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Interesting. Do you think they miss out on a fair amount of customers at that price point?

by osrec 9y ago

nunez 9y ago
They probably get customers that they actually want: businesses who are fine with paying >$100/month for their service and individuals who will likely be very, very supportive of their service since they value it enough to pay that much per month for it over other alternatives
- prklmn 9y ago
  I watched the NCAA basketball final game and Dropbox ran what had to have amounted to several million dollars worth of ads. There comes a point when in order to drive revenue growth you need not only the businesses who are willing to pay top dollar and the individuals who are easily convinced, but a much larger swath of businesses and individuals. They want any customer with a wallet, and they may want bigger businesses more, but they’ll sell to anyone who will pay.
- naravara 9y ago
  I wonder if the free tier that appeals largely to enthusiasts and nerds also helps as a lead generation process. People use it and like it, they get jobs where they have a say in procurement decisions, and they advocate for platforms they like when they do. It’s also a good “eat your own dogfood” way to make sure your platform is up to commercial standards for UI/UX and feature sets. A lot of enterprise software is garbage specifically because the people doing the procurement aren’t the people using the tools.
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    I wonder if the free tier that appeals largely to enthusiasts and nerds also helps as a lead generation process. That seems like a reasonable business strategy. Software companies have long offered heavily discounted products to home and educational users, or simply turned a blind eye to piracy within those demographics. Then everyone leaves school and equates "word processor" and "spreadsheet" with Microsoft Office, "graphics program" with Adobe Creative Suite, etc. These days a lot of those big players seem to be trying to pull in more direct revenue from those markets with lower-priced versions of their subscription offerings instead, but that doesn't mean their previous business model wasn't good for them.
JetSpiegel 9y ago
Maybe, but the support hassle they save probably makes up for it.

Interesting. Do you think they miss out on a fair amount of customers at that price point?

by osrec 9y ago

Interesting. Do you think they miss out on a fair amount of customers at that price point?

They probably get customers that they actually want: businesses who are fine with paying >$100/month for their service and individuals who will likely be very, very supportive of their service since they value it enough to pay that much per month for it over other alternatives

prklmn 9y ago
I watched the NCAA basketball final game and Dropbox ran what had to have amounted to several million dollars worth of ads. There comes a point when in order to drive revenue growth you need not only the businesses who are willing to pay top dollar and the individuals who are easily convinced, but a much larger swath of businesses and individuals. They want any customer with a wallet, and they may want bigger businesses more, but they’ll sell to anyone who will pay.
naravara 9y ago
I wonder if the free tier that appeals largely to enthusiasts and nerds also helps as a lead generation process. People use it and like it, they get jobs where they have a say in procurement decisions, and they advocate for platforms they like when they do. It’s also a good “eat your own dogfood” way to make sure your platform is up to commercial standards for UI/UX and feature sets. A lot of enterprise software is garbage specifically because the people doing the procurement aren’t the people using the tools.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  I wonder if the free tier that appeals largely to enthusiasts and nerds also helps as a lead generation process. That seems like a reasonable business strategy. Software companies have long offered heavily discounted products to home and educational users, or simply turned a blind eye to piracy within those demographics. Then everyone leaves school and equates "word processor" and "spreadsheet" with Microsoft Office, "graphics program" with Adobe Creative Suite, etc. These days a lot of those big players seem to be trying to pull in more direct revenue from those markets with lower-priced versions of their subscription offerings instead, but that doesn't mean their previous business model wasn't good for them.

JetSpiegel 9y ago

Maybe, but the support hassle they save probably makes up for it.