3 ms·

Show HN: Relaunching a dormant startup and switching from free to paid

22 points by Goldy 16y ago

Blog post links to the startup (www.sprixi.com) which is an image search engine that focuses on helping people not just find, but also use an image.

superluminosity 16y ago
Cool. I've been waiting for this site to come back.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
dmboyd 16y ago
Just an idea, charge for the API. I can easily imagine this being very useful for a feed/content provider to automatically source an automatic image related to a news feed/ or product.
- Goldy 16y ago
  I do like that idea. Being bootstrapped I needed to be a bit more direct with getting revenue from the majority of the traffic visiting us in the short term. What do you think of our very lightweight freemium model? (Searching for dog or cat is free, other searches are behind the pay wall.)
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    That's not freemium. It's a demo. With true freemium, someone can use your service regularly while on the free plan. Very few people are going to use your service just to find dogs and cats. Not saying you shouldn't keep it (you should. demos are a great way to get people to convert), but it's not freemium.
  - jayzee 16y ago
    oh is that what was going on? I had no clue. I put in a search term (scientists) saw nothing and came to the comments section to kvetch. So yeah... that needs to be clearer that the other images are behind the paywall. It was not clear to me. And I would not sign-up till I saw what you had...
  - dmboyd 16y ago
    I think the best freemium model which with my previous comment would be to pick about 10 "dynamic" topics, along the lines of say todays current google trends http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends which would give people enough of an indication of the utility of your site.
yoseph 16y ago
Link to the startup, not the blog post: http://www.sprixi.com http://www.sprixi.com
Goldy 16y ago
Hopefully a little inspiration for anyone else in the same boat.
A1kmm 16y ago
How are you planning on getting traffic in the long term? There are free alternatives like http://search.creativecommons.org/ http://search.creativecommons.org/ so I suspect most customers will be people who don't know about the alternatives. I'd be sceptical if you could get many people to pay for it unless you found a good source of people who weren't very Internet savvy. I think if your search engine is better at finding images compared to other sites, the best thing to do might be to let people search without logging in, but only show them a thumbnail, and to find out where the image comes from, they need to pay. However, you will still need to find a way to attribute images if the license terms require that.
- Goldy 16y ago
  To be honest, I don't know how to get revenue in the long term. What I want to do is to break even so I can justify investing more effort. I would love Sprixi to be free and then money around the edges (e.g. API). However, that will require more work. Being bootstrapped and already at it for a few years, I can't keep working for free. Interesting idea about moving the pay wall - thanks.
Teflon 16y ago
Sprixi, glad to have you back, you've been gone too long!
nikcub 16y ago
Another instance of a blog post that assumes we know what the product is. I have no idea what Sprixi is, still don't after reading the post and clicking two links on that website Please put a para about the product in the sidebar, or write an intro paragraph, see this sooo often on HN
- Goldy 16y ago
  Good point - I've hacked up a brief description in the sidebar.
  - perlgeek 16y ago
    That still doesn't tell me why I would use it over google images, for example.
- yaix 16y ago
  Just tried it. Basically, it lets you browse flickr images (in a layout that does not fit on my netbook screen) and asks you to pay for that. The good thing is, it shows only Creative Common images (like Google Images or Flickr do too). Maybe I have missed something?
cjy 16y ago
Why not limited the number of searches that someone can make, or limit the resolution of the photos they can download? That will get a lot of people in the habit of using site and then they might upgrade when they get annoyed by the free limitations.
- Goldy 16y ago
  Good ideas - thanks! Re limiting the number of searches - I'm concerned that people may just register throwaway accounts to get the free searches (and thus never paying). I could use cookies or IP smarts to counteract this, but it doesn't seem a good solution. I also don't want to make the sign up process harder.
yeahsure 16y ago
Not sure if this comment adds any value (I really need to go to bed) but how about requesting an action before showing people the search results for the first time? Kinda like http://www.tweetperview.com http://www.tweetperview.com for searches. Another way to monetize without a pay wall would be to use CPA ads, though some of them are scams... Have you checked out http://sxc.hu http://sxc.hu yet? They have been online for a few years now and they monetize through iStockPhoto aff links. Hope this helps :-) Good luck!

22 points by Goldy 16y ago

Blog post links to the startup (www.sprixi.com) which is an image search engine that focuses on helping people not just find, but also use an image.

superluminosity 16y ago

Cool. I've been waiting for this site to come back.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

dmboyd 16y ago

Just an idea, charge for the API. I can easily imagine this being very useful for a feed/content provider to automatically source an automatic image related to a news feed/ or product.

Goldy 16y ago
I do like that idea. Being bootstrapped I needed to be a bit more direct with getting revenue from the majority of the traffic visiting us in the short term. What do you think of our very lightweight freemium model? (Searching for dog or cat is free, other searches are behind the pay wall.)
- jackowayed 16y ago
  That's not freemium. It's a demo. With true freemium, someone can use your service regularly while on the free plan. Very few people are going to use your service just to find dogs and cats. Not saying you shouldn't keep it (you should. demos are a great way to get people to convert), but it's not freemium.
- jayzee 16y ago
  oh is that what was going on? I had no clue. I put in a search term (scientists) saw nothing and came to the comments section to kvetch. So yeah... that needs to be clearer that the other images are behind the paywall. It was not clear to me. And I would not sign-up till I saw what you had...
- dmboyd 16y ago
  I think the best freemium model which with my previous comment would be to pick about 10 "dynamic" topics, along the lines of say todays current google trends http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends which would give people enough of an indication of the utility of your site.

yoseph 16y ago

Link to the startup, not the blog post: http://www.sprixi.com http://www.sprixi.com

Goldy 16y ago

Hopefully a little inspiration for anyone else in the same boat.

A1kmm 16y ago

How are you planning on getting traffic in the long term? There are free alternatives like http://search.creativecommons.org/ http://search.creativecommons.org/ so I suspect most customers will be people who don't know about the alternatives. I'd be sceptical if you could get many people to pay for it unless you found a good source of people who weren't very Internet savvy. I think if your search engine is better at finding images compared to other sites, the best thing to do might be to let people search without logging in, but only show them a thumbnail, and to find out where the image comes from, they need to pay. However, you will still need to find a way to attribute images if the license terms require that.

Goldy 16y ago
To be honest, I don't know how to get revenue in the long term. What I want to do is to break even so I can justify investing more effort. I would love Sprixi to be free and then money around the edges (e.g. API). However, that will require more work. Being bootstrapped and already at it for a few years, I can't keep working for free. Interesting idea about moving the pay wall - thanks.

Teflon 16y ago

Sprixi, glad to have you back, you've been gone too long!

nikcub 16y ago

Another instance of a blog post that assumes we know what the product is. I have no idea what Sprixi is, still don't after reading the post and clicking two links on that website Please put a para about the product in the sidebar, or write an intro paragraph, see this sooo often on HN

Goldy 16y ago
Good point - I've hacked up a brief description in the sidebar.
- perlgeek 16y ago
  That still doesn't tell me why I would use it over google images, for example.
yaix 16y ago
Just tried it. Basically, it lets you browse flickr images (in a layout that does not fit on my netbook screen) and asks you to pay for that. The good thing is, it shows only Creative Common images (like Google Images or Flickr do too). Maybe I have missed something?

cjy 16y ago

Why not limited the number of searches that someone can make, or limit the resolution of the photos they can download? That will get a lot of people in the habit of using site and then they might upgrade when they get annoyed by the free limitations.

Goldy 16y ago
Good ideas - thanks! Re limiting the number of searches - I'm concerned that people may just register throwaway accounts to get the free searches (and thus never paying). I could use cookies or IP smarts to counteract this, but it doesn't seem a good solution. I also don't want to make the sign up process harder.

yeahsure 16y ago

Not sure if this comment adds any value (I really need to go to bed) but how about requesting an action before showing people the search results for the first time? Kinda like http://www.tweetperview.com http://www.tweetperview.com for searches. Another way to monetize without a pay wall would be to use CPA ads, though some of them are scams... Have you checked out http://sxc.hu http://sxc.hu yet? They have been online for a few years now and they monetize through iStockPhoto aff links. Hope this helps :-) Good luck!