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> For example, if the features are identical, then the price can be different. Just a reminder that pricing "cheaper" isn't always a good idea. Newbies often t

> For example, if the features are identical, then the price can be different. Just a reminder that pricing "cheaper" isn't always a good idea. Newbies often think they'll charge less, but without having the data competitors have of how long the product takes to develop & maintain, how much support is involved, how much advertising costs to acquire a customer, how often you need to upgrade your equipment etc. Please make sure that your competitive advantage is not "selling at a price you can't possibly make a living from". (Hint: being found first can also be an advantage. Even if you're not better or cheaper than the competition, if they try you first and think "meh, good enough, I can afford that", that can still get you the sale. Not everyone exhaustively researches the competing products.)

bonestamp2 8y ago
> Just a reminder that pricing "cheaper" isn't always a good idea. That's all true, but also keep in mind that they will often charge as much as people are willing to pay so there can be room for a lower cost competitor to play. Even removing one (costly) feature and charging less could be a good option if it captures customers who didn't need that feature or wouldn't pay more than your lowest cost option to begin with.
AstralStorm 8y ago
Can't beat "free" on price which is why Google is so terrible to compete against.
- SyneRyder 8y ago
  Sometimes you can beat free! You can outlive the free / freeware competitors, because they're often not making money! Remember Google often kills off their services. They bought Picasa & the Nik Photography Collection & made them both available for free... now Picasa is gone (even though there's a ton of customers who still want it), and Google sold the Nik Collection to DxO and it's back to costing $70 again. And Fastmail exists even though Gmail is free. Google is not known for providing friendly personal customer service... so why not aim to get your customers saying "yeah XYZ costs more, but oh my god, they have the friendliest & most hilarious people answering their emails, and they actually fixed my problem!" You can only do that if you've got money coming in to pay for the support team (you want to pay your employees well too, right?) Derek Sivers has some great ideas on doing awesome customer service: https://sivers.org/cs https://sivers.org/cs (Anyway, just some food for thought. Sometimes pricing cheap is absolutely the right thing, sometimes Charge More is the right thing. Experiment with both!)
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    I said on price. Beating service on stability and support is not competing on price - that is very much possible. You can compete with Google on both of you aim at their enterprise package or cloud offering.
- inapis 7y ago
  You can compete on price. But definitely depends on your niche and market segment though. There are plenty of users who are not happy with how the big companies create products. Google and Apple create for the mass market and in the process generally eschew features, functionality and quality of life improvements which a certain subset of users demand. That's why people pay for Evernote, Todoist etc even though Google/Apple notes and reminders exist. Some companies have even raised VC funding for creating calendar apps even when Google calendar exists. If your potential customer is happy with the free product, then they were potentially never your customer in the first place. Creating product in such a niche won't be easy nor will it make you a billionaire. But there's a decent chunk of money to be made in both B2B and B2C.

bonestamp2 8y ago

> Just a reminder that pricing "cheaper" isn't always a good idea. That's all true, but also keep in mind that they will often charge as much as people are willing to pay so there can be room for a lower cost competitor to play. Even removing one (costly) feature and charging less could be a good option if it captures customers who didn't need that feature or wouldn't pay more than your lowest cost option to begin with.

AstralStorm 8y ago

Can't beat "free" on price which is why Google is so terrible to compete against.

SyneRyder 8y ago
Sometimes you can beat free! You can outlive the free / freeware competitors, because they're often not making money! Remember Google often kills off their services. They bought Picasa & the Nik Photography Collection & made them both available for free... now Picasa is gone (even though there's a ton of customers who still want it), and Google sold the Nik Collection to DxO and it's back to costing $70 again. And Fastmail exists even though Gmail is free. Google is not known for providing friendly personal customer service... so why not aim to get your customers saying "yeah XYZ costs more, but oh my god, they have the friendliest & most hilarious people answering their emails, and they actually fixed my problem!" You can only do that if you've got money coming in to pay for the support team (you want to pay your employees well too, right?) Derek Sivers has some great ideas on doing awesome customer service: https://sivers.org/cs https://sivers.org/cs (Anyway, just some food for thought. Sometimes pricing cheap is absolutely the right thing, sometimes Charge More is the right thing. Experiment with both!)
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  I said on price. Beating service on stability and support is not competing on price - that is very much possible. You can compete with Google on both of you aim at their enterprise package or cloud offering.
inapis 7y ago
You can compete on price. But definitely depends on your niche and market segment though. There are plenty of users who are not happy with how the big companies create products. Google and Apple create for the mass market and in the process generally eschew features, functionality and quality of life improvements which a certain subset of users demand. That's why people pay for Evernote, Todoist etc even though Google/Apple notes and reminders exist. Some companies have even raised VC funding for creating calendar apps even when Google calendar exists. If your potential customer is happy with the free product, then they were potentially never your customer in the first place. Creating product in such a niche won't be easy nor will it make you a billionaire. But there's a decent chunk of money to be made in both B2B and B2C.