4 ms·

> This year, it's going to be around 370,000€ (and since I live in Germany, my income is in the top 0,5% or so). Is your business focused on the German market

by krn 7y ago

> This year, it's going to be around 370,000€ (and since I live in Germany, my income is in the top 0,5% or so). Is your business focused on the German market or the US market? Or is it multi-lingual / international? What percentage of time is spent answering support requests? > The subscription model helps you to stay afloat. People will pay for a product they use every day (and thus, derive value from every day). Have you experimented with different pricing models? Is Duolingo / Tinder model (1 month / 6 months / 12 months) the best choice for B2C subscriptions without Spotify / Netflix-like licensing costs?

WA 7y ago
German market only. Going international is an option I considered, but it is a lot more complex than simply localizing the app. Since I make more money than I need and I don't want my job to become a different one (I still get to code a lot), I didn't do it yet. > "Have you experimented with different pricing models?" No, I kept the pricing model very simple. The price increased a bit throughout the years. I charge what feels fair. There's a trial period and if you like the product, you pay for it. If not, then not. There is no freemium, I never give discounts, I don't sell ads or data or make money in any other way. It's a simple thing :) Some people claim that it's easy to test prices. But this is not true. If you serve a niche, people talk. If one person pays more than another for the same product (and signed up for the same version at a similar time), you'd lose trust. The nice thing about making more money than you need is that it frees you from thinking about "making even more money". Yeah, I like making more money, because all of this could be over one day, but there is no need to stress myself about it.
- krn 7y ago
  > If you serve a niche, people talk. Another thing probably is, that a subscription price of a niche product can be considerably higher than of a mainstream one? For a single person, it must be much easier to support 1,000 users paying something like $25 / month than 5,000 users paying $5 / month.
  - WA 7y ago
    Thanks for asking this, because it is a thing that many many people have in their mind: "Will support requests crush me?" And this was actually my biggest fear when I turned my hobby project into a commercial one many years ago. The reality is this: I have over 10,000 paying customers. I receive maybe 5 emails per day. There was never a time when I received much more than 10. I have three explanations for this: 1. I have a really good FAQ that answers almost any question. On my contact form, I urge people to read the damn FAQ. If they still send me an email, I usually reply with a specific link to the FAQ item. If a question comes up a couple times, I add it to the FAQ. 2. Since my product isn't free (and not cheap compared to a 0.99 one-time-fee app), there's a lot of self-selection. I don't have to support freeloaders with their stupid questions. If people pay for something, it seems to help to reduce the support burden. 3. I wonder if this is a mentality thing and Germans are more likely to help themselves through reading FAQ than others who rather send an email like "yo, shit is broken, fix asap". Most emails I receive read a lot more like a letter and not this one-line blurp bullshit some have to deal with. In essence: Build a product with a somewhat sophisticated target group. They are more likely to pay, more likely to help themselves by reading FAQ and more likely to send no stupid emails.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      This isn’t just because you have a good FAQ, it’s because it’s relatively expensive. The more expensive your product is the more likely people are to respect it and you, and to be the kind of professionals who actually read to find answers to things. Yet another reason to charge more.
      - krn 7y ago
        > This isn’t just because you have a good FAQ, it’s because it’s relatively expensive. As a B2C SaaS product it actually seems to be relatively cheap: 10,000+ paying users and 370,000€ in yearly revenue points to around 2.99€ / month and 29.99€ / year subscription fees – similar to Instapaper Premium[1]. [1] https://www.instapaper.com/premium https://www.instapaper.com/premium

by krn 7y ago

WA 7y ago

German market only. Going international is an option I considered, but it is a lot more complex than simply localizing the app. Since I make more money than I need and I don't want my job to become a different one (I still get to code a lot), I didn't do it yet. > "Have you experimented with different pricing models?" No, I kept the pricing model very simple. The price increased a bit throughout the years. I charge what feels fair. There's a trial period and if you like the product, you pay for it. If not, then not. There is no freemium, I never give discounts, I don't sell ads or data or make money in any other way. It's a simple thing :) Some people claim that it's easy to test prices. But this is not true. If you serve a niche, people talk. If one person pays more than another for the same product (and signed up for the same version at a similar time), you'd lose trust. The nice thing about making more money than you need is that it frees you from thinking about "making even more money". Yeah, I like making more money, because all of this could be over one day, but there is no need to stress myself about it.

krn 7y ago
> If you serve a niche, people talk. Another thing probably is, that a subscription price of a niche product can be considerably higher than of a mainstream one? For a single person, it must be much easier to support 1,000 users paying something like $25 / month than 5,000 users paying $5 / month.
- WA 7y ago
  Thanks for asking this, because it is a thing that many many people have in their mind: "Will support requests crush me?" And this was actually my biggest fear when I turned my hobby project into a commercial one many years ago. The reality is this: I have over 10,000 paying customers. I receive maybe 5 emails per day. There was never a time when I received much more than 10. I have three explanations for this: 1. I have a really good FAQ that answers almost any question. On my contact form, I urge people to read the damn FAQ. If they still send me an email, I usually reply with a specific link to the FAQ item. If a question comes up a couple times, I add it to the FAQ. 2. Since my product isn't free (and not cheap compared to a 0.99 one-time-fee app), there's a lot of self-selection. I don't have to support freeloaders with their stupid questions. If people pay for something, it seems to help to reduce the support burden. 3. I wonder if this is a mentality thing and Germans are more likely to help themselves through reading FAQ than others who rather send an email like "yo, shit is broken, fix asap". Most emails I receive read a lot more like a letter and not this one-line blurp bullshit some have to deal with. In essence: Build a product with a somewhat sophisticated target group. They are more likely to pay, more likely to help themselves by reading FAQ and more likely to send no stupid emails.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    This isn’t just because you have a good FAQ, it’s because it’s relatively expensive. The more expensive your product is the more likely people are to respect it and you, and to be the kind of professionals who actually read to find answers to things. Yet another reason to charge more.
    - krn 7y ago
      > This isn’t just because you have a good FAQ, it’s because it’s relatively expensive. As a B2C SaaS product it actually seems to be relatively cheap: 10,000+ paying users and 370,000€ in yearly revenue points to around 2.99€ / month and 29.99€ / year subscription fees – similar to Instapaper Premium[1]. [1] https://www.instapaper.com/premium https://www.instapaper.com/premium