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Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation

283 points by rufo 15y ago

maukdaddy 15y ago
Excellent analysis and line of thinking. The tech community really needs to give up the idea that hard work should be given away for free. Trail periods are fine, but legitimate businesses need real cash flow, and very, very few can survive off advertising alone.
- jamesbritt 15y ago
  The tech community really needs to give up the idea that hard work should be given away for free. Does "[t]he tech community" even have that belief to begin with? The techies I know, both OSS contributor and not, believe that there is value in giving away some things (e.g., open sourcing projects) but proper and expected to charge for other things. While people may not agree on what exactly should be free I've met no one who flatly claims hard work should be given away for free.
  - jarek 15y ago
    The web appears to, but it actually follows the OTA television model (with all the implications). The Apple-led smartphone world is in an odd large-scale-B2C place right now that is looking increasingly unsustainable.
gcv 15y ago
Great article. I particularly liked the points about filtering out undesirable and unprofitable customers. Some clients really are just wrong, and far more trouble than their business is worth.
alanfalcon 15y ago
It's like a reverse of the iShoot story that caused everyone to run out and make free lite versions of their apps several years ago. Different market (productivity Vs. game, early app store Vs. current app store) but it's still interesting.
modernerd 15y ago
Instapaper has little need for a free app because it's so unique; there are few paid alternatives, let alone free ones. If you're building something less extraordinary, offering a free app with an in-app upgrade path makes more sense. The free-to-pro transition seems to work better with a single app using in app purchases (to remove ads and unlock features) than with two separate apps. It's possible to structure the experience in a free app to make the upgrade more compelling too. Thermo and Astronut (both for iPhone) are two examples that handle it well in different ways: Astronut (game) presents an upgrade option when you reach the end of the first stage; Thermo (temperature widget) shows an ad at the bottom with a tempting X button -- when you tap that, you're prompted to upgrade.
- r_h_thomas 15y ago
  What in the world is "extraordinary" about Instapaper? It came at the right time to help people deal with the limitations of a mobile device, but the app itself is trivial. The model is trivial. The web service is, I would wager, trivial. It is entirely normal, but happened at exactly the right time. I'm not a big fan of Marcos because I read a sense of desperation in virtually all he has said lately (just look through his recent archives and you'll see someone tilting into the wind). Further isn't it a bit ridiculous for someone to have gotten big on the backs of a free app to then -- after they've established the network effect and have market presence -- proclaim that free apps aren't necessary? It's a lesson with no meat at all. If this app started at $4.99 and became as popular as it is, then you'd have a story. Otherwise honestly it reads more like an attempt at misdirection for people who might follow.
xinsight 15y ago
Thoughtful approach on app pricing and customer selection. The point that resonated with recent experiences was this one: "How much effort do I really want to devote to satisfying people who are unable or extremely unlikely to pay for anything? (This is also a major reason why I have no plans to enter the Android market.)"
- gordonbowman 15y ago
  agreed, that point stood out to me too. also his note about not needing every iOS-device owner. And his footnote illustrates just how huge the iOS market is: "If “only” 1% of current iOS-device owners bought Instapaper, I’d make about $5 million. I’d love to have 1% of the market"
karterk 15y ago
This post reminds me of a post by Jacques Mattheij about an experiment he did by doubling the price of his app: http://jacquesmattheij.com/Double+your+price+(and+no,+Im+not+kidding) http://jacquesmattheij.com/Double+your+price+(and+no,+Im+not... These two articles definitely make a case for experimenting with the pricing based on your market and target audience to find the sweet spot.
goforth 15y ago
I think Readitlater (and lately Readability) strips down the content much better than Instapaper. Instapaper always has a lot of weird extraneous stuff around the text. The others do not. +1 for them.
- state_machine 15y ago
  I've been using Instapaper (mostly on programming related blog posts [standard WP/Blogger templates] and major magazine articles [Vanity Fair, Economist, etc]) for a while and rarely found this to be the case. It has almost always stripped unneeded markup well, often providing a superior reading experience on the iPhone than iOS Safari's rendering of the original content. Are there any specific sites/types of pages you've had trouble with?
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    My only real complaint about Instapaper is that it often seems to strip out the byline, and sometimes even the name of the publication, leaving me without some of the context I like to have when reading an article. (Here's an example of missing byline: http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bookrags.com%2Fnews%2Fcover-story-the-zen-of-eminem-moc%2F&article=154409465 http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bookrags.c... (the article is written by Zadie Smith, which I find to be very important information.))
- TetOn 15y ago
  In fairness, it's worth noting that Readability app is Instapaper; it's just been repackaged. http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/05/instapaper-readability/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/05/instapaper-readability/
  - goforth 15y ago
    Send a page to Instapaper. Then send to Readability. I guarantee you will like Readability more. Try it.
  - goforth 15y ago
rakingleaves 15y ago
I'm one Android user who would definitely pay $5 for an official Instapaper app.
- pkteison 15y ago
  Since comment scores aren't displayed anymore, I'm stuck replying 'ditto'.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Why? Read It Later is a great, overlooked service that does the same thing. It's also well designed. And it's cross platform.
  - rakingleaves 15y ago
    Thanks for the tip. Just gave it a try, and it looks great so far.
- hardik 15y ago
  I have had no issues with InstaFetch and it serves the purpose pretty well.
dpcan 15y ago
"Maybe you think I can only do this because Instapaper is already popular. But it built its popularity while charging a lot for an iPhone app from the start." AND there was a free version out. He's neglecting the "critical mass" factor. The free version helped him sell the full version until it reached that "critical mass" that was required for the popularity of the full version to continue to drive sales of itself. I've personally found that by just offering a paid version of an app from the beginning is quite frustrating. But once I put out a free limited version, sales took off. So, MAYBE I'll try losing some of my free versions to see what happens, but I think that free-to-paid actually works just as well.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  AND there's a free website that drives people to know about the ipad version in the first place.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    Interesting that for all the arguments about charging for the iphone/ipad versions, he's not charging for the website service itself (which presumably costs money to run too). Perhaps there's value in 'free' after all?
  - achompas 15y ago
    This is actually a great point--why not provide a free web version and a paid iPhone version of any product? Flash game developers do this (see Canabalt, World of Goo), so extending the model to iPhone apps isn't a bad idea.
- DougBTX 15y ago
  > He's neglecting the "critical mass" factor. See the "Every app is a special case" section.
  - Confusion 15y ago
    That section does not address the likeliness of Instapaper having gained a critical mass of users and people knowing about its existence before being able to pull the free version. There was already a 'web only' service before there was a web app and together with the free version that has resulted in a lot of people 'knowing about it'. Once you reach critical mass, further sales can result from word-of-mouth advertisements and 'having heard of it once'. We would have to do a verification experiment: go back 18 months in the past and pull the free version from the appstore. There is not a doubt in my mind that that would have turned out bad for Marco.
unwantedLetters 15y ago
I am sad about this since I was an Instapaper Free to Instapaper paid convert. In fact, I would never have used it if I hadn't used the free app. I know I'm in a minority of users, but I still think the free is useful. Having initially spent many months using my iPhone and not paying for any apps at all (only downloading free apps), I took my first step into paid apps with a cheap $0.99 app, and realized that for the small price, it made my app (and phone) experience a whole lot better. After that, I was always willing to spend money on apps (even if it was just for experimentation) and Instapaper became one of the first apps I bought. I don't know if this is an unusual thing, but I've noticed a lot of my friends act in a similar manner. After paying for that first app, they are very willing to pay for more. And you'd be losing some very good customers if you removed the free app. I suppose I understand Marco's decision even after all this, I'm still unhappy that we might see it go.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  And you'd be losing some very good customers if you removed the free app. He's presented empirical evidence that he's not losing any, the exact opposite happens, he gains customers by not having a free app. You've presented your gut feeling. There might be something behind the 'critical mass' argument that some are saying, but that's impossible to test. Yours seems very wooly though.
  - bbgm 15y ago
    That critical mass was likely there from Instapaper the web app. I went straight to paid since I was a fan of the service. I suspect there were many others
    - achompas 15y ago
      Instapaper fan here. Used the web app like crazy, wanted to support Marco so I bought the $5 app. No regrets.
  - unwantedLetters 15y ago
    I agree that I've not presented the best argument. And to be honest that was not my intention. I was just stating what I felt (as you acknowledge). But I stand by what I said earlier: he will lose some very good customers. I didn't mean he will lose all, but some. He knows that, and is willing to accept it and is betting on the fact that the number is very low. From the article: "If I don’t have a free app for a long time, I’m certainly going to miss out on some potential long-term conversions. But how many, really, and what would it cost to chase them?"
jcampbell1 15y ago
As an alternative viewpoint, his thinking seems incredibly shortsighted. When it comes time to launch "InstaAlbum, share your family photos", he is going to have 1/3 the potential audience to draw customers. 3x the existing customers could make the difference between the top of the charts and the press recognition that goes with it. Part of his rational is that some tiny percentage of the free customers complain, and write negative reviews. Marco should man up and simply accept he has a good product and is a talented developer. That way he doesn't have to give a damn about the haters. It is sad that the %.1 of the population that is inherently bitchy, is driving his business decisions.
- bradshaw1965 15y ago
  ...Marco should man up If it gets under your skin and you are meeting your revenue expectations is there a good reason to invite haters to your party?
  - jcampbell1 15y ago
    Yes, there is good reason. The haters bring 1000 normal people that you can sell your product to.
    - bradshaw1965 15y ago
      Again, he seems happy with his revenue generation and he cuts down significantly on annoying chatter in his ear. Seems like a good decision. Some folks would talk about his "lifestyle business" and how he needs to change x and y, I'd say just keep on trucking.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- akeefer 15y ago
  Of course he has to care about the haters if they leave negative reviews of his apps: negative reviews will directly hurt future sales. If people see the free app with a bunch of negative reviews, that can harm the overall brand, even if the paid app has a bunch of good reviews. I didn't hear him saying it hurt his feelings that he got negative reviews; it's simply bad for business.
jrockway 15y ago
How does he know nobody will buy the Android app? I barely use any free apps other than the ones that come with Cyanogen Mod. Titanium Backup? Paid. ROM Manager? Paid. Treking? Paid. Android IRC? Paid. X-Plane? Paid. Android users have no problems paying for apps. Non-Android developers are afraid of the unknown.
- xinsight 15y ago
  I ported an iOS app to Android. I've sold three (!!) copies while in that same period, the iOS version has sold about 300. I dropped the price from $5 down to $2 over easter and still didn't sell a single copy during the sale. The two apps have the same content and the sales funnel is exactly the same. (The only difference is the iOS app has lots of 5-star reviews.) It seems clear to me that Android users can't or won't pay for certain kinds of apps.
  - cygwin98 15y ago
    Wow, sounds like a good story that deserves its own blog post.
    - xinsight 15y ago
      Thanks for the encouragement. I was going to release a free version on Android before writing up my experiences. I thought the liberal return policy on Android would eliminate the need for "lite" apps - but the return window is only 15 minutes which seems a bit tight. Better to have an app where you can fully evaluate it and then buy when you're ready.
  - jokermatt999 15y ago
    What app? How well known is it? What is your competition on both platforms? Have you marketed the Android version as much as the iOS version?
    - xinsight 15y ago
      It's called GoSwedish - a friendly introduction to learning Swedish. http://xinsight.ca/goswedish/ http://xinsight.ca/goswedish/ Findability within the Market might also be a factor. A search for "swedish" in the App Store, and it's on the first screen. But it's quite a long scroll down on the Android Market.
michaeldhopkins 15y ago
I use Instapaper free and am happy with it. The ten article cap doesn't bother me because I clear my backlog quickly. I actually like choosing from ten articles, reading one, archiving it and seeing a new one pop into the menu. Free used to not save my place in the article and I almost upgraded for that, but then Free started to save my place and I didn't upgrade. I am vaguely aware of some other features Pro might offer, but ignorance is bliss...
jfruh 15y ago
I totally get Marco's decision to go with a paid version of his app. Of course, he doesn't provide an option for publishers to opt out of providing free versions of their content, which is what they're doing when Instapaper strips all the ads off of them.
- hullo 15y ago
  He actually does: http://www.instapaper.com/publishers http://www.instapaper.com/publishers
  - haribilalic 15y ago
    He also does through Readability (http://www.readability.com/ http://www.readability.com/). He's an advisor to Readability, Readability's iOS apps are based on the Instapaper iOS apps and Instapaper can be linked with Readability to provide Instapaper activity to Readability so that publishers can be paid. http://www.marco.org/2011/02/01/readabilitys-new-service http://www.marco.org/2011/02/01/readabilitys-new-service
- warp 15y ago
  That's not entirely true. Whatever article I am reading in instapaper is an article I have visited in a normal webbrowser first, with all their ads in place. Then decided I didn't have time to read it at that moment and clicked the instapaper "read later" bookmark, but by that time I have already seen and ignored your ads.
rkudeshi 15y ago
Perhaps the free app might've converted better if Marco had added an in-app purchase to upgrade to the full version.
- r00fus 15y ago
  Or perhaps not. I've spent hundreds on apps, and have yet to spend a single dollar in IAP. Horses for courses... it all depends on what type of market your app caters to.
  - logic 15y ago
    Agreed. I've upgraded from a free version to paid from within an app (MobileRSS) before, but I'm not an average iOS user. I think marco's point about the free version creating a "bad neighborhood" around his paid app really nails it. If you're not generating appreciable traction from the free version, but are starting to develop a negative image and generating significant headaches as a result of it, it's probably a smart move to suspend the free version.
thibaut_barrere 15y ago
These days I really prefer to pay a service or an app, hopefully to give it some sustainable fuel, rather than invest in a free tool that doesn't allow the author to pay its bills.
patio11 15y ago
I second, third, and fourth the notion about pathological customers. iOS is practically training a generation of them. I'm glad they are far away from me.
- JonLim 15y ago
  Many of my friends own iPhones, and many are flabbergasted when they find out that my phone is not jailbroken nor is it filled with free apps. I happily pay for quality apps. Why? It's going to cost me anywhere from $1 to $10, and that is honestly chump change for an app that will provide much more in value. For some reason, if you give away your work for free, all of the cheapskates and losers come out and start insulting the service and/or claiming they didn't get enough support. What do people expect when they don't pay for a valuable app...?
  - alexmuller 15y ago
    > if you give away your work for free, all of the cheapskates and losers come out and start insulting the service This is exactly what Spotify experienced when they announced they were going from free -> not so free. http://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/archives/2011/04/14/upcoming-changes-to-spotify-free-open/ http://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/archives/2011/04/14/upcoming-...
  - thibaut_barrere 15y ago
    Another data point: here only one friend has a jailbroken iphone. The other ones don't even know what it means :) But otherwise I do agree with all you wrote!
  - mbateman 15y ago
    I really hate the fact that you can't just straight up pay for more things and am deeply suspicious of free services. What benefit do you get from me using your service if I'm not paying you? In some cases, like Google, the benefit is that I can be sold to advertisers. Nothing is really free, and it's better, cleaner, and less scammy feeling to know and pay the cost up front. If there's a free vs. paid app that I want I will always go for the paid app. I never tried Instapaper free.
corin_ 15y ago
There's some incorrect logic in there to point out. "The math to explain this is simple: most Free users won’t give me anywhere near $3.50 worth of ad impressions." So, a free user is less valuable than a paid user, fair enough. But not 100% of people who would use the free version will buy the paid version. As he said in the second paragraph, "it’s hard to say which portion of the increase, if any, is attributable to Free’s absence" While I'm not saying this is for sure, it is a possibility that, while one user with adverts gives him less money than one user who pays, cutting off all the free users could lose more money in advertising than it generates in sales.
- macrael 15y ago
  But as he points out there are other costs to be taken into account. The amount of ad revenue can't be directly weighed against the money generated by sales. You also need to consider the development costs of maintaining the lite version, deciding what should be a universal feature, etc.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    Sure, I'm not arguing for/against removing the free version, just with the logic of comparing the advertising revenue per person with the cost of the paid version.
  - xuki 15y ago
    And server cost too
- rubergly 15y ago
  Agreed. Since his logic of "no one seemed to care when I removed the free version" implies that very few people who download the free app would ever buy the paid one, it seems strange that he would compare the sales directly. If the free version is only downloaded 3x as many times as the paid one, then each free user only needs to make $3.50/3 in ad revenue.
prestia 15y ago
If it weren't for Apple's pricing restrictions, I would love to see a free version of Instapaper that is "unlocked" to a full-featured version if the linked account is a paid subscriber. (For those that don't know, Instapaper also utilizes a subscription model: http://www.instapaper.com/subscription http://www.instapaper.com/subscription) I happily pay the quarterly subscription fee and would love a full-featured application to go along with it. That said, I no longer own an iOS device.
napierzaza 15y ago
I like his arguments since they are logical and backed up with data. But at the same time I never would have bought the app if I didn't use "free" for several weeks and got the idea it was useful. This is after reading about Instapaper everywhere and hearing from close friends that it's almost the main reason they even have an iPhone (which was probably an overstatement on their part). Edit: Can we please stop the tired argument of "you paid 600$+ for the device, what difference is 5.00$..."? It's like people who pay 6000$ for a HDTV don't mind paying 100$ for the HDMI cable. Some people do indeed do that, but I for one determine the value of an app or accessory based on the sunken costs of the device. I value a HDMI cable's value at about 5-10$ because that is the cost of a quality one from Monoprice.
- tomg 15y ago
  > But at the same time I never would have bought the app if I didn't use "free" for several weeks and got the idea it was useful. There's a middle ground between only having a Paid app and giving a way a full featured, Free, ad-supported version. For example, you can create a Trial version that stops working after a certain amount of time. If you're making a game, you can only have the first few levels in the Free version. If your app creates content, then you can make a Free version that works exactly as the Paid version but does not allow for saving the users work. [I'm assuming these tactics are not forbidden by some EULA or whatever.] Anyway you get the idea: there are alternatives that let the user see if they think your software is worth buying that don't involve giving the entire thing away and hoping to get enough ad impressions / conversions to make it worth while. Why so many iOS developers go this route instead of the above and just give away their app with some low eCPM ads is beyond me, though I've only dabbled in iOS development so maybe that's just what works for people :)
  - nerfhammer 15y ago
    The free version of instapaper was feature-limited, not just ad supported (at least at the time before I bought the full version)
  - joegester 15y ago
    The time-limited demo idea is forbidden by Apple's TOS.
rumblestrut 15y ago
I had tried the free iPhone app and could never get the thing to accept my credentials. So, I gave up and didn't give it much thought. But then I kept hearing about how great Instapaper was. I didn't get it. My experience with the free app was bad so I didn't know what I was doing wrong. Instead of writing a terrible review of the free one, I went ahead and purchased the paid app. And now I'm hooked. I find Instapaper to be incredibly useful and love its simplicity. I then turned it on in my Twitter client, expanding my use even more. The free app is a detriment to Instapaper rather than an asset. Marco is likely better off sticking with a great product customers are willing to pay for who end up loving the service, than having a mediocre app that doesn't build up a fan base that translates to paying customers. Keep up the great work Marco!
ilamont 15y ago
I recently bought the paid app, based on the recommendations of a friend and the number of positive reviews in the app store, but am quite disappointed in what I got in return for my $4.99. I won't turn this into a review of the functionality or criticize the developer for wanting to increase sales, but I will say that buyers should have a way to vet the product before purchasing it (there was no free option when I purchased it).
hrktb 15y ago
I have a lot of respect for all the hard work, especialy since I am hooked to Instapaper like services, and getting rid of the free version might be a good move I think. Now, he seems to have such a policy of ignoring his competition in his talks. I would guess one reason he doesn't hear complaints about the loss of the free version is because ReadItLater and others have a free app to catch these users. He talks a lot about the cheapstakes that wouldn't upgrade, but the free version couldn't get me to register when I tried it. When it worked afterwards, it was so stripped down it wasn't funny. In contrast the decision to buy the ReaditLater (same priced at the time) pro version was natural, and I kept the free version on devices I didn't care to sync. At least, he is totally right, after using the Instapaper free version, I am bitching a lot.
ameyamk 15y ago
I love instapaper, but I really really want search built for it...
- rubergly 15y ago
  The latest version of the iOS app has search. Pull down when in a list of articles, and a search bar comes up.
alexknight 15y ago
I don't think the App Store is necessarily fostering a new generation of entitlement minded people. I think those people have and will always exist no matter what. IMHO I always prefer paying for apps, and I never complain about the prices that are in the App Store. I prefer to support the hard work that goes into the quality apps that I use. I also don't feel it's fair or right for me to complain about a product when it's provided for free. I think Marco made an excellent decision.
rubergly 15y ago
Not only did sales increase incrementally, but nobody seemed to notice. What does this mean? This "nobody even noticed!" attitude he expresses several times seems very ignorant to me. Sure, very few people heard that Instapaper had a free iPhone app, didn't look for it right away, then a month later searched for it, saw it wasn't in the App Store, and emailed or tweeted Marco personally asking what happened. This is the only chain of events I can see leading to a potential user giving Marco direct feedback, the lack of which is what he seemed to interpret as "nobody noticed." If you change a bunch of road signs, but everyone from the neighborhood is on vacation and so no one sees the new configuration and exclaims "What is this?!", does that suddenly mean that new drivers won't act differently in response to the new road sign configurations? Note that assuming that somehow "everyone from the neighborhood is on vacation" is not at all an unrealistic assumption to make. People who had already downloaded the free app were golden when he removed it, so long as they didn't wipe their iPhone or upgrade. You could argue that maybe they would've thought "huh, why haven't I gotten updates in a while?" First of all, I doubt anyone thinks like that. I know I certainly don't think about updates until the App Store tells me I have 10 and I get frustrated at it; I only notice when apps require updates, not when they don't require updates. Second of all, they may have just thought the free app would be getting less updates than the paid one. And there are countless other reasons why "no one has personally emailed me about the absence of this" is a terrible reason to conclude "nobody really cared" and especially (what I think he is implicitly getting at) "no potential future buyers of the paid app were turned off by the absence of a free app." Maybe they only cared a little and got bored once they couldn't find it in the app store, but otherwise would've been engaged by the app or (since he acknowledges that there are few converts) have been interested enough to tell friends who would eventually pay for it. Maybe, and this is _crazy_ to propose, a significant number of geeks went looking for the free app having heard a lot about Instapaper, saw there was no free app, were pissed, but didn't know or think or care to email Marco about it; maybe they thought he did it purposefully and didn't want to bug him, maybe they were intimidated, maybe they didn't know who Marco was, etc.
volandovengo 15y ago
Yes - he fails to note that the reason that most people learned about instapaper is because he offers a free version of it. I love instapaper but haven't contemplated paying for it because the differences between the free and paid versions are relatively minimal. Freemium has a lot of perks, the chief one being - getting the word out about the product. How many people would know about dropbox if they didn't offer a free version?
deleted 15y ago
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dk 15y ago
I've been using the free Instapaper iPhone app for some time, until it just completely stopped working. Trying to update, it would tell me that there was no network connection. Uh, wrong. Over and over. Eventually I logged out, wiped the local cache, and tried logging in fresh. And what did I get? A blank page with "403" at the top. My impression of the app at this point was that either the developer is a fuck up or that I've been geo-locked out because I'm not in the U.S. Actually the second implies the first. I didn't care, I just stopped using Instapaper. On the basis of this post, I took a leap of faith. Despite a complete failure of user experience with the free app, I bet $5 that maybe the paid app would, well, work. And so far it has. Marco, if you're listening, you make some great points in this post, but your upselling in my experience is... as described.
fragmede 15y ago
> On the website, this cost is defrayed by ads from The Deck, but people using the iOS app might never visit the website. That's theoretically true, but how true is it? What percentage of people who have used the iOS app have also logged in via a desktop web browser? How many people have only logged in via a desktop web browser. A look at the web server statistics would prove quite fruitful - it would tell the author where to spend development time. Do most of the active users have an iOS device? Do they ever use the mobile safari 'read later' bookmarklet? Spend time getting iOS push to push new articles to the app vs. time improving other things; but only if the data justifies it.
jranck 15y ago
I applaud the fact that a developer can charge for his time and effort into building a good product. While I love hearing about these success stories, lets not forget the fact that all applications are different. There is an inherit and perceived value for everything and it's all dependent on the audience. The ROI per user is different for everyone, what works for you may not work for someone else. Marco's audience is made up of mostly tech savvy individuals where the implied value is greater than the cost of the service. This isn't the exception to the rule but it isn't the typical audience that a lot of startups are trying to capture. Every audience and product is different and take inspiration with a grain of salt. With that being said nice work Marco.

283 points by rufo 15y ago

Excellent analysis and line of thinking. The tech community really needs to give up the idea that hard work should be given away for free. Trail periods are fine, but legitimate businesses need real cash flow, and very, very few can survive off advertising alone.

jamesbritt 15y ago
The tech community really needs to give up the idea that hard work should be given away for free. Does "[t]he tech community" even have that belief to begin with? The techies I know, both OSS contributor and not, believe that there is value in giving away some things (e.g., open sourcing projects) but proper and expected to charge for other things. While people may not agree on what exactly should be free I've met no one who flatly claims hard work should be given away for free.
- jarek 15y ago
  The web appears to, but it actually follows the OTA television model (with all the implications). The Apple-led smartphone world is in an odd large-scale-B2C place right now that is looking increasingly unsustainable.

gcv 15y ago

Great article. I particularly liked the points about filtering out undesirable and unprofitable customers. Some clients really are just wrong, and far more trouble than their business is worth.

alanfalcon 15y ago

It's like a reverse of the iShoot story that caused everyone to run out and make free lite versions of their apps several years ago. Different market (productivity Vs. game, early app store Vs. current app store) but it's still interesting.

modernerd 15y ago

Instapaper has little need for a free app because it's so unique; there are few paid alternatives, let alone free ones. If you're building something less extraordinary, offering a free app with an in-app upgrade path makes more sense. The free-to-pro transition seems to work better with a single app using in app purchases (to remove ads and unlock features) than with two separate apps. It's possible to structure the experience in a free app to make the upgrade more compelling too. Thermo and Astronut (both for iPhone) are two examples that handle it well in different ways: Astronut (game) presents an upgrade option when you reach the end of the first stage; Thermo (temperature widget) shows an ad at the bottom with a tempting X button -- when you tap that, you're prompted to upgrade.

r_h_thomas 15y ago
What in the world is "extraordinary" about Instapaper? It came at the right time to help people deal with the limitations of a mobile device, but the app itself is trivial. The model is trivial. The web service is, I would wager, trivial. It is entirely normal, but happened at exactly the right time. I'm not a big fan of Marcos because I read a sense of desperation in virtually all he has said lately (just look through his recent archives and you'll see someone tilting into the wind). Further isn't it a bit ridiculous for someone to have gotten big on the backs of a free app to then -- after they've established the network effect and have market presence -- proclaim that free apps aren't necessary? It's a lesson with no meat at all. If this app started at $4.99 and became as popular as it is, then you'd have a story. Otherwise honestly it reads more like an attempt at misdirection for people who might follow.

xinsight 15y ago

Thoughtful approach on app pricing and customer selection. The point that resonated with recent experiences was this one: "How much effort do I really want to devote to satisfying people who are unable or extremely unlikely to pay for anything? (This is also a major reason why I have no plans to enter the Android market.)"

gordonbowman 15y ago
agreed, that point stood out to me too. also his note about not needing every iOS-device owner. And his footnote illustrates just how huge the iOS market is: "If “only” 1% of current iOS-device owners bought Instapaper, I’d make about $5 million. I’d love to have 1% of the market"

karterk 15y ago

This post reminds me of a post by Jacques Mattheij about an experiment he did by doubling the price of his app: http://jacquesmattheij.com/Double+your+price+(and+no,+Im+not+kidding) http://jacquesmattheij.com/Double+your+price+(and+no,+Im+not... These two articles definitely make a case for experimenting with the pricing based on your market and target audience to find the sweet spot.

goforth 15y ago

I think Readitlater (and lately Readability) strips down the content much better than Instapaper. Instapaper always has a lot of weird extraneous stuff around the text. The others do not. +1 for them.

state_machine 15y ago
I've been using Instapaper (mostly on programming related blog posts [standard WP/Blogger templates] and major magazine articles [Vanity Fair, Economist, etc]) for a while and rarely found this to be the case. It has almost always stripped unneeded markup well, often providing a superior reading experience on the iPhone than iOS Safari's rendering of the original content. Are there any specific sites/types of pages you've had trouble with?
- joebadmo 15y ago
  My only real complaint about Instapaper is that it often seems to strip out the byline, and sometimes even the name of the publication, leaving me without some of the context I like to have when reading an article. (Here's an example of missing byline: http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bookrags.com%2Fnews%2Fcover-story-the-zen-of-eminem-moc%2F&article=154409465 http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bookrags.c... (the article is written by Zadie Smith, which I find to be very important information.))
TetOn 15y ago
In fairness, it's worth noting that Readability app is Instapaper; it's just been repackaged. http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/05/instapaper-readability/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/05/instapaper-readability/
- goforth 15y ago
  Send a page to Instapaper. Then send to Readability. I guarantee you will like Readability more. Try it.
- goforth 15y ago

rakingleaves 15y ago

I'm one Android user who would definitely pay $5 for an official Instapaper app.

pkteison 15y ago
Since comment scores aren't displayed anymore, I'm stuck replying 'ditto'.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Why? Read It Later is a great, overlooked service that does the same thing. It's also well designed. And it's cross platform.
- rakingleaves 15y ago
  Thanks for the tip. Just gave it a try, and it looks great so far.
hardik 15y ago
I have had no issues with InstaFetch and it serves the purpose pretty well.

dpcan 15y ago

"Maybe you think I can only do this because Instapaper is already popular. But it built its popularity while charging a lot for an iPhone app from the start." AND there was a free version out. He's neglecting the "critical mass" factor. The free version helped him sell the full version until it reached that "critical mass" that was required for the popularity of the full version to continue to drive sales of itself. I've personally found that by just offering a paid version of an app from the beginning is quite frustrating. But once I put out a free limited version, sales took off. So, MAYBE I'll try losing some of my free versions to see what happens, but I think that free-to-paid actually works just as well.

mgkimsal 15y ago
AND there's a free website that drives people to know about the ipad version in the first place.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Interesting that for all the arguments about charging for the iphone/ipad versions, he's not charging for the website service itself (which presumably costs money to run too). Perhaps there's value in 'free' after all?
- achompas 15y ago
  This is actually a great point--why not provide a free web version and a paid iPhone version of any product? Flash game developers do this (see Canabalt, World of Goo), so extending the model to iPhone apps isn't a bad idea.
DougBTX 15y ago
> He's neglecting the "critical mass" factor. See the "Every app is a special case" section.
- Confusion 15y ago
  That section does not address the likeliness of Instapaper having gained a critical mass of users and people knowing about its existence before being able to pull the free version. There was already a 'web only' service before there was a web app and together with the free version that has resulted in a lot of people 'knowing about it'. Once you reach critical mass, further sales can result from word-of-mouth advertisements and 'having heard of it once'. We would have to do a verification experiment: go back 18 months in the past and pull the free version from the appstore. There is not a doubt in my mind that that would have turned out bad for Marco.

unwantedLetters 15y ago

I am sad about this since I was an Instapaper Free to Instapaper paid convert. In fact, I would never have used it if I hadn't used the free app. I know I'm in a minority of users, but I still think the free is useful. Having initially spent many months using my iPhone and not paying for any apps at all (only downloading free apps), I took my first step into paid apps with a cheap $0.99 app, and realized that for the small price, it made my app (and phone) experience a whole lot better. After that, I was always willing to spend money on apps (even if it was just for experimentation) and Instapaper became one of the first apps I bought. I don't know if this is an unusual thing, but I've noticed a lot of my friends act in a similar manner. After paying for that first app, they are very willing to pay for more. And you'd be losing some very good customers if you removed the free app. I suppose I understand Marco's decision even after all this, I'm still unhappy that we might see it go.

mattmanser 15y ago
And you'd be losing some very good customers if you removed the free app. He's presented empirical evidence that he's not losing any, the exact opposite happens, he gains customers by not having a free app. You've presented your gut feeling. There might be something behind the 'critical mass' argument that some are saying, but that's impossible to test. Yours seems very wooly though.
- bbgm 15y ago
  That critical mass was likely there from Instapaper the web app. I went straight to paid since I was a fan of the service. I suspect there were many others
  - achompas 15y ago
    Instapaper fan here. Used the web app like crazy, wanted to support Marco so I bought the $5 app. No regrets.
- unwantedLetters 15y ago
  I agree that I've not presented the best argument. And to be honest that was not my intention. I was just stating what I felt (as you acknowledge). But I stand by what I said earlier: he will lose some very good customers. I didn't mean he will lose all, but some. He knows that, and is willing to accept it and is betting on the fact that the number is very low. From the article: "If I don’t have a free app for a long time, I’m certainly going to miss out on some potential long-term conversions. But how many, really, and what would it cost to chase them?"

jcampbell1 15y ago

As an alternative viewpoint, his thinking seems incredibly shortsighted. When it comes time to launch "InstaAlbum, share your family photos", he is going to have 1/3 the potential audience to draw customers. 3x the existing customers could make the difference between the top of the charts and the press recognition that goes with it. Part of his rational is that some tiny percentage of the free customers complain, and write negative reviews. Marco should man up and simply accept he has a good product and is a talented developer. That way he doesn't have to give a damn about the haters. It is sad that the %.1 of the population that is inherently bitchy, is driving his business decisions.

bradshaw1965 15y ago
...Marco should man up If it gets under your skin and you are meeting your revenue expectations is there a good reason to invite haters to your party?
- jcampbell1 15y ago
  Yes, there is good reason. The haters bring 1000 normal people that you can sell your product to.
  - bradshaw1965 15y ago
    Again, he seems happy with his revenue generation and he cuts down significantly on annoying chatter in his ear. Seems like a good decision. Some folks would talk about his "lifestyle business" and how he needs to change x and y, I'd say just keep on trucking.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
akeefer 15y ago
Of course he has to care about the haters if they leave negative reviews of his apps: negative reviews will directly hurt future sales. If people see the free app with a bunch of negative reviews, that can harm the overall brand, even if the paid app has a bunch of good reviews. I didn't hear him saying it hurt his feelings that he got negative reviews; it's simply bad for business.

jrockway 15y ago

How does he know nobody will buy the Android app? I barely use any free apps other than the ones that come with Cyanogen Mod. Titanium Backup? Paid. ROM Manager? Paid. Treking? Paid. Android IRC? Paid. X-Plane? Paid. Android users have no problems paying for apps. Non-Android developers are afraid of the unknown.

xinsight 15y ago
I ported an iOS app to Android. I've sold three (!!) copies while in that same period, the iOS version has sold about 300. I dropped the price from $5 down to $2 over easter and still didn't sell a single copy during the sale. The two apps have the same content and the sales funnel is exactly the same. (The only difference is the iOS app has lots of 5-star reviews.) It seems clear to me that Android users can't or won't pay for certain kinds of apps.
- cygwin98 15y ago
  Wow, sounds like a good story that deserves its own blog post.
  - xinsight 15y ago
    Thanks for the encouragement. I was going to release a free version on Android before writing up my experiences. I thought the liberal return policy on Android would eliminate the need for "lite" apps - but the return window is only 15 minutes which seems a bit tight. Better to have an app where you can fully evaluate it and then buy when you're ready.
- jokermatt999 15y ago
  What app? How well known is it? What is your competition on both platforms? Have you marketed the Android version as much as the iOS version?
  - xinsight 15y ago
    It's called GoSwedish - a friendly introduction to learning Swedish. http://xinsight.ca/goswedish/ http://xinsight.ca/goswedish/ Findability within the Market might also be a factor. A search for "swedish" in the App Store, and it's on the first screen. But it's quite a long scroll down on the Android Market.

michaeldhopkins 15y ago

I use Instapaper free and am happy with it. The ten article cap doesn't bother me because I clear my backlog quickly. I actually like choosing from ten articles, reading one, archiving it and seeing a new one pop into the menu. Free used to not save my place in the article and I almost upgraded for that, but then Free started to save my place and I didn't upgrade. I am vaguely aware of some other features Pro might offer, but ignorance is bliss...

jfruh 15y ago

I totally get Marco's decision to go with a paid version of his app. Of course, he doesn't provide an option for publishers to opt out of providing free versions of their content, which is what they're doing when Instapaper strips all the ads off of them.

hullo 15y ago
He actually does: http://www.instapaper.com/publishers http://www.instapaper.com/publishers
- haribilalic 15y ago
  He also does through Readability (http://www.readability.com/ http://www.readability.com/). He's an advisor to Readability, Readability's iOS apps are based on the Instapaper iOS apps and Instapaper can be linked with Readability to provide Instapaper activity to Readability so that publishers can be paid. http://www.marco.org/2011/02/01/readabilitys-new-service http://www.marco.org/2011/02/01/readabilitys-new-service
warp 15y ago
That's not entirely true. Whatever article I am reading in instapaper is an article I have visited in a normal webbrowser first, with all their ads in place. Then decided I didn't have time to read it at that moment and clicked the instapaper "read later" bookmark, but by that time I have already seen and ignored your ads.

rkudeshi 15y ago

Perhaps the free app might've converted better if Marco had added an in-app purchase to upgrade to the full version.

r00fus 15y ago
Or perhaps not. I've spent hundreds on apps, and have yet to spend a single dollar in IAP. Horses for courses... it all depends on what type of market your app caters to.
- logic 15y ago
  Agreed. I've upgraded from a free version to paid from within an app (MobileRSS) before, but I'm not an average iOS user. I think marco's point about the free version creating a "bad neighborhood" around his paid app really nails it. If you're not generating appreciable traction from the free version, but are starting to develop a negative image and generating significant headaches as a result of it, it's probably a smart move to suspend the free version.

thibaut_barrere 15y ago

These days I really prefer to pay a service or an app, hopefully to give it some sustainable fuel, rather than invest in a free tool that doesn't allow the author to pay its bills.

patio11 15y ago

I second, third, and fourth the notion about pathological customers. iOS is practically training a generation of them. I'm glad they are far away from me.

JonLim 15y ago
Many of my friends own iPhones, and many are flabbergasted when they find out that my phone is not jailbroken nor is it filled with free apps. I happily pay for quality apps. Why? It's going to cost me anywhere from $1 to $10, and that is honestly chump change for an app that will provide much more in value. For some reason, if you give away your work for free, all of the cheapskates and losers come out and start insulting the service and/or claiming they didn't get enough support. What do people expect when they don't pay for a valuable app...?
- alexmuller 15y ago
  > if you give away your work for free, all of the cheapskates and losers come out and start insulting the service This is exactly what Spotify experienced when they announced they were going from free -> not so free. http://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/archives/2011/04/14/upcoming-changes-to-spotify-free-open/ http://www.spotify.com/uk/blog/archives/2011/04/14/upcoming-...
- thibaut_barrere 15y ago
  Another data point: here only one friend has a jailbroken iphone. The other ones don't even know what it means :) But otherwise I do agree with all you wrote!
- mbateman 15y ago
  I really hate the fact that you can't just straight up pay for more things and am deeply suspicious of free services. What benefit do you get from me using your service if I'm not paying you? In some cases, like Google, the benefit is that I can be sold to advertisers. Nothing is really free, and it's better, cleaner, and less scammy feeling to know and pay the cost up front. If there's a free vs. paid app that I want I will always go for the paid app. I never tried Instapaper free.

corin_ 15y ago

There's some incorrect logic in there to point out. "The math to explain this is simple: most Free users won’t give me anywhere near $3.50 worth of ad impressions." So, a free user is less valuable than a paid user, fair enough. But not 100% of people who would use the free version will buy the paid version. As he said in the second paragraph, "it’s hard to say which portion of the increase, if any, is attributable to Free’s absence" While I'm not saying this is for sure, it is a possibility that, while one user with adverts gives him less money than one user who pays, cutting off all the free users could lose more money in advertising than it generates in sales.

macrael 15y ago
But as he points out there are other costs to be taken into account. The amount of ad revenue can't be directly weighed against the money generated by sales. You also need to consider the development costs of maintaining the lite version, deciding what should be a universal feature, etc.
- corin_ 15y ago
  Sure, I'm not arguing for/against removing the free version, just with the logic of comparing the advertising revenue per person with the cost of the paid version.
- xuki 15y ago
  And server cost too
rubergly 15y ago
Agreed. Since his logic of "no one seemed to care when I removed the free version" implies that very few people who download the free app would ever buy the paid one, it seems strange that he would compare the sales directly. If the free version is only downloaded 3x as many times as the paid one, then each free user only needs to make $3.50/3 in ad revenue.

prestia 15y ago

If it weren't for Apple's pricing restrictions, I would love to see a free version of Instapaper that is "unlocked" to a full-featured version if the linked account is a paid subscriber. (For those that don't know, Instapaper also utilizes a subscription model: http://www.instapaper.com/subscription http://www.instapaper.com/subscription) I happily pay the quarterly subscription fee and would love a full-featured application to go along with it. That said, I no longer own an iOS device.

napierzaza 15y ago

I like his arguments since they are logical and backed up with data. But at the same time I never would have bought the app if I didn't use "free" for several weeks and got the idea it was useful. This is after reading about Instapaper everywhere and hearing from close friends that it's almost the main reason they even have an iPhone (which was probably an overstatement on their part). Edit: Can we please stop the tired argument of "you paid 600$+ for the device, what difference is 5.00$..."? It's like people who pay 6000$ for a HDTV don't mind paying 100$ for the HDMI cable. Some people do indeed do that, but I for one determine the value of an app or accessory based on the sunken costs of the device. I value a HDMI cable's value at about 5-10$ because that is the cost of a quality one from Monoprice.

tomg 15y ago
> But at the same time I never would have bought the app if I didn't use "free" for several weeks and got the idea it was useful. There's a middle ground between only having a Paid app and giving a way a full featured, Free, ad-supported version. For example, you can create a Trial version that stops working after a certain amount of time. If you're making a game, you can only have the first few levels in the Free version. If your app creates content, then you can make a Free version that works exactly as the Paid version but does not allow for saving the users work. [I'm assuming these tactics are not forbidden by some EULA or whatever.] Anyway you get the idea: there are alternatives that let the user see if they think your software is worth buying that don't involve giving the entire thing away and hoping to get enough ad impressions / conversions to make it worth while. Why so many iOS developers go this route instead of the above and just give away their app with some low eCPM ads is beyond me, though I've only dabbled in iOS development so maybe that's just what works for people :)
- nerfhammer 15y ago
  The free version of instapaper was feature-limited, not just ad supported (at least at the time before I bought the full version)
- joegester 15y ago
  The time-limited demo idea is forbidden by Apple's TOS.

rumblestrut 15y ago

I had tried the free iPhone app and could never get the thing to accept my credentials. So, I gave up and didn't give it much thought. But then I kept hearing about how great Instapaper was. I didn't get it. My experience with the free app was bad so I didn't know what I was doing wrong. Instead of writing a terrible review of the free one, I went ahead and purchased the paid app. And now I'm hooked. I find Instapaper to be incredibly useful and love its simplicity. I then turned it on in my Twitter client, expanding my use even more. The free app is a detriment to Instapaper rather than an asset. Marco is likely better off sticking with a great product customers are willing to pay for who end up loving the service, than having a mediocre app that doesn't build up a fan base that translates to paying customers. Keep up the great work Marco!

ilamont 15y ago

I recently bought the paid app, based on the recommendations of a friend and the number of positive reviews in the app store, but am quite disappointed in what I got in return for my $4.99. I won't turn this into a review of the functionality or criticize the developer for wanting to increase sales, but I will say that buyers should have a way to vet the product before purchasing it (there was no free option when I purchased it).

hrktb 15y ago

I have a lot of respect for all the hard work, especialy since I am hooked to Instapaper like services, and getting rid of the free version might be a good move I think. Now, he seems to have such a policy of ignoring his competition in his talks. I would guess one reason he doesn't hear complaints about the loss of the free version is because ReadItLater and others have a free app to catch these users. He talks a lot about the cheapstakes that wouldn't upgrade, but the free version couldn't get me to register when I tried it. When it worked afterwards, it was so stripped down it wasn't funny. In contrast the decision to buy the ReaditLater (same priced at the time) pro version was natural, and I kept the free version on devices I didn't care to sync. At least, he is totally right, after using the Instapaper free version, I am bitching a lot.

ameyamk 15y ago

I love instapaper, but I really really want search built for it...

rubergly 15y ago
The latest version of the iOS app has search. Pull down when in a list of articles, and a search bar comes up.

alexknight 15y ago

I don't think the App Store is necessarily fostering a new generation of entitlement minded people. I think those people have and will always exist no matter what. IMHO I always prefer paying for apps, and I never complain about the prices that are in the App Store. I prefer to support the hard work that goes into the quality apps that I use. I also don't feel it's fair or right for me to complain about a product when it's provided for free. I think Marco made an excellent decision.

rubergly 15y ago

Not only did sales increase incrementally, but nobody seemed to notice. What does this mean? This "nobody even noticed!" attitude he expresses several times seems very ignorant to me. Sure, very few people heard that Instapaper had a free iPhone app, didn't look for it right away, then a month later searched for it, saw it wasn't in the App Store, and emailed or tweeted Marco personally asking what happened. This is the only chain of events I can see leading to a potential user giving Marco direct feedback, the lack of which is what he seemed to interpret as "nobody noticed." If you change a bunch of road signs, but everyone from the neighborhood is on vacation and so no one sees the new configuration and exclaims "What is this?!", does that suddenly mean that new drivers won't act differently in response to the new road sign configurations? Note that assuming that somehow "everyone from the neighborhood is on vacation" is not at all an unrealistic assumption to make. People who had already downloaded the free app were golden when he removed it, so long as they didn't wipe their iPhone or upgrade. You could argue that maybe they would've thought "huh, why haven't I gotten updates in a while?" First of all, I doubt anyone thinks like that. I know I certainly don't think about updates until the App Store tells me I have 10 and I get frustrated at it; I only notice when apps require updates, not when they don't require updates. Second of all, they may have just thought the free app would be getting less updates than the paid one. And there are countless other reasons why "no one has personally emailed me about the absence of this" is a terrible reason to conclude "nobody really cared" and especially (what I think he is implicitly getting at) "no potential future buyers of the paid app were turned off by the absence of a free app." Maybe they only cared a little and got bored once they couldn't find it in the app store, but otherwise would've been engaged by the app or (since he acknowledges that there are few converts) have been interested enough to tell friends who would eventually pay for it. Maybe, and this is _crazy_ to propose, a significant number of geeks went looking for the free app having heard a lot about Instapaper, saw there was no free app, were pissed, but didn't know or think or care to email Marco about it; maybe they thought he did it purposefully and didn't want to bug him, maybe they were intimidated, maybe they didn't know who Marco was, etc.

volandovengo 15y ago

Yes - he fails to note that the reason that most people learned about instapaper is because he offers a free version of it. I love instapaper but haven't contemplated paying for it because the differences between the free and paid versions are relatively minimal. Freemium has a lot of perks, the chief one being - getting the word out about the product. How many people would know about dropbox if they didn't offer a free version?

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

dk 15y ago

I've been using the free Instapaper iPhone app for some time, until it just completely stopped working. Trying to update, it would tell me that there was no network connection. Uh, wrong. Over and over. Eventually I logged out, wiped the local cache, and tried logging in fresh. And what did I get? A blank page with "403" at the top. My impression of the app at this point was that either the developer is a fuck up or that I've been geo-locked out because I'm not in the U.S. Actually the second implies the first. I didn't care, I just stopped using Instapaper. On the basis of this post, I took a leap of faith. Despite a complete failure of user experience with the free app, I bet $5 that maybe the paid app would, well, work. And so far it has. Marco, if you're listening, you make some great points in this post, but your upselling in my experience is... as described.

fragmede 15y ago

> On the website, this cost is defrayed by ads from The Deck, but people using the iOS app might never visit the website. That's theoretically true, but how true is it? What percentage of people who have used the iOS app have also logged in via a desktop web browser? How many people have only logged in via a desktop web browser. A look at the web server statistics would prove quite fruitful - it would tell the author where to spend development time. Do most of the active users have an iOS device? Do they ever use the mobile safari 'read later' bookmarklet? Spend time getting iOS push to push new articles to the app vs. time improving other things; but only if the data justifies it.

jranck 15y ago

I applaud the fact that a developer can charge for his time and effort into building a good product. While I love hearing about these success stories, lets not forget the fact that all applications are different. There is an inherit and perceived value for everything and it's all dependent on the audience. The ROI per user is different for everyone, what works for you may not work for someone else. Marco's audience is made up of mostly tech savvy individuals where the implied value is greater than the cost of the service. This isn't the exception to the rule but it isn't the typical audience that a lot of startups are trying to capture. Every audience and product is different and take inspiration with a grain of salt. With that being said nice work Marco.