Transforming Digital Product Strategy to Drive Free-to-Paid Conversion

At Venn by Two Sigma Investments, I led product strategy and monetization and uncovered a crucial challenge: none of the Platform’s users had converted to paying customers. Lacking data on which Venn features would incentivize users to become paying customers, I integrated a powerful conversational AI tool—Intercom—with the advanced user behavior tracking system Amplitude and used Salesforce to gather and aggregate critical customer data.

In under a week, I designed and implemented an agile system that collected feature usage data on a per-user basis to uncover high-value features customers would pay for. Using insights gathered from the system, I discovered that 80% of free-tier users leveraged Venn to download Two Sigma’s proprietary factor analysis portfolio reports for their individually created portfolios.

Working with the Sales team, I developed a new pricing model that included putting engagement-driving existing features behind a paywall and granting early access to new premium features only to customers who signed up for at least a quarter-long pre-paid subscription.

Results

Launched two weeks before the end of the month to create a sense of urgency, my new pricing model resulted in 30% of all Venn users converting to the premium paid version in just two weeks. Over the next six months, Venn acquired 800 new users, and the free-to-paid conversion ratio rose from 0% to 55%, with 95% paid customer retention. I drove significant growth and profits for Venn through my innovative approach by leveraging AI to uncover valuable customer insights.

I joined the Marquee Investment Platform team at Goldman Sachs and quickly discovered a significant user engagement issue. Less than 8% of external clients had logged on during the prior six months, hindering Marquee’s transformation into a revenue-generating line of business. Through my research, I identified the opportunity to engage Goldman’s equity-focused hedge fund trading clients by externalizing Goldman’s portfolio analytics technologies.

To increase initial client engagement, I proposed offering our software for free, with the Equity Sales team onboarding clients to Marquee. To provide visibility into our business’ progress, I established the amount of trading flow through the Marquee Platform as our main KPI. Over two years, I developed over 40 client relationships and—based on their feedback—prioritized building the most crucial parts of the system first. In collaboration with Goldman’s Data Science team, I introduced a first-to-market Machine Learning-powered portfolio optimization tool.

These innovations led to Marquee’s first year as a revenue-generating business in 2018. There was a 2400% increase in Equity Basket trading flow to over $590MM and a 13,340% increase in external client engagement to 670 monthly active users (65% of Goldman’s Sales and Trading clients). Through my innovative digital product strategy, I overcame user engagement challenges and drove significant growth for Marquee, ultimately turning it into a successful revenue-generating line of business for Goldman Sachs.