“Why Trial to Paid conversion?”

When I was at ESPN in 2003 I was working on a rewrite of their Fantasy Football web app. Before launching the app, I convinced my boss to hire a consulting firm to do usability testing on our app (which had a free trial).

One of the major insights we learned was that our callouts to upgrade were woefully lacking (probably because developers wrote them – hey, it was still the wild west on the internet 😉). We addressed some of the obvious issues and conversion skyrocketed - resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in incremental revenue.

Shortly after I took on Product Manager of ESPN.com’s Insider business (a seven-figure ARR product). By focusing on conversion I grew revenue by 25% in 6 months.

I realized that while improving trial to paid conversion can yield huge amounts of money, it’s difficult to know what they key steps are to get a trial to the Aha! moment. And so onboarding is often papered over with expensive Customer Success or Support teams instead of aligning your onboarding with your customer’s expectations.

Over the years I’ve worked on this problem for clients and for my own three B2B SaaS companies. Through that experience I’ve developed a framework to improve trial to paid conversion.

My framework incorporates:

1. Your insights about who your prospects are, what they want to accomplish, and the steps to get them there
2. Understanding the obstacles that prevent trials from converting
3. Addressing these obstacles in your UX so more trials convert

“What makes you different from other onboarding consultants?”

Most other consultants focus solely on your in-app UX. But onboarding is more than a set of tactics. When we work together, we build a strategy. We confirm who your ideal customers are and what jobs they’re trying to do. We validate those with data and then inform both your in-app UX and out-of-app UX with our validated findings.

“What kinds of companies do you work with?”

I work with product-led B2B SaaS businesses doing between $1M and $10M ARR.

“What’s it like to work together?”

Clients have said that I’m pragmatic, thoughtful, customer-focused, and that I listen, identify solutions, and communicate effectively. Here are a few excerpts of their kind words:

“Kareem gets what users want. He has spent years thinking deeply about how and why users do what they do. He’s one of the few people that really gets HCI and usability. Talk to Kareem, you will learn.” - Brian Norgard, CPO, Tinder

And

“I would absolutely recommend Kareem. He’s super smart, helped us think about things that we hadn’t, is a pleasure to work with, and he provided valuable outcomes. “ - Sarah Meyer Bottorff, SVP Growth, Lawmatics

I’m based on the East Coast of Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia and have been working remotely since 2007.

“What’s your story?”

I graduated from McGill in Montreal in 2001 with a degree in CS and Psychology and have been building software since then. I started my career as a developer, moved to Product Management, and left the corporate world in 2007 to start my first software company (an education marketplace).

Since 2011 I’ve bought one B2B SaaS company and started two others. I’ve sold two of them, and the third – called Savio, which helps SaaS teams build roadmaps using product feedback – is growing fast. I’ve led Product at all three.

Along the way, I’ve worked with clients like Predictable Revenue and Headphones.com, brands like ESPN, MySpace, and FOXSports, moderated an 8-figure ARR B2B SaaS CEO mastermind group, coached C-level execs on down to junior PMs, and helped hundreds of software companies build better software.

And now? I want to help you improve your trial to paid conversion rate.