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Google Keep is a free product to save, share notes etc. How would you make it a subscription product & monetize it?

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Answers (4)

Dhiraj Mehta

Just for clarity, Google keep is a free product where customers can-

create notes, lists.
Share notes
Has capability to set reminders based on location & time.
Synchronizes across multiple devices like laptop, mobile app.
Its more of a personal use product and not a business product.

Our goal is to make it a subscription based product so as to generate revenue from it.

Customer segment who use keep:

Processionals who quickly want to take meeting notes or note down ideas before building on each of the points or while reading an article and want to quickly save it for future reference.
Young tech savvy users for creating lists for various reasons like shopping list, list of items to be taken while planning for a travel.

Strategic choices:-

?Offer certain new premium features for which customers are asked to pay monthly/yearly subscription fees. Premium features like –
1. Organize notes in folders.
2. Search based on voice
3. Email the note or send the not as a hangout message to specific people.
4. Having option to save any article using Google keep chrome extension to specific labels/folders
5. Saving article for reading offline.
Restrict no. of notes/max size per note for free version and unlimited for billed version
1. For example at max u can have only 50 notes in free version with max size per note as 25 mb.
Monetize by showing personalized ads to the customers and launch a subscription product for ad free service.

Next would like to evaluate the choices based on below evaluation matrix:-

?Customers:
1. Option 1: Customers using Keep for managing meeting notes, discussion points would be interested in paying the subcription fee. Also this option will ensure that that app remains as is for existing set of customers otherwise if some features are cut down in the free version, customers would be unhappy and might consider moving to a competitive app.
2. Option 2: This option of restricting storage space will cause some discontent but customers will eventually adopt if the size limitations are competitive enough and 2ndly since customers already have a lot of data on the tool thus has stickiness.
3. Option 3: This option will clutter the UI for existing customers and since competitive apps have free versions without ads thus we might loose customers to competition with this option.
Competition
1. There are many competitive products in the market which offer similar services like evernote, onenote and they also offer freemium models so going for a subcription model is not going to lead to a backlash from customers. It should be acceptable. Option 3 is something which is usually not clubbed in a notes keeping app and thus to remain competitive we should avoid option 3 as it might clutter the UI.
Alignment with Google’s model
1. Option1/2: For other products like gmail, Google doc, sheets also u have free version with restricted space and functionality where as there is a premium version of gsuite with more storage space and premium functionalities thus it is alignment with the current business model Google has for other products.
2. Option 3: Is not in alignment with current model. Currently google does not show ads in applications like gmail, doc, sheets etc so showing ads in Keep would look weird and would spoil the UX as well.

Thus would recommend going for a freemium model. Where a Option 1 & 2 are implemented and available if subscription is taken by the customers.

Karan Trivedi

Clarifying questions

Can we consider other means of revenues or just the subscription?

NOTE: I am assuming we can also suggest some other ways of monetisation as well

There can be following ways to monetise a digital products

Adopting subscription based model
Charging upfront fee for download
Charging fee for lifetime
Advertisement
Licensing the product
Keeping the core features free but charging for extra features- charging premium subscription

Now if we talk about google, google is known for providing various products to assimilate your information or search something for free. Hence below mentioned option are clearly not a wayforward for google to monetize its google keep-

Charging the upfront fee for download
Licensing the google keep is also not an option here because if it would have been some technology specific use for some industry , google could have used this strategy to license the product to some organisations

Ways by which google can monetise google keep

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Subscription model

Under subscription model

Core feature of google keep should be kept free but to avail extra features , user should be asked to subscribe

Felipe Ribeiro

Interesting! I’m not a Google Keep (GK) user, so I have a few questions about the exercise. Want to make sure we’re aligned on the product and on the question before I get started.

Does it also include reminders? Yes.
Is it integrated with other Google products such as Gmail? There are some integrations available.
Can you use it in multiple devices? Yes.
When you say “monetize it”, are your referring to revenue or profit? Revenue.

Ok, great! First, I’d like to think about the mission of the product and the users. Then I’d like to brainstorm a few user pain points that we can address at a premium. Next, I’d like to prioritize them based on TAM and complexity of implementation. Finally, I’d like to price it.

1. Mission and user groups

Based on the information so far, I see Keep as super aligned with Google’s mission of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. This can include public – e.g. web pages, links – and private information – e.g. user private google docs and sheets.

In terms of users, there are individual users and corporate users (part of G Suite). Given that corporate users already pay for G Suite as a bundle that is priced holistically, I will make the assumption that we will not increase the price of G Suite due to new features baing launched on GK, given that it represents a fraction of the value provided to corporate users in the Suite. I also haven’t seen Google launch features for free and then start charging for them. I think that would betray users trust on the Google brand. Is that a fair assumption to make? Yes, please continue.

Users	Current Features	New features
Corporate	Included in GSuite	Upgrade to GSuite
Individual	Free	New Subscription

Ok, based on this information I would like not to change pricing for existing features and focus on creating value-added features for GSuite subscription upgrades, and turn Individual pricing into a fremium model that will give individuals access to these enterprise grade features.

2. User pain points + prioritization

Users	Pain Points	TAM	Value for users in TAM	Complexity
Corporate	I have to manually take notes during Google Meet sessions in Gmail and create GK action items.	# of people using GMeet * % who would benefit from this feature = # of Orgs using G Suite * Avg number of seats per Org * % who would benefit from this feature = 5.6M companies in US * 10% using GSuite * Avg 10 seats per org * 10% who would use this feature = ~500K	Very High (lots of meetings per day AND big time savings taking notes)	XL
Individual (personal commitments, shopping lists, etc)	I have to manually add items to a new shopping list each time I go shopping i.e. I can’t keep a “running” list. It’s not easy to turn my shopping list into an online order from a grocery store. Shopping items are not organized by category e.g. vegetables, toileteries, clothes, meats.	# of individual potential Keep users = # of people in US * % needing to keep reminders = 300M50% = 150M 150M % shoppers = 150M * 1 person shopping per household / Average 3 people per household = 50M 150M * % shoppers * % shopping mostly online = 50M (from previous) * 20% = 10M Same as (2.) = 50M	Small Medium Small	S XL M
Both	Having to cross-check between Gmail, Google Calendar, and GK to make sure I’m not missing any action/reminder.	Corporate: 80% of G suite users. Individual: 50% of Google Calendar users = # US population * % of population who are G Calendar users = 300M * 10% = 30M	Corporate: High (business users rely heavily on calendars and reminders to conduct their jobs). Individual: Medium.	XL

Based on the above, I would focus on the first pain point and give corporate users the option to automatically transcribe Google Meet calls, automatically save notes in GK, and make recommendations for action items (as GK reminders).

3. PricingGiven that this could be a potentially costly product (transcription in real-time), I would consider the average cost of the service per G Suite seat per month, and apply a markup on it.

For example, if the average user has 10 meetings per month that are going to be transcribed into Google Keep, each meeting takes 30 mins on average, and the cost of transcription is $0.5 per meeting, then the cost per seat per month would be $5.

Then I would apply a markup of X% on top of it – e.g. 100% – so that the service would cost an additional $10 per seat per month on top of the original GSuite price for Corporate users. Individual users would be able to access it separately from GSuite for $10 per month as well. Although the interest from individual users is probably going to be small as a % of the user base, given that the user base is large, it might be significant as a % of total users of this feature.

Final NotesThrough use case analysis and prioritization, it became obvious that, at this time when remote work is booming, the biggest value we can add to users comes from saving users time by automatically transcribing video calls and taking action items. Each G Meet call will have GK notes and reminders tied to it. The estimated 500k addressable market in the Corporate segment could bring in $5M (500K * $10) in additional revenue per month to the business. And 50% of that will be profit.

Nathan Endicott

A product strategy interview question like this can be approached in the following way.

Google Keep is a free product to save, share notes etc. How would you make it a subscription product & monetize it?

Interviewee: Just so that I understand the question, the goal is to improve “Google Keep” with the goal of monetization?

Interviewer: Yes

Interviewee: By monetization, can I assume revenue?

Interviewer: Okay

Interviewee: Google Keep is fairly mature product, can you help me understand more about its usage and any customer feedback that you have heard on this product so far?

Interviewer: We have not heard anything specific but the product continues to have medium to high engagement

Interviewee: Thanks for sharing that information. I will take a few seconds to think about the problem, and we can discuss more

Interviewee: As a next step, I am going to brainstorm a few customers, pick a user segment to focus based on TAM, willingness to pay, discuss some user needs and pain points, prioritize painpoints, and come up solutions, and finally recommend a solution. We can get into metrics after that if time permits.

Interviewer: Sounds good

1) Who are the customers?

Busy professionals – To make to-do lists, grocery lists, on-the-go thinking notes

Students – To take notes for classes

Stay at home parents – To make notes of daily tasks

Prioritize busy professionals based on 1) Dispensable income 2) Larger user base

2) What are their pain-points or user needs?

Let’s think about the user journey to come up with pain-points or user needs

Open Google Keep, find an existing list or create a new list, add items to it.
Share it with collaborators
Find a note
Remember to use and access it at the right time

Make the to-do lists actionable via nudges
Be able to easily access notes via better organization
Be able to easily add items to it
Be able to easily import items to other platforms

Prioritize pain-points based on end-user impact, and hence would want to prirotize #1 so that customers can benefit from completing tasks in a timely manner and feel good about themselves:

3) Let’s brainstorm some solutions for the pain point that we aligned on earlier:

1) Keep Reminder: Tool adds default dates based on categorization of notes and sends a reminder via text or an email or calendar

2) Keep Assistant: Apply ML on notes, and google assistant helps in various ways – reminds to get groceries when outside based on proximity to stores, offer to make a call to set up an appointment, and remind a user about remaining tasks at an opportune time on a daily basis or a weekly basis

3) Integration with Gmail, Maps, Speakers so that a user could access the relevant tasks at different locations so that they are reminded to complete them when they see them at different ingress points

As a next step, let’s prioritize these solutions based on the ROI i.e., effort to build a solution vs. the end user impact

Solutions	User impact	Complexity
1	Low-medium (too many emails, may not get user’s attention)	Easy
2	High (makes it really easy for customers to have actionable to-do lists)	High (Will need a lot of training data for the tool to get parse notes correctly, and suggest a right actionable item)
3	Medium (seeing their notes in the right location may help users to remember them and complete them in a timely manner)	Easy-Medium ( Integration is easy but the right customer experience i.e., frequency of showing keep notes, how to show them etc. is difficult)

Recommendation: Based on my analysis above, in the short term, I recommend solution #3 i.e., show keep notes at the right location in the right times, and solution #2, a Keep assistant, an intellligent way to boost up productivity in the long term!