How should we keep you in the loop with the future of our paid plans?

[cookywook (Richard Cook)]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts in this thread. I think we can say that we’re broadly in agreement on a few topics:

1. We shouldn’t share things just for the sake of sharing something
2. It’s ok if our updates don’t come on a regular cadence
3. You’d like more info on the fundamentals of why we’re exploring paid plans

It’s a tough balance: we don’t want to leave you hanging without an update for ages, but we also don’t want to share things that aren’t valuable to you. Likewise, while plans are still in flux it’s not super valuable for us to share things, as it just creates confusion.

However, I think @Peter_G’s post gives us an indication of a way to go.

@Peter_G

So I think there are perhaps two conversations that need to be had here: one around the details of paid plans . I’ve said before that I think that creating paid plans are a bit different to software development, so are probably best done in private for longer*. But where there are good points for feedback, to check-in or to talk progress that would be good to know.

But there’s another, and perhaps more important conversation about strategy - why is Monzo pursuing paid plans? To what extent is anything/everything up for grabs? Why? What’s the context? That conversation can’t come from the Plus team - because that’s not their job. They’ve been asked to deliver a package, not to determine if delivering a package is the right thing to do. Whenever Monzo has been brutally honest / radically transparent about its drivers then that has worked in your favour. I’d suggest doing the same again.

We want to be able to share updates about what we’re building. And that’s a separate conversation to why we’re building Paid features. Sure, there’s overlap - especially around the issue of what goes into a paid version of Monzo. But we want to be able to share things without retreading the same ground each time.

So I’d like to create a thread here on the forum answering some of your Frequently Asked Questions. Questions like…

@BritishLibrary

For me, I’d rather hear comms about strategy, approach, how research is being conducted and what the results mean. Why is feature paywalling so important and what tells you that is true? How are you engaging users/prospective users in research and what is that telling you?

What are the milestones you’re working to? When is Launch and what are the dates you’ll be locking things down?

And then also have separate threads where we share the things we’re building, as we build them. We’ll be up front that these are paid features. And the feedback we’ll be looking for will be on those features, not on the idea of ‘Monzo doing paid’.

In the FAQ we’d also explain the things that we can’t or won’t be sharing, and why. (Commercial sensitivity is one such reason, as you’ve noted).

How does that all sound?