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Slightly unrelated, but the mantra "Charge More" should be applied in context. I have a friend who is currently selling a super beginner Japanese lesson (and by

Slightly unrelated, but the mantra "Charge More" should be applied in context. I have a friend who is currently selling a super beginner Japanese lesson (and by super beginner, I really mean super beginner) that she charges for $45 x 6 month === almost $300, yet the content can be found on $9 apps in the App Store. She is confused why, despite her 8k followers subscribed to her email, she can only convert a handful few to the lesson.

pembrook 6y ago
With just the information you've given, there's no way you can conclude with certainty that the price is too high. The real question is, how targeted is the email list towards a japanese language course offering, and what is the open rate on the email list. If everybody on the list is interested in learning japanese, AND, the email list has good open rates, that MIGHT mean her pricing is too high. Or not. That said, I'd rather have 5 customers paying $300 than 50 customers paying $30. Let the big companies take on the cheap users. As a solopreneur you have to chose your battles wisely. I'm skeptical that price is the problem. People pay thousands of dollars for courses with super beginner, freely available information all the time. If you save me a day of research to cobble together all that beginner information, that's $300 well spent.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  Well, I looked into her courses (and I, though not a beginner, already tried more than 20 apps out there so I know what a $300 or $9 content should look like), and plenty of people on her social media commented that it is way too expensive... Going by your logic, why doesn't she increase the price to $30000?
  - pembrook 6y ago
    She absolutely could! She’d just rent some brick and mortar space and call it a university, and sell people on the social aspects of meeting like minded people. Millions of people in the US pay $30,000 or more to do basically that same thing (per year!) ie. they take a series of outdated 101 basics classes for an “associates” degree. Look at what Ramit Sethi does, he charges thousands of dollars for what can be summed up in one sentence; “live below your means and buy index funds.” And people find that a good value because it’s convenient and structured! Anything is possible if it’s positioned correctly.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
tpetry 6y ago
The conclusion you made may be wrong. You imply that all these $9 apps convert more than a handful of people. But if they convert the same your friend already applied successfully the „charge more“ concept as (s)he is getting more from every subscriber. The $9 app needs to have 34 times more subscribers to be more successfull. It‘s a very niche product, it‘s not easy to say which one is selling for better the value.

pembrook 6y ago

With just the information you've given, there's no way you can conclude with certainty that the price is too high. The real question is, how targeted is the email list towards a japanese language course offering, and what is the open rate on the email list. If everybody on the list is interested in learning japanese, AND, the email list has good open rates, that MIGHT mean her pricing is too high. Or not. That said, I'd rather have 5 customers paying $300 than 50 customers paying $30. Let the big companies take on the cheap users. As a solopreneur you have to chose your battles wisely. I'm skeptical that price is the problem. People pay thousands of dollars for courses with super beginner, freely available information all the time. If you save me a day of research to cobble together all that beginner information, that's $300 well spent.

christiansakai 6y ago
Well, I looked into her courses (and I, though not a beginner, already tried more than 20 apps out there so I know what a $300 or $9 content should look like), and plenty of people on her social media commented that it is way too expensive... Going by your logic, why doesn't she increase the price to $30000?
- pembrook 6y ago
  She absolutely could! She’d just rent some brick and mortar space and call it a university, and sell people on the social aspects of meeting like minded people. Millions of people in the US pay $30,000 or more to do basically that same thing (per year!) ie. they take a series of outdated 101 basics classes for an “associates” degree. Look at what Ramit Sethi does, he charges thousands of dollars for what can be summed up in one sentence; “live below your means and buy index funds.” And people find that a good value because it’s convenient and structured! Anything is possible if it’s positioned correctly.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

tpetry 6y ago

The conclusion you made may be wrong. You imply that all these $9 apps convert more than a handful of people. But if they convert the same your friend already applied successfully the „charge more“ concept as (s)he is getting more from every subscriber. The $9 app needs to have 34 times more subscribers to be more successfull. It‘s a very niche product, it‘s not easy to say which one is selling for better the value.