4 Nov 2002
PRO launches: 100,000 payments in three weeks
VIP beta on 22 October, rumours in chain letters, and on 4 November PRO goes live for SEK 10 per 30 days. 100,000 payments in three weeks.
But we had a knife to our throat. We had to do something. So we dusted off a premium service we had sketched out and launched it in just a week or so.
- PRO: the make-up editor, the visitor log, status figures in gold, photos in Kollage.
- Rickard: “from that week Lunarstorm has been a profitable company” (IW 2007).
- The prologue: “the whole advertising industry’s jaw dropped”.
- Rickard in 2014: 30% of Sweden’s young people paid every month. Freemium usually converts 5%.
- Rickard to management on 5 November: “Lads, maybe we’ve soon created the Internet’s only killer app.”
- Jonny Johansson saw in the hourly statistics that PRO was spreading by word of mouth and suggested they stop advertising: “People are probably more willing to pay if it’s somethin’ ‘secret’”.
With: Klas Karlsson, Jonny ”TheQ” Johansson, Jay Svensson, Jesper ”Rude” Friberg, Joacim ”Joe” Åstedt, Mikael Josander
Sources: Internetstiftelsen 2014 · Teknikfreak: Lunarstorms julklapp · Internetworld 23 February 2007 · Kapitalet #40: Svensken bakom världens första sociala nätverk