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Hey Kenton - sorry that the business hasn't been as successful as you were hoping for. I am very surprised to hear that you had 0 paying customers though. One

Hey Kenton - sorry that the business hasn't been as successful as you were hoping for. I am very surprised to hear that you had 0 paying customers though. One of the UI changes that I would make is that Oasis defaults to the free plan. I actually selected a paid plan on the website, but decided to wait and see if the free plan met my needs. It seemed like it did, so I never took the time to upgrade.

kentonv 10y ago
> I am very surprised to hear that you had 0 paying customers though. Not exactly true. We had a handful of paying customers for Sandstorm for Work, and we have enough paying customers of Oasis to pay for all of Sandstorm's services. But not enough to pay for employees -- people are expensive. :/ We have experimented with ways to push people towards paid plans on Oasis, but it's a tricky balance between revenue and user growth. I agree we should experiment further.
- timClicks 10y ago
  Ah - it sounds like I missed the distinction between the two revenue streams.. Am pretty convinced by the Sandstorm model, hope that the future works well for the team.
- orblivion 10y ago
  Would you consider just adding a donation box? I for one think that it's very important that this thing gets developed. I think you're doing a lot of things right, and it could encourage proliferation of self-hosted applications. This needs to stand as a challenge to the companies that would own our data, and I understand that it does not lend itself to a normal business plan. I imagine a lot of people feel this way, and may be inclined to donate in addition to or instead of their Oasis account.
  - kentonv 10y ago
    I'm thinking about maybe extending Oasis with ways to specify a donation amount separate from the subscription fee, for finer-grained control over donations. It's most efficient for us to have any payments go through our existing payment system there, rather than use other services that charge higher fees. No concrete plans at the moment, though.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    One of the things that would probably be super helpful, is figuring out how to donate to Sandstorm app authors and promote the growth of the ecosystem.
    - eitland 10y ago
      Agree. I'd be happy to pay app-size payments ($5-$20), preferably through some kind of crowdfunding, as long as the result is open source.

kentonv 10y ago

> I am very surprised to hear that you had 0 paying customers though. Not exactly true. We had a handful of paying customers for Sandstorm for Work, and we have enough paying customers of Oasis to pay for all of Sandstorm's services. But not enough to pay for employees -- people are expensive. :/ We have experimented with ways to push people towards paid plans on Oasis, but it's a tricky balance between revenue and user growth. I agree we should experiment further.

timClicks 10y ago
Ah - it sounds like I missed the distinction between the two revenue streams.. Am pretty convinced by the Sandstorm model, hope that the future works well for the team.
orblivion 10y ago
Would you consider just adding a donation box? I for one think that it's very important that this thing gets developed. I think you're doing a lot of things right, and it could encourage proliferation of self-hosted applications. This needs to stand as a challenge to the companies that would own our data, and I understand that it does not lend itself to a normal business plan. I imagine a lot of people feel this way, and may be inclined to donate in addition to or instead of their Oasis account.
- kentonv 10y ago
  I'm thinking about maybe extending Oasis with ways to specify a donation amount separate from the subscription fee, for finer-grained control over donations. It's most efficient for us to have any payments go through our existing payment system there, rather than use other services that charge higher fees. No concrete plans at the moment, though.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  One of the things that would probably be super helpful, is figuring out how to donate to Sandstorm app authors and promote the growth of the ecosystem.
  - eitland 10y ago
    Agree. I'd be happy to pay app-size payments ($5-$20), preferably through some kind of crowdfunding, as long as the result is open source.