In the Start Up School podcast, a fly on the wall conversation with Seth Godin and a number of entrepreneurs, he says, 'never give anything away for free, cause they have it for free then why would they want I pay for it.' Sound advice and reason I don't teach trail lessons for free anymore.
That was in 2012.
Then in 2015, Seth appears on The Moment with Brian Koppleman. He says in that conversation, paraphrased as 'if you make something give it away for free. Then if people want more, they will pay you for it.'
Is this a contradiction? I don't think so.
For the entrepreneur, you're taking a big risk to start a business, develop a product and market that thing. That's a lot of money to get up and running. Then to give it away for free would be insane. Discounted? Yes, please. Free? No.
Except for some web services, like blogger, the cost is lower and the opportunities to give things away for free or easier. But you get people hooked on that thing then say 'here's a better version of this thing for this much a month.'
For the artist, again the cost is low. Your emotional risk is high, but capital risk is low. If people hate it could crush your spirit and possibly send you spiraling into depression. But it didn't cost you anything to write the book or paint the picture and you probably had fun doing it. It gave you a since of accomplishment. So to give it away for free is no big deal. Then when, an you know there will be a when, someone comes back for more you can charge for the thing. Then hopefully make a profession out of it.
This might not happen. It might not happen for me, it might not happen for you, but it does happen to people so you have to try.
Godin actually says, 'lay out your book in a nice PDF and email it to 100 people. If it's good, then it will get out to 10,000. Then selling your second book will be easy.'
Do you have the guys to try it?
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