Latest / Community Marketing with Fexingo: Discord, Slack Groups, and Brand Communities / How a 50-Person Slack Group Tested 12 Pricing Models in 2 Weeks
Transcript
- Lucas: So earlier this year I was talking to a founder at a B2B SaaS company — call them DataSync, about 50 employees — and they were stuck on pricing. Luna: Stuck how? Like they had no idea what to charge? Lucas: Well, they had a hunch. But they were about to launch a new tier, and they knew that getting it wrong could cost them millions. So instead of hiring a pricing consultancy — which would've taken three months and cost fifty grand — they turned to a Slack community of about 50 of their most engaged power users. Luna: Fifty people? That's tiny. Can you really test pricing with that small a group? Lucas: You can if they're the right fifty. And if you structure the experiment well. Over two weeks, they ran 12 different pricing models with that group — and the results directly shaped their final pricing tier. Luna: 12 models in two weeks. That's impressive. Let's break down how they did it. Lucas: Exactly. So first, they didn't just ask 'what would you pay?' — that's too vague and people lie. They used a technique called a Vickrey auction. Each user was given a hypothetical budget and had to bid on a bundle of features. The twist? The highest bidder didn't pay their bid — they paid the second-highest bid. That incentivizes truthful bidding. Luna: Right, because if you overbid, you might overpay, but if you underbid, you lose. So it reveals true willingness to pay. Lucas: Precisely. They ran that for three different feature bundles, and got a distribution of price points. But they didn't stop there. They also ran a Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter — that's the survey where you ask four questions: at what price is it too expensive, too cheap, a bargain, and getting expensive. Luna: And that gives you a range of acceptable prices. I've seen that used in consumer goods, but less often in B2B. Lucas: Right. And the combination was powerful. The Vickrey auction gave them concrete willingness to pay numbers; the Van Westendorp gave them the psychological comfort zone. For example, the auction suggested a sweet spot around $49 per user per month. But the Van Westendorp showed that users started feeling it was 'getting expensive' at $39. So they adjusted. Luna: That's a pretty big gap. So they went with $39, not $49? Lucas: They actually tested a third model: a Gabor-Granger technique where you simply ask 'would you buy at $X?' at different price points. That confirmed that $39 had the highest purchase intent. So they landed on $39 as the anchor, with a higher tier at $59 for more features. Luna: So the community essentially saved them from a potential pricing disaster. How did they get that level of engagement from just 50 people? Lucas: That's the key. These weren't random users. They were power users who had been active in the community for at least six months, had submitted feature requests, and had a track record of giving thoughtful feedback. The founder personally invited each one, explained the stakes, and offered a $50 Amazon gift card for participating in all three experiments. Luna: So it was compensated, but not overly so. And the personal invitation probably made them feel valued. Lucas: Exactly. And they also shared the results back with the community afterward. That transparency built trust. Now, when DataSync launches a new feature, that same community is the first to test pricing. Luna: If these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used at work, that's exactly the kind of utility that keeps this show going. We keep it ad-free so we can drill into specifics like this. If that's valuable to you, a small way to keep it going is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, I second that. It's a simple gesture that lets us keep the show independent and focused on what works. So back to DataSync — what struck me most was the speed. Two weeks from question to answer. Most companies spend months on pricing. Luna: And they got better data. Because the community was engaged and honest. How did they ensure the data was reliable with such a small sample? Lucas: Good question. They didn't rely on averages alone. They looked at the distribution and the outliers. For example, in the Vickrey auction, two users bid way above the median — one bid $79. They interviewed those users and found they had a specific use case that justified the higher price. That informed the premium tier. Luna: So the outliers actually helped them segment the market. Instead of ignoring them, they probed deeper. Lucas: Exactly. And they also ran a conjoint analysis — but a simplified version. They showed users pairs of feature sets at different prices and asked which they preferred. That helped them understand trade-offs. Turns out, users were willing to pay more for advanced analytics, but not for more storage. Luna: That's the kind of insight that would have been buried in a traditional focus group. So what's the takeaway for someone who wants to try this with their own community? Lucas: First, you need a community that's already engaged. You can't cold-call 50 users and expect this. Second, use multiple methodologies — don't rely on one. Third, be transparent about the purpose. And fourth, compensate fairly but not extravagantly. The goal is to get honest feedback, not to buy loyalty. Luna: And what about size? Could this work with 20 people? 100? Lucas: Twenty might be too small for statistical confidence, but you can still get directional signals. A hundred would be ideal, but managing 12 experiments with 100 people is logistically harder. Fifty was the sweet spot for DataSync. Luna: It's a reminder that sometimes the best market research comes not from a giant survey, but from a small group of people who really care about your product. Lucas: Exactly. And it's a model I think more companies should consider. The cost is a fraction of traditional research, the speed is unmatched, and the quality of feedback is often higher. The question is whether you've built the kind of community that can deliver that. Luna: That's a challenge worth taking on. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. See you next time.