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> Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront? As the owner/founder/author of a bootstrapped SaaS app, I can answer that: People really, re
by jwr 10y ago
> Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront?
As the owner/founder/author of a bootstrapped SaaS app, I can answer that:
People really, really, REALLY do not want to pay. Really. The dominating perception is that software should be free, or if not free, paid with a one-time purchase in the single-digit dollars. The aversion to paying is huge, you have to provide a "can't live without" feature for people to (grudgingly) pull out their wallets.
Also, if you actually do the numbers as a business owner, it turns out that consumer SaaS apps are difficult to sustain financially. With a small number of customers, there just isn't enough money, and if your customer base grows, complexity and costs step in. My SaaS only has paid business tiers for now, starting at $39/month, because much as I try, I can't see how I can make anything cheaper work. It's easy to underestimate costs if you've never ran a business.
I decided to stick with it, charge subscription fees, grow very slowly and see where it takes me, but that is a hard and slow path. I estimate it will take me another year (for an overall of 3 years) to get to a sustainable income stream.
- madeofpalk 10y ago> People really, really, REALLY do not want to pay. Had a conversation with a fellow developer today, who charges clients $900/day, who baulked at the idea of paying $50 for Paw when Postman is free.
- jakobegger 10y agoI recommend ignoring these kinds of people. No good will come from marketing to them. I recommend to focus on the people who value your work, and are happy to pay for your product.
- dhimes 10y agoHow do you find them?
- educar 10y agoThat is step 3) usually marked as '???'. Step 4 is profit.
- andai 10y agoDisappointed nobody had an answer here...
- madeofpalk 10y agotbh, the 'fellow developer' is actually a friend. It was fairly surprising to hear him say that...
- jakobegger 10y agoIf you sell your software as SaaS, you need to make sure it is something that your customers use every day. This is a problem when you sell to consumers, because often they will need your software only a few times a year. I sell a product named MDB Viewer on the Mac App Store, and judging from support emails many of my customers need it just to convert a single database; but they are happy to pay, and they like that they own a license. There's no way I could sell this as a SaaS product.
- abalashov 10y agoHonestly, I think a lot of it is just the friction of payment interfaces, endless redirects, anticipation of bugs in those fragile workflows... There's a lot of things I won't pay $4.99 for because I'm too lazy to tap through five screens and try to remember my CVV. If I could just press one button and the five bucks get charged and that's the end of it, the instant gratification would be hard to resist.
- dhimes 10y agoI don't think that Paypal (which can do that) helps that much. It really is a mental hurdle. I understand it. It's: "Maybe I can just google around a bit and solve my problem." It doesn't matter that they can't. It's the fact that they think they might be able to that interrupts the purchase.
- chillydawg 10y agoPaypal does almost exactly that but it's not cool to offer any more since it's old tech.
- abalashov 10y agoNah, there are still plenty of relatively labourious steps involved in a Paypal transaction.
- marpstar 10y agoAs a 2016 MBP owner, I find myself making a lot more impulse purchases on websites that support Apple Pay simply because all I know that all I need to do is put my finger on the Touch ID sensor.