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It's just human nature. In general, we humans greatly enjoy outsmarting other humans and by not paying, your users feel they are outsmarting you. A "beggar val

It's just human nature. In general, we humans greatly enjoy outsmarting other humans and by not paying, your users feel they are outsmarting you. A "beggar value proposition" does not work so well because we do not see pictures of you starving to death so we are less compelled to help. It does not mean that no one will ever donate, but if they do so, it is because they are fools or because they want to influence you to prioritize some feature. If donations do not work, remove them from everywhere asap (they make you and your product look cheap because of the "beggar value proposition"). Since you have low churn (this is the most important thing), try to continue to grow your user base a couple orders of magnitude first (2000 free users is a number too low to plan for any kind of meaningful conversion) and then work it from there to either advertising or freemium.

burtonator 8y ago
> Since you have low churn (this is the most important thing), try to continue to grow your user base a couple orders of magnitude first (2000 free users is a number too low to plan for any kind of meaningful conversion) and then work it from there to either advertising or freemium. Yes. Already agree with you on 99% of these issues. It's just somewhat shocking that the user base is constantly saying that they love the app but not actually showing that they love it...
- davidjnelson 8y ago
  It's almost impossible to get people to _donate_ but pretty straightforward to get people to _buy_. If the product solves a real need, which it sounds like it does.
- antaviana 8y ago
  When something is useful (even tangentially useful) and free, people tend to claim they love it, often with overly excited statements. Add a price and then the relationship changes. Let me put an example: It is like you go to a restaurant, you like a lot the food, which costed you $20 each for dinner. The value/price ratio is so outstanding and you recommend it to all your friends. Each time you see them. Now go to the same cozy restaurant and have the exact same food, same service. But this time it costs $60 each. Your value/price ratio worsens a lot, and although the food is still as good, you do not see it the same way. Perhaps the service should be better at this price. Perhaps the food could be better presented. You start questioning. You do not recommend it to all your friends even when everything is equal except price. With donations you are asking people to willingly change their value/price ratio just for the sake of it, without any kind of coercion such as impending interruption of service (such as an end of trial). It does not work. It will never work. Remove donations from your site asap, grow your users and once grown toa sizeable level think about which monetization model makes most sense for your users (i.e. consumers->advertising, businesses->paid subscriptions).

burtonator 8y ago

> Since you have low churn (this is the most important thing), try to continue to grow your user base a couple orders of magnitude first (2000 free users is a number too low to plan for any kind of meaningful conversion) and then work it from there to either advertising or freemium. Yes. Already agree with you on 99% of these issues. It's just somewhat shocking that the user base is constantly saying that they love the app but not actually showing that they love it...

davidjnelson 8y ago
It's almost impossible to get people to _donate_ but pretty straightforward to get people to _buy_. If the product solves a real need, which it sounds like it does.
antaviana 8y ago
When something is useful (even tangentially useful) and free, people tend to claim they love it, often with overly excited statements. Add a price and then the relationship changes. Let me put an example: It is like you go to a restaurant, you like a lot the food, which costed you $20 each for dinner. The value/price ratio is so outstanding and you recommend it to all your friends. Each time you see them. Now go to the same cozy restaurant and have the exact same food, same service. But this time it costs $60 each. Your value/price ratio worsens a lot, and although the food is still as good, you do not see it the same way. Perhaps the service should be better at this price. Perhaps the food could be better presented. You start questioning. You do not recommend it to all your friends even when everything is equal except price. With donations you are asking people to willingly change their value/price ratio just for the sake of it, without any kind of coercion such as impending interruption of service (such as an end of trial). It does not work. It will never work. Remove donations from your site asap, grow your users and once grown toa sizeable level think about which monetization model makes most sense for your users (i.e. consumers->advertising, businesses->paid subscriptions).