65. In "The Arena" with Manik Suri: Flipping from Freemium and Freezing for the Future

Manik Suri is Founder and CEO of Therma, a technology startup whose mission is to combat climate change by reducing food waste, refrigerant leakage, and energy use from the global refrigeration system. Therma is deployed across restaurants, retailers, and manufacturers nationwide, with leading brands including McDonald’s, 7-Eleven, NOW Foods, and Marriott Hotels.

Join Jim Barnish and Manik Suri as they discuss innovations in the cooling industry, creating an app customers loved yet rarely used, pivoting your business, expanding your sales channels, and experimenting with various business strategies until you find a few that work.

3 Key Takeaways

• Understand Your Customer Acquisition Model: In the past, Therma offered a freemium model, but got burned by customers' churn before the recurring revenue started. Focus on paying customers to better understand what top of funnel customer acquisition works for you.
• Raising Capital Is Not the End Game: “Raising money is really a tool, not an end. It's just a way to scale impact and do things faster.”
• Bridging the Divide: Mass media might make you think that the government and tech companies are at odds with each other. But if you get to know the people involved, it might surprise you to see that they are two groups of people working towards similar outcomes.

Resources
Manik Suri on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maniksuri/
Manik Suri on Twitter: https://twitter.com/manikvsuri
Therma website: https://hellotherma.com/
Therma on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hellotherma

About Our Guest
Manik Suri is the Founder and CEO of technology company Therma. Before founding Therma, Manik co-founded the Governance Lab (GovLab), an innovation center at NYU that developed technology solutions to improve government. He is a former Affiliate of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and has held positions at global investment firm D.E. Shaw & Company and the White House National Economic Council.

Before founding Therma, Manik co-founded the Governance Lab (GovLab), an innovation center at NYU that developed technology solutions to improve government. He is a former Affiliate of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and has held positions at global investment firm D.E. Shaw & Company and the White House National Economic Council.

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