🏔️ Free Tools and Sidecar Products

Hey everyone,

Welcome to the SaaS Hill, a weekly newsletter that tries to predict the future of SaaS.

Let's discuss Free Tools ⚒️.

⭐️️ Intro

Here is what we will discuss today:

• 5 predictions about Free Tools

• 21 examples of the trend

• deep dive into Free Tools

• 7 experts to follow

• 5 useful links

• 3 related trend reports

🤔 Predictions

1. With the rise of product-led GTM, more companies will also embrace product-led marketing. Free tools may be a great option here. Drew Teller wrote an interesting The Product-led Marketing Guide.

2. People love free stuff. If free giveaways work in e-commerce, why shouldn’t free products work in the SaaS space?

3. So we will see more and more free tools that will support the growth of the main SaaS product. Some PLG experts already named these “free tools” as “sidecar product” (SP), while the main SaaS product, in this case is named the “core product” (CP).

4. So the main idea here is to build an appealing free tool or a sidecar product that will be complimentary to a core product.

   1. For example, link in bio tools are quite popular right now. Since lots of ecommerce brands use them, Shopify noticed this trends and built a completely free tool called Linkpop.

   2. Clearbit built 4 free tools for GTM teams: TAM calculator, Chrome Extension and Website Visitors Tracker, Logo API.

   3. Grammarly built Free Grammar Checker

   4. Reply.io (a cold outreach tool) built Name2Email (free email finder)

5. These free tools will also help with marketing: people will share info with their friends or colleagues about them. As a result, some companies will unlock a word-of-mouth growth loop because of these free tools.

🏢 Trend Examples

1. Name2Email by Reply.io

2. Free Grammar Checker by Grammarly

3. Free Tools by Hubspot

4. Clearbit Connect by Clearbit

5. Essential tools by Shopify

6. Drift Video by Drift

7. Zappy by Zapier

8. Free Tools by Copy.ai

9. Lead Qualification bot by June.so

10. Keyplay Lists by Keyplay

11. TechLookup by Hunter

12. Email Tracker by Snovio

13. Which Gmail tab by Litmus

14. Word Cloud by MonkeyLearn

15. The openAI addon by Cargo

16. Free SEO Tools by ahrefs

17. Color palette generator by Canva

18. Free Invoice Generator by Ramp

19. Ecommerce Profit Simulator by Algolia

20. Email Time Optimizer by Growbots

21. Releasenote.ai by Zeda.io

🤿 Deep Dive

I'm a huge fan of free tools, as they help me learn more about a company's offerings at my own pace. I believe it takes more than 14 days to become familiar with a product, including its core and nice-to-have features, integrations, use cases, and most importantly, to build a habit loop and incorporate the product into my workflows.

Free complementary tools play a vital role in assisting me with this process.

Clearbit

Clearbit has mastered the strategy of using free tools to support the growth of their main SaaS product.

I’ve been following this company since 2016 (I believe 🙄), when I discovered their free email finder called Clearbit Connect. I fell in love with the product due to its simplicity and freemium model, and now I recommend it to hundreds of other salespeople.

As a result, Clearbit generates dozens of MQLs at no cost.

Now Clearbit has created 4 free tools: the TAM calculator, Chrome Extension, Website Visitors Tracker, and Logo API.

Recently, Tom Hunt had a conversation with Alex MacCaw (Clearbit Funder) on how he grew Clearbit.

Alex recommends leveraging free tools as part of their growth strategy, as they did twice with Clearbit Connect and Clearbit Logo API.

Tom wrote an interesting LinkedIn post on it.

June

June.so (a product analytics tool) is also an amazing example. They have built 2 free complimentary tools for product teams:

• Open Source Product Changelog: the community appreciated it

• Qualification Bot > a Slack bot that qualifies product sign-ups

Shopify

Shopify is another powerful example of how free tools can help attract new website visitors and customers. Shopify offers a bunch of useful free tools for e-commerce owners:

• Business Name Generator

• Stock photograpgy

• Link in bio tool

• QR code generator

• + 15 more free tools

Reply

We at Reply are also investing a lot in useful tools that are completely free. Since Reply is a sales engagement platform and cold outreach software for salespeople, SDRs and solopreneurs, we’ve developed a dozen complementary sidecar products and tools. For example:

• when they create email campaigns > they definitely need a subject line

• when they send emails > they definitely need an email signature

• when they build a sales tech stack > it is important to find the right sales tools

And, of course, when they reach out to prospects, they definitely need valid emails. For that purpose, we have Name2Email - a completely free email finder.

📖 Experts to Follow

1. Alex MacCaw > Founder at Clearbit

2. Oleg Bilozor > CEO & Founder at Reply.io

3. Ben Williams > PLG Advisor

4. Kyle Poyar > Partner at OpenView

5. Enzo Avigo > CEO @ June.so

6. Drew Teller > Growth leader at Netlify

7. Adam Schoenfeld > CEO at Keyplay

🔗 Useful Links

1. Drew Teller on Sidecar Products

2. Anthony Pierri on Sidecar Products

3. Ben Williams on Sidecar Products

4. Tom Hunt about Clearbit Logo API Free Tool

5. Jordan Wood on Sidecar Products

🤝 Related SaaS Trends

1. 🏔 Community Led Growth > or how to strengthen your PLG

2. 🏔️ Product Led Growth > or how we will buy software soon

3. 🏔️ SaaS + Media Company > boost your SaaS growth: add media

Thanks for reading. See you next time 👋

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📈 Suggest new SaaS trend reports here
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