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http://omgenomics.com/circa http://omgenomics.com/circa Circa is an easy-to-use tool for building circos plots with genomics data. I built the visualization pie

http://omgenomics.com/circa http://omgenomics.com/circa Circa is an easy-to-use tool for building circos plots with genomics data. I built the visualization piece (and most of the UI) with D3.js and made it into a desktop app with Electron. Initially sold it for $25 per user (one-time cost), which made about $750 a month. Then some professors told me it was way too cheap, so I increased the price to $100. Since then, it has made about $1,500 every month for the last year. This week I started to add some new features and will soon make some more demo videos to see if I can increase that number. :) I think it has worked this well so far because building circos plots is a well-known painful problem in the genomics field. And it was one that I had experienced myself during my PhD work. I was surprised at how many academics actually are willing to pay for software, but still unsure how big that market actually is and how much of it I am already covering. The nice thing about a tiny niche like this is that when you Google "circos", Circa's tutorial and demo videos show up on the first page.

westoncb 8y ago
That's pretty cool—congrats. Especially interesting for me to see, because it's the kind of tool and business model that interests me. One thing I wonder though is how it can be sustainable using the one time cost model. I suppose if the market were large enough, then you could just charge for new major versions every couple years and that might be sufficient. But maybe some kind of more expensive licensing for specific types of customers?
- marianattestad 8y ago
  I chose the one-time cost model for several reasons: 1) the way scientists get reimbursed from grants is difficult for recurring purchases, 2) one-time pricing is easy to do and fits well with desktop software, 3) Circa is a product scientists only use occasionally, maybe a few times a year, so with a monthly model they would probably just cancel and resubscribe when they need it, which is more of a hassle for both them and me. Circa does lend itself well to desktop software because it allows saving the visualizations they are building straight to their computer instead of me trying to manage user accounts and storage in the cloud -- again, less hassle on both sides! On the topic of more expensive licensing for some customers, I forgot to mention that for commercial entities it costs $200, but that accounts only for something like 5% of sales, since it's mostly academics who want to make pretty plots for their publications.
zygotic12 8y ago
Just out of interest. Has anyone offered you a job because of this post? And to the wider world why not?
- marianattestad 8y ago
  I do happen to currently hold a data visualization job at a genomics software company, which traces back partly to when I gave a talk there that included Circa and other visualization tools I built, the rest of which are open source and free since I built them during my PhD :)

westoncb 8y ago

That's pretty cool—congrats. Especially interesting for me to see, because it's the kind of tool and business model that interests me. One thing I wonder though is how it can be sustainable using the one time cost model. I suppose if the market were large enough, then you could just charge for new major versions every couple years and that might be sufficient. But maybe some kind of more expensive licensing for specific types of customers?

marianattestad 8y ago
I chose the one-time cost model for several reasons: 1) the way scientists get reimbursed from grants is difficult for recurring purchases, 2) one-time pricing is easy to do and fits well with desktop software, 3) Circa is a product scientists only use occasionally, maybe a few times a year, so with a monthly model they would probably just cancel and resubscribe when they need it, which is more of a hassle for both them and me. Circa does lend itself well to desktop software because it allows saving the visualizations they are building straight to their computer instead of me trying to manage user accounts and storage in the cloud -- again, less hassle on both sides! On the topic of more expensive licensing for some customers, I forgot to mention that for commercial entities it costs $200, but that accounts only for something like 5% of sales, since it's mostly academics who want to make pretty plots for their publications.

zygotic12 8y ago

Just out of interest. Has anyone offered you a job because of this post? And to the wider world why not?

marianattestad 8y ago
I do happen to currently hold a data visualization job at a genomics software company, which traces back partly to when I gave a talk there that included Circa and other visualization tools I built, the rest of which are open source and free since I built them during my PhD :)