5 ms·

umm... are all these people pushing to increase price serious? I know you want to encourage, but After Effects is "only" $20/mth.

martin-adams 6y ago
But your time isn't. What this product does is saves time, which ultimately saves money. The proof will be how many agencies and marketers this appeals to. When you can charge a mid-sized e-commerce company $2500 a month for social media output, $99/mo is nothing.
- michaelaubry 6y ago
  Exactly it's all relative. It's bound to value, users are looking to get an ROI but if they have insane budgets etc then it's really just relative to the audience and the perceived value.
michaelaubry 6y ago
I think pricing works in mysterious ways. There are a lot of variables. - what is the market willing to pay - does this solve the core problem - how much is this problem worth (hint time is the most valuable thing in the world) I don't think it should be more expensive than adobe products at all. My goal is to make it cost efficient for most folks who don't have large budgets. However here are a few points. - hiring someone could cost a non adobe user $800 for 2-3 videos (this is way more than an adobe product because you are paying for time and skill) - assets and templates depending on usage can easily cost $100 for a few videos on envato (this also enables non creative users to create professional looking content which solves the problem above). - if users can move faster and can iterate faster then they make more money (this applies to serious users who know what they're doing and agencies with a higher budget) Just some of my thoughts. There is no magic bullet for pricing but I think the number one rule I have found with pricing is that it's relative. If Tiffany & co can sell a $1.5k paper clip https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/viral/tiffany-everyday-objects-memes/ https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/viral/tiffany-everyday-obje... then pricing is really what you make of it. There are variables and you have to know what your target audience is willing to pay. My idea on pricing is that I want to 10x your investment. So if I am charging $20 per month. I want you making at least $200 from the service. If you're an agency making $10,000 from the service I am going to charge $1k
- AtHeartEngineer 6y ago
  Targeting the $10-15 price range per month for the lower tiers is ideal. This would basically sit just under adobe's costs, but there wouldn't be the time investment of learning their tools, and the user doesn't need a beefy computer. There's also a good possibility that a small chunk of potential customers may only be using a phone.
- electriclove 6y ago
  Keep things reasonably priced and allow your user base to grow. There is a huge market for the casual user.
  - michaelaubry 6y ago
    True. I have considered a one time fee with upgrades.
    - mantap 6y ago
      Don't. No matter how many people vocally moan about subscriptions (myself included), the fact is if you are actually creating value for users then people will pay them. One time fees lead to bloated software, most of the money is in making upgrade versions and forcing users to pay again, which means there is a huge financial incentive to constantly add features that sound cool whether or not users actually use them. For pricing IMO your starting sweet spot will be around $10/month. There's a benefit in charging something and getting people signed up with their card details. At some point in the future you may find it beneficial to charge $5/m to get more users through the door and make money through extras. Just my 2 cents.
canada_dry 6y ago
> pushing to increase price serious? I agree. I'm puzzled why this is getting so much excitement, it's hardly in the ballpark of "After Effects".
- michaelaubry 6y ago
  Let's see your product that you've coded? I spent years learning to code. Dropped everything to live in a car in Silicon Valley so I didn't have to work at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. I then worked my way up to a $200k salary. Quit that to pursue being an entrepreneur. Last year I made $20k and risked it all for this. Thanks for your time and energy checking it out though. I'm looking forward to your version and if you have a role then I will gladly come work for you. Cheers
  - mdoms 6y ago
    Don't get defensive dude, it's obnoxious. All he said is it's not in the ballpark as a product that has hundreds of developers and over a quarter of a century of development effort.
    - dorkwood 6y ago
      To be fair, the comment he was responding to didn't have any value. All it basically said was "I don't understand why people like this", which, in my opinion, is a lot more obnoxious than the response. People who create and put things out into the world deal with these sort of comments all the time. I think it's fair to be critical of them.
  - alexashka 6y ago
    Yikes, someone's got a chip on their shoulder :) You're in your emotions whereas you should be making calculated moves to increase your chances of success, off of free exposure you're getting here on HackerNews. Your project looks really nice, it is nowhere close to the feature set AfterEffects offers and that's a fact - it has nothing to do with you as a person or your journey. Furthermore, your project is not competing with AfterEffects, it is competing with Fiverr or not bothering with adding 'effects' to videos at all.
statictype 6y ago
How many people know how to use AfterEffects or can spend time learning it? Its not this app vs After Effects. Its this vs hiring someone who knows to use After Effects. Or this vs spending time learning to use a professional video editing tool
- mantap 6y ago
  There's two kinds of users here, users who don't want to pay $20/m but have time (e.g. students) and users who have little time to learn AE but more money. They want to capture both. So the approach is to make the starting price appropriate for group A and then find something that group B wants and upsell it to them.

martin-adams 6y ago

But your time isn't. What this product does is saves time, which ultimately saves money. The proof will be how many agencies and marketers this appeals to. When you can charge a mid-sized e-commerce company $2500 a month for social media output, $99/mo is nothing.

michaelaubry 6y ago
Exactly it's all relative. It's bound to value, users are looking to get an ROI but if they have insane budgets etc then it's really just relative to the audience and the perceived value.

michaelaubry 6y ago

I think pricing works in mysterious ways. There are a lot of variables. - what is the market willing to pay - does this solve the core problem - how much is this problem worth (hint time is the most valuable thing in the world) I don't think it should be more expensive than adobe products at all. My goal is to make it cost efficient for most folks who don't have large budgets. However here are a few points. - hiring someone could cost a non adobe user $800 for 2-3 videos (this is way more than an adobe product because you are paying for time and skill) - assets and templates depending on usage can easily cost $100 for a few videos on envato (this also enables non creative users to create professional looking content which solves the problem above). - if users can move faster and can iterate faster then they make more money (this applies to serious users who know what they're doing and agencies with a higher budget) Just some of my thoughts. There is no magic bullet for pricing but I think the number one rule I have found with pricing is that it's relative. If Tiffany & co can sell a $1.5k paper clip https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/viral/tiffany-everyday-objects-memes/ https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/viral/tiffany-everyday-obje... then pricing is really what you make of it. There are variables and you have to know what your target audience is willing to pay. My idea on pricing is that I want to 10x your investment. So if I am charging $20 per month. I want you making at least $200 from the service. If you're an agency making $10,000 from the service I am going to charge $1k

AtHeartEngineer 6y ago
Targeting the $10-15 price range per month for the lower tiers is ideal. This would basically sit just under adobe's costs, but there wouldn't be the time investment of learning their tools, and the user doesn't need a beefy computer. There's also a good possibility that a small chunk of potential customers may only be using a phone.
electriclove 6y ago
Keep things reasonably priced and allow your user base to grow. There is a huge market for the casual user.
- michaelaubry 6y ago
  True. I have considered a one time fee with upgrades.
  - mantap 6y ago
    Don't. No matter how many people vocally moan about subscriptions (myself included), the fact is if you are actually creating value for users then people will pay them. One time fees lead to bloated software, most of the money is in making upgrade versions and forcing users to pay again, which means there is a huge financial incentive to constantly add features that sound cool whether or not users actually use them. For pricing IMO your starting sweet spot will be around $10/month. There's a benefit in charging something and getting people signed up with their card details. At some point in the future you may find it beneficial to charge $5/m to get more users through the door and make money through extras. Just my 2 cents.

canada_dry 6y ago

> pushing to increase price serious? I agree. I'm puzzled why this is getting so much excitement, it's hardly in the ballpark of "After Effects".

michaelaubry 6y ago
Let's see your product that you've coded? I spent years learning to code. Dropped everything to live in a car in Silicon Valley so I didn't have to work at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. I then worked my way up to a $200k salary. Quit that to pursue being an entrepreneur. Last year I made $20k and risked it all for this. Thanks for your time and energy checking it out though. I'm looking forward to your version and if you have a role then I will gladly come work for you. Cheers
- mdoms 6y ago
  Don't get defensive dude, it's obnoxious. All he said is it's not in the ballpark as a product that has hundreds of developers and over a quarter of a century of development effort.
  - dorkwood 6y ago
    To be fair, the comment he was responding to didn't have any value. All it basically said was "I don't understand why people like this", which, in my opinion, is a lot more obnoxious than the response. People who create and put things out into the world deal with these sort of comments all the time. I think it's fair to be critical of them.
- alexashka 6y ago
  Yikes, someone's got a chip on their shoulder :) You're in your emotions whereas you should be making calculated moves to increase your chances of success, off of free exposure you're getting here on HackerNews. Your project looks really nice, it is nowhere close to the feature set AfterEffects offers and that's a fact - it has nothing to do with you as a person or your journey. Furthermore, your project is not competing with AfterEffects, it is competing with Fiverr or not bothering with adding 'effects' to videos at all.

statictype 6y ago

How many people know how to use AfterEffects or can spend time learning it? Its not this app vs After Effects. Its this vs hiring someone who knows to use After Effects. Or this vs spending time learning to use a professional video editing tool

mantap 6y ago
There's two kinds of users here, users who don't want to pay $20/m but have time (e.g. students) and users who have little time to learn AE but more money. They want to capture both. So the approach is to make the starting price appropriate for group A and then find something that group B wants and upsell it to them.