What is So Interesting with Startup Pricing with Saima Khan

Saima Khan has 10+ years of experience creating pricing strategy and portfolios, revenue management, and business planning. She has 7+ years of experience in international markets as a leader and teammate. She is quick to adapt to change and able to work with different teams in difficult environments. In this episode, Saima shares how you shouldn't price low your products or services at the start as it is hard to increase prices later on, and it might be lower than the market's perception. And she suggests pilot models you can use other than underpricing.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out what these two essential factors to pitch when you work for startup companies as a pricing consultant Learn about the tools used to test the pricing effectiveness of products in a startup company Find out how to do pricing for newly launched products for a startup company   "Always start your business with your customer. Where do they see the value? Focus on that when it comes to products, services, and pricing, and then look internally and see how you can be more relevant to your customers, how you can provide them the best value and be agile about it." - Saima Khan   Topics Covered: 01:45 - What got Saima into Pricing 02:30 - Why she stayed in Pricing 03:10 - The many skills involved in Pricing 03:52 - What's the difference working for a big company versus consulting 05:16 - What companies in terms of size does she work with 05:52 - Why are there few Pricing consultants focusing on startups, and what is her way of working with startups 06:54 - What it looks like pricing for a startup 09:42 - Pitching both business model and pricing strategy to companies 12:36 - How she helps startup companies with smart pricing decisions based on value 14:08 - The biggest challenge startups face in terms of pricing 16:17 - Why you shouldn't go for a low price when launching new products 19:22 - What creates lack of trust in the market 20:02 - Using tools to help clients understand their product's value 22:49 - Her pricing advice that can significantly impact one's business   Key Takeaways: "I think the most interesting part of startup pricing for me is, and I say this again, and again, is the link to the business model. Because for a startup, it's very important to see how the startup is going to charge money, for what, and from who. And it applies to mostly all of the startups but a lot more to software products." - Saima Khan "When I work with startups, I don't start with pricing, I start with the business model, and identifying which customer group is actually deriving the most benefit from your existing product and services, and how you can work or adjust your products and services portfolio to create more value, or that group of customers who you can monetize the most." - Saima Khan "You cannot monetize a product which has not been tried in the market. But the best way to do it is through a freemium model or a pilot model instead of underpricing. Because taking the price up is very hard because you establish the value of that product already." - Saima Khan "I guess we need to educate startups a little bit more on the element of pricing the value they bring because it's natural that whenever you bring something very new to the market, you're a little bit under-confident. And it's natural to underprice your products and services." - Saima Khan   People/Resources mentioned: Bumble app: https://bumble.com/   Connect with Saima Khan: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saima-khan   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/