Q&A with TrialPay CEO Alex Rampell

I first met Alex Rampell in early 2007, six months after he’d launched TrialPay, a payments and promotions platform that had already recognized the lucrative potential of getting online users to try one product in order to get another one for free. At the time, Rampell was 25 years old and TrialPay employed just 13 people who worked out of a couple of small, windowless conference rooms in Mountain View. Roger Lee of Battery Ventures, who was with me on my visit, had said that he’d courted Rampell aggressively, including presenting Rampell with a preemptive offer at a nearby bistro and, when that didn’t work, introducing him to potential customers. At the time, I was baffled by Lee's obligingness; now it's easy to understand.