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"If you're planning to sell a paid SaaS product, this means finding early users, from day one if possible, who will pay." I nearly fell into the trap of not ch
by joelg87 16y ago
"If you're planning to sell a paid SaaS product, this means finding early users, from day one if possible, who will pay."
I nearly fell into the trap of not charging from day 1 with my latest startup. I had set myself a deadline (to launch within November for the startup sprint), and November 30th was fast approaching. When the day came, the product was clearly not ready, but I had worked on it for 7 weeks which was 6 weeks longer than I wanted to work on something without getting feedback from my market. So I launched, and at the last minute I threw in the Paypal HTML code in the payments page. It paid off - I had a paying customer after 4 days.
I see lots of people creating products which are intended to be paid products but have a very long (many months) free beta period. I understand it is to get the product "right", but I think it is a very dangerous strategy, and in the spirit of the lean startup, it could result in a huge amount of waste.
- ian_h 16y ago100% agree, it was very tempting at the start to _not_ charge for EventHQ but in the end I charged from day 1. Downsides are that EHQ have grown more slowly than perhaps it might have done if we had not charged. This might also be an upside as fast growth brings its own issues, esp. if you don't have any revenue. Upsides are that: (i) I had revenue (yay!) from day 1 and profits sometime thereafter; (ii) my customers are committed to EventHQ and have been very quick to feedback on areas where I can improve. This has sometimes been painful but has definitely helped guide/prioritise development. Non-paying customers can provide feedback as well, but I tend to find customer's who are willing to pay are more thoughtful and willing with their feedback.