Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

by Reid Hoffman

A free consumer product can get away with the most flaws, because consumers tend to be very tolerant when it comes to something that doesn’t cost them anything. A free enterprise product needs to be more refined; even if it is free, the stakes are higher in a professional setting. A paid enterprise product needs to be even more refined, but it can still have significant flaws, because these types of products are intended for expert users who may have no choice but to use the product. A paid consumer product has the least room for error. While consumers are very tolerant of flaws in free products, they expect products they pay for to be nearly perfect and will grouse loudly about any significant flaws they find: “What am I paying for here?”