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>At the time of writing we are spending around $15 a month to keep the service up. If 75 people donated 5 cents a week, we'd be sustainable. - 27/10/15 And yet

>At the time of writing we are spending around $15 a month to keep the service up. If 75 people donated 5 cents a week, we'd be sustainable. - 27/10/15 And yet I'm pessimistic it'll get that funding. I just don't know if it's possible to make money writing software like this.

e12e 11y ago
It would probably make more sense, and be more likely to get 15 people to donate $10 a year (as a one-time donation, with a new 15 people donating $10 the next). I'm also rather pessimistic about "making money" like this. You'd have to sell a service for that to make any kind of sense. Target a minimum of, say, 10$ user/year, or user/month (yes, those are two wildly different prices, and two somewhat different level of "perceived value" you'd need to provide). Micropayments only make sense at massive scale - and you won't have that starting out. If you cant build up to 10.000 users paying 10/year, you could probably sustain a developer. Just make sure that doesn't generate work for 30 support staff. But "breaking even" (we won't have to stop because we're burning money on hosting) is different from "making money". It's probably a good idea to one, or the other. Not something in the middle. Major caveat: I've only thought about pricing models, never found the opportunity to try them out in practice.
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  Watch what happens over the next few months to PushBullet - they've learnt the hard way that pricing is serious business. They had a base of users who were used to a free product, then they tried to bring in a $40/year plan with no middle ground. https://blog.pushbullet.com/2015/11/17/introducing-pushbullet-pro/ https://blog.pushbullet.com/2015/11/17/introducing-pushbulle... https://www.reddit.com/r/PushBullet/comments/3t5ogz/introducing_pushbullet_pro/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PushBullet/comments/3t5ogz/introduc...
bresc 11y ago
He is not trying to make money. He just tries to cover his costs. That's way more realistic and I think it might work out.

e12e 11y ago

It would probably make more sense, and be more likely to get 15 people to donate $10 a year (as a one-time donation, with a new 15 people donating $10 the next). I'm also rather pessimistic about "making money" like this. You'd have to sell a service for that to make any kind of sense. Target a minimum of, say, 10$ user/year, or user/month (yes, those are two wildly different prices, and two somewhat different level of "perceived value" you'd need to provide). Micropayments only make sense at massive scale - and you won't have that starting out. If you cant build up to 10.000 users paying 10/year, you could probably sustain a developer. Just make sure that doesn't generate work for 30 support staff. But "breaking even" (we won't have to stop because we're burning money on hosting) is different from "making money". It's probably a good idea to one, or the other. Not something in the middle. Major caveat: I've only thought about pricing models, never found the opportunity to try them out in practice.

voltagex_ 11y ago
Watch what happens over the next few months to PushBullet - they've learnt the hard way that pricing is serious business. They had a base of users who were used to a free product, then they tried to bring in a $40/year plan with no middle ground. https://blog.pushbullet.com/2015/11/17/introducing-pushbullet-pro/ https://blog.pushbullet.com/2015/11/17/introducing-pushbulle... https://www.reddit.com/r/PushBullet/comments/3t5ogz/introducing_pushbullet_pro/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PushBullet/comments/3t5ogz/introduc...

bresc 11y ago

He is not trying to make money. He just tries to cover his costs. That's way more realistic and I think it might work out.