Just a few months after we sat down with Pearltrees CEO Patrice LaMothe for an interview about their topping of the US iPhone AppStore, Pearltrees have today announced that their social library has launched it’s v1.0, and is rolling out the long-awaited business model.
Pearltrees’ launch is decorated with a few interesting figures: 700,000 collaborators creating 30 million pearls, which attracted 2 million UVs this past month.
Privacy – the Premium Package
Currently, any pearl that is created is available for public eyes: your list of tech blogs, photos of your trip to Spain, etc. LaMothe says that users love the social library, but many would like to be able to create private trees. Potential premium users include businesses, who may want Pearltrees structuring system, as well as access to 30 million available pearls, but don’t want their internal, private pearls to be visible to others. Pearltrees also cites researchers, teachers, designers, architects and real estate agents as user groups that may wish to share information with a select group of people.
The premium membership will be available for $4.99/month or $49.99/year, and will provide provide the same level of access on desktop, iPhone, and iPad. Assuming between 1-5% of users convert to premium, based on how great the need is, this puts Pearltrees in a position to bring in anywhere from $400,000-$2,000,000 over the next year, assuming user base growth and premium user churn rate even each other out.
Given that the company has raised a total of $11.9M over the past few years, this may be good news for investors.