's a digital tool, or something like that, it just makes it very clear, actually, the level of discount quite high from the outset, but always gives you that kind of gravitational pull back to the kind of real pricing, when it actually comes up to post free trial. And you're actually trying to execute on that kind of commercial deal.

Ken Valledy  20:54 
And I suppose this applies to any cost thing. So if you're going to go to a client and say, we're going to do a discounted pilot for you, but we need to charge something to cover our costs, which I think GUY mentioned on the LinkedIn poll, that's important as well. So if you're going to go a lower price, which covers your cost of onboarding, it's good to see the higher price, assuming the pilot works in advance, so that jump from x to y isn't a surprise or shock to the client when it comes to that negotiation taking place. Absolutely. And I also think, James, there were some really good examples we've had from previous guests. To your point about, you know how to position this and different ways of positioning it. I remember DAN  on one of the previous episodes, from AuraVision  talking about on his first meeting with a client actually having a 15 minute, trial - it takes 15 minutes to instal their tech, which tracks movement in stores, and it takes 15 minutes and straightaway, there's data to show the client and that led to 80 to 90% conversion rate on their product. So a free piece of a free trial, literally very, very quick free trial, but lead to conversion. Also, from memory KIM from Pivago did a 5 week boot camp (for a small cost), with clients to show how their data and their data science works and could be of benefit. And then SHRUTI  from PYInsights talked about having a free demo site where clients could go on and access the platform and have a play with some dummy data to see how things work and actually appreciate the art of the possible if they were to work with PYInsights. So the free trial isn't just this binary thing where you say we're doing it for free. There's some really clever ways now I think, and you know, clever, and technical ways that startups now are starting to go get over that line and open that door to a partnership. Any other ones you've seen James, where people have come in with slightly different approaches?

James Edwards  22:43 
A great examples we had, you know, an events company come to us, they're running several kind of insure tech events across Germany, when it when I was out there working at the startup incubator that was going to be a pretty sizable investment to get ourselves involved with what that event would be is like a lead title kind of sponsor and access them at some of the entrepreneurs that they were kind of sourcing within that. And of course, they knew straightaway, like, you know, the pain point they're probably trying to find young, promising entrepreneurs within Germany and wider across Europe, they identified that within me. And they thought, absolutely, let's just get James and team along to one free event. That, for me, is also a free trial inviting me to one free event that they're running, knowing that I would see the value of what those series of events can bring to me and my team at Allianz x. Yeah, what a great way. It's not necessarily a free trial. But it's a free way to get me into their product and solution. Absolutely. We went there absolutely loved it, and then became a sponsor of those events. So again, there's lots and lots of different examples we can all think about where we may not have been in like a very kind of sophisticated free trial of a product or solution, but there's instances where people have come to us and offered for free, in exchange of knowing that they're going to actually provide value, and then unlock a better and I guess, a more sophisticated relationship with us on a longer term basis, because they've had that initial initial kind of interaction with us.

Ken Valledy  25:16 
So James, we've we've definitely gone on both sides here and you've met, you get some great insights to some of our listeners about, you know, what they can do to improve the chances of a free trial working, have got any examples where a free trial hasn't worked? And why would you say that is the case?

James Edwards  25:35 
Yeah, absolutely. I think that there's been, there's been a fair few, I think there's the, there's been a few examples. across my career, especially when an organisation has come to me or my team and kind of suggested we take a free trial of maybe like an online research service. This is this one's quite common, especially back in my days, in terms of market research, where we're talking about 12 or 15 years ago, was a lot more kind of tools coming online, where we were kind of using the online databases to gather insights from different types of panels. And I think, really, that kind of recipe for disaster, there was, you know, it was pretty obvious, we were one of 100 free trials that were going on at the time, they didn't really understand our business and what was fundamentally needed by us, and really kind of just left ourselves to our own devices to kind of get on with it, and you know, no checkins, about what we actually ultimately needed, or how we were getting on with it. And quickly, like these, these tools are free access to the things just you know, just quickly get cut off, you know, some people lose interest, they stop using them, and then they just become something they tried at one point, but never really kind of got invested into them. I think you know, that that's, that's the most common, I think, like possibly one of the one of the biggest failings of a trial that I have been in, it wasn't necessarily free, but it was pretty low level, prior to the unlocking of other large bigger trial was 'false claims'. In this example, it was for a wearable device, where we were very, very kind of oversold on what it was actually trying to do, and the pain points that it was actually trying to solve for our consumers and really kind of failed, just to live up to what they were actually saying that we were going to get out of this trial. And ultimately, what our end consumers would get out of it as well. And you can imagine, once it did come out that this technology wasn't what it said it was and it was only when we tested it ourselves and actually had experts internally look at the kind of delivery of this technology and what it was capable of that we actually discovered this, that couldn't have been worse and that was the end of the road  for the relationship, So I think there's  another kind of lessons to be learned here, make sure that you set realistic expectations from the start.

Ken Valledy  28:30 
A really good point. What that leads me to think James's it kind of works the other way as well? If you're not clear upfront, with what you're going to deliver in the free trial, what is and isn't included, , you can end up with a corporate asking for more as the trial progresses and I  can imagine that this could lead to a bit of bitterness from the startup. So on the startup side, we're doing this free trial, we're putting ourselves out there and all of a sudden, you're piling more requirements on and if it's kind of difficult to do a free trial for this and then ultimately, the trial doesn't deliver and everyone loses.  So I think absolutely, say what you can do and be honest about what's achievable, but also be very, very clear about what is going to be delivered. You know if you can deliver it, absolutely. But be very clear on that because sometimes there is a perception of if something for free, sometimes corporate will say Oh, why you're doing that, can you do this and can you do that?

James Edwards  29:54 
I've been in that situation on that startup site. Were working in the SAAS industry where we are Living pilots, which aren't free, but again, kind of in that trial space of like low level trials before unlocking a wider, larger commercial deal of, oh, could we just have that one extra thing and kind of buckling to that even though there's a statement of work in place, there's an agreed kind of path of delivery, and expectations around what that trial is. And I think staying true to that, when you're the startup is so important, because the second you kind of do something else for free or for a discounted deal   that's when it becomes a very, very kind of slippery slope. Absolutely. Like we go back to what we were saying earlier, I think I'm a real advocate of if even when you're doing things for free, or even a heavily kind of discounted rate, always make sure that it's detailed in the statement of work of a exactly what you're delivering be the original cost of what that's going to be and making it absolutely apparent that there's no kind of wiggle room in terms of extras on top of what this trial actually involves, as well.

Ken Valledy  31:09 
So James, I mean, some great insights there. And I'm just conscious of time. I know you're a busy man, it's been great to get you on. I knew this was going to be one of those subjects that is going to go over time because there's no right answer and if we had another guest on now, it'd be different views as well. It's really great to have you on I think you provide some really great insights and learnings from both sides.  Just to finish, do you want to give some very top line to summarise some very top line key takeaways for both the corporates looking to potentially say yes to a free trial and for the tech providers to startups thinking about offering a free trial? What your key bits of advice takeaways for both sides?

James Edwards  32:06 
Yeah, absolutely. I think from from the corporate point of view, you absolutely just have to make sure that you've identified who needs to kind of be involved in this trial as well kind of understand what kind of success looks like, there's ultimately kind of like no point going ahead with a free trial, if you don't have the right people invested. I think someone said on LinkedIn, the kind of skin in the game approach, you have to make sure on the corporate side, there is that skin in the game, because whilst you may not be losing money out of this engagement, if it's a free trial, you'll be absolutely losing time and resource. And, you know, I think we all know that that's just as just as important when you're talking about, you know, capacity utilisation these days within organisations. So I think from the corporate side, you need to get everyone on the same page and define success from internally within the organisation. I think from the startup, the biggest thing I can stress is, understand that if you are going to give something for free, understand what is the pain point you're trying to solve, and I've said it a few times, but making sure that you walk away from that trial, with the corporate having experienced a solution that they believe they can no longer do without. And if you feel that you're confident in that position where you can solve that pain point and ultimately give them a tool or product or a solution that can ultimately make give them that warm feeling inside, you should absolutely go ahead with it. Because that is you showing belief in your product that you can ultimately see that go from a free trial all the way to success. I'm also a real advocate of even in the instance of a free trial from the startup perspective, you let them know straight away how much things cost, put together a statement of work, even if the bill at the end that ultimately says the value of it's nil. But just show that what you were discounting, make have the making sure you have that commercial conversation right at the start so that once you transition, once you've sold that pain point, you've got the hook into the organisation, letting them know and understanding from the start that it doesn't come for free. And there is the cost of your service. Make sure that you don't have a difficult conversation later on. And that you make sure that everyone's aware of what it costs. And ultimately that will factor into their decision of 'is it worth it at the end of the trial', and you don't go down that blind corridor of everyone feeling euphoric, and then having the lowest of low or moments when you realise something costs way more than you ever thought it did at the end of the day at the end of the trial. And then lastly, I think from the kind of like startup perspective as well, is just make sure that you're really kind of transparent in the longevity of the trial itself, making sure that again, on that statement of work, you put barriers around what that trial is. So as well as costing it up, just making sure that there's no kind of extra additional like little treats invested in there. Make sure the scope of work is very closely defined, and then it can't be extended. That trial is what it is and at the end of the trial, you'll kind of decide whether you've given enough value for that organisation to kind of continue along with you as well. And finally, if you don't feel that you're going to add value straightaway to that organisation, and you don't feel that you're quite right for them walk away, there's no point having a free trial in a disengaged organisation, you know, ultimately, you're not going to provide value for and you may burn bridges in the future and as we know, Ken, like businesses, it's a small world, and you often run into people again, so making sure you create the right impressions for the right people in organisations, is really fundamental to a startup success as well.

Ken Valledy  35:47 
Super, I couldn't summarise it better myself some fantastic insights/recommendations.  So James, really appreciate your time, that was a fantastic conversation, much appreciated.

James Edwards  36:41 
Thanks, Ken. It's great to talk.

Ken Valledy  36:43 
If you want to contact James for social media details can be found on the notes to this podcast. That's it for this episode. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe to this series. And please rate us and leave us a review on your chosen podcast platform. All contributions are very much appreciated. Thank you.