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Why do companies choose not to be 100% transparent? Any time I have to contact a company to see more or a demo or, even worse, see pricing, I close the page and
by kodablah 9y ago
Why do companies choose not to be 100% transparent? Any time I have to contact a company to see more or a demo or, even worse, see pricing, I close the page and make a mental note to never work with them in any capacity. I feel this type of boycotting is the only way to change the practice.
I mean, you even hide your docs behind a password? How terrible. What are you keeping so secret? Does this translate to your other business practices? Mental note made.
- rbres 9y agoJust launched a couple hours ago. Thanks for the find, and I agree fully with the sentiment. Docs are now fully public: https://docs.bolt.com/ https://docs.bolt.com/ Pricing varies depending on volume, risk, and a number of different factors given the complexity of payments (and that we're taking on full liability). But after a short call we provide a very simple flat rate with no BS. As much as we'd like to do one price, given the nature of our product, it's just not viable at this time.
- jessaustin 9y agoThanks for that. The docs are considerably more reassuring than the rest of the site.
- rbres 9y agoAppreciate it. More to be published on the site, and welcome any and all feedback.
- sprite 9y agoIf you can't provide specific pricing maybe give a few sample pricings with different scenarios so people can at least ballpark it before requesting a quote?
- rbres 9y agoSure. Our fee ranges anywhere from a fraction of a percent to a couple percentage points. Companies selling $100k diamond jewelry (of which we have several) vs companies selling $100 bikes have different levels of risk. Most importantly, we typically charge 1/10 the revenue we generate for our clients: https://bolt.com/case-studies https://bolt.com/case-studies. Everyone who's signed up is 10X ROI positive. For a small single digit percent they're making double digit percent more money. On top of the Bolt Fee, we match processing, and that's about it.
- tootie 9y agoI'd wager they are planning to A/B test pricing models and hence can't make a public commitment.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kodablah 9y agoThanks. Pardon the harshness, I just abhor the practice and see it too often.
- rbres 9y agoDefinitely. Valuable feedback, and much appreciated.
- skrebbel 9y agoMarginally related question: I just read https://bolt.com/team https://bolt.com/team and how do you build such a large company before even launching? I mean, you have a fulltime recruiter on payroll. If you started in 2014 and stayed stealth for 4 years, how on earth did you manage to raise the funds needed to a) survive and b) have such a large team? Note: I mean this entirely unskeptically. I wonder how you pulled this off and I think it's a positive signal about your company that you did.
- rbres 9y agoGood question. It was actually pretty insane. In payments, the MVP bar is high and we built like 4 companies in one (payment processor, fraud detection co, checkout platform, + more). So we had to raise a bunch, hire world-class people, and write code for a couple years before launch, all the while convincing investors that we weren't going to be another stealth-disaster-company. We then landed close to 100 customers while totally in stealth. I'll be writing blog posts about how we did it -- from fundraising to recruiting to sales. It was 100 times harder than I ever imagined. But, it's made us stronger than ever.
- flaviuspopan 9y agoThis is way more interesting than the actual product, I can't wait to read the post!
- kodablah 9y agoLikewise. I hope the reason for remaining in "stealth" is detailed.
- ajinkyai 9y agoAre you hiring interns for the summer 2018 season?
- rbres 9y agoYes! Shoot us an email: jobs [at] bolt.com
- sli 9y agoCurrently stuck in this hell with a client, who needs a particular integration, but the company who wrote the program they need integration with refuses to give up any documentation. Soooo we're just winging it at the moment, because it's their job to provide it to us (as agreed upon). I'm pretty sure they aren't going to get that integration.
- jv22222 9y agoI always wonder why so many people don't respond to critical comments in the way that rbres has here. It's such a great opportunity to show what your company is all about and win over skeptics. Nice work rbres! Now, let's do an interview with you on http://techzinglive.com http://techzinglive.com because it sounds like you have a great story! Send email to podcast[at]techzinglive.com if you're up for it ;) p.s Thanks skrebbel for digging into that.
- rbres 9y agoThanks jv22222! Much appreciated. Transparency, positivity, and truth is our north star. Will shoot ya a ping.