10 ms·

$10/month is not a cheap tool. I'm paying $90/year for Intellij Idea which is my main development tool. IMO that cost is extremely prohibitive for most users an

$10/month is not a cheap tool. I'm paying $90/year for Intellij Idea which is my main development tool. IMO that cost is extremely prohibitive for most users and it's definitely not a way to get plenty of people on board to monetize it later.

api 6y ago
IntelliJ IDEA is one of the best software values for the money I have.
regularfry 6y ago
It is, however, a way to get a validated group of people who are price insensitive (compared to you, anyway) and willing to pay money for that specific sort of tool. Whether that's enough for a YC hail-mary to work is a them-problem.
- Grustaf 6y ago
  Why though? People who are price insensitive enough to pay 120 bucks a year for a menu bar widget are not your target audience, they are a tiny tiny minority.
  - regularfry 6y ago
    They might be a minority. They might be a minority you're not in. So (I'm guessing) is the minority that buy genuine Louis Vuitton handbags. The question isn't the size of the market in total audience numbers, or the proportion of some arbitrary population they represent, it's the readiness with which they can be parted with a sizeable chunk of cash in aggregate. Proving that the total addressable wallet is sufficient to sustain a YC company is a) non-trivial, and b) their problem. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there can be remarkably large markets in remarkably unexpected places, so while yes, this one looks like a totally conventional small-software-shop play, and the 75th percentile outcome across all YC companies is crater-shaped, I'm not going to second-guess whether they might have something.
zffr 6y ago
To put it into perspective, for someone making $200k+/yr (a lot of the HN audience), $10 is about 6min of their time/month (assuming a 40hr work week). Over a year it adds up to 72min of time. On the other hand, researching and trying out alternative free/cheaper tools might take hours. For a busy person making good money, $10/mo to make them more productive isn't a crazy ask IMO.
- adrianN 6y ago
  I think very few people buy things according to such a calculation.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    As was pointed out here, though... by pricing at such a point (initially), they find people who do. And maybe that's the intent. If you're not Apple, where price insensitive customers beat down your door, then finding them is a non-trivial problem. And not just any customers, but ones who would be interested in your (I assume) follow-on product in a similar space.
  - zffr 6y ago
    Plenty of successful products appeal to very few people. I was just offering the way I would approach considering to buy something like this Personally, I don’t think this tool would make me significantly more productive, but if it could truly save me a few hours a year maybe 120/yr isn’t that bad.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    If you're living in a Western country as a coder you can afford $90 a year for something that can save you more hours than that unless something is taking most of your money (say alimony or garnished wages from bankruptcy caused by our poor medical system). I prefer emacs and vs code to IDEA editors but that's just me. Even when I was at $50K a year I wouldn't have though twice about $90 for an editor (or other tool) if I thought it would save me time and cussing.
- wtmt 6y ago
ryanSrich 6y ago
I don't get when people say $X/month is too much. Too much for you maybe. But for me, if I can save 1 hour per month, that's worth $500. That's the top of what I've charged per hour for some consulting gigs. So $10/m is literally nothing for me if I can save time. Time is your most valuable asset. Money is nothing. Focus on time.
- evanlivingston 6y ago
  erm, isn't that assuming an income of $1,040,000 after tax based on a 40 hour work week?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bartread 6y ago
    Well, GP did say that was the top end of their hourly rate, so maybe not that much, but I think it's safe to say they're very solidly into six figures. Under those circumstances the calculus does no doubt change/ I don't think it reflects the reality experienced by the majority of people with less otherworldly remuneration, families, etc.
  - nilsbunger 6y ago
    Not exactly. To make it equivalent first you need to consider employer side of FICA, which take about $100k. Then health insurance and other benefits. And vacation, sick pay, and any equipment you need to do the work. Finally, maybe the biggest variable is non-billable hours. Maybe there isn’t 2000 hours of work available at that rate. And a lot of people who charge that much spend a substantial time finding new clients, writing new project proposals (many of which don’t get executed), and doing things to promote themselves like conference talks or speaking to press. It would typically net out to anywhere from $500k-$900k depending on how much of those overheads you have. Nothing to sneeze at but similar ballpark as senior FAANG comp
  - ryanSrich 6y ago
    I don't do consulting anymore, but I know plenty of consultants that gross over a million per year. Of course, business expenses, taxes, etc. bring their net income down considerably.
alexashka 6y ago
Shhh, don't give Jetbrains any ideas now :)
onion2k 6y ago
If you're someone whose main work tool is your calendar (C-level execs, PAs, salespeople, project managers, etc) then that puts it in exactly the same ballpark as you and Intellij Idea.
csomar 6y ago
Even in the poorest of countries, $90/year is not too much for any serious (heck, even amateur) software developer. A coffee costs around $1 (in poor countries), that's $365/year and most people drink more than a cup per day. Now that's a tool to actually work, not increase your productivity (or mess with it). So $90 is pretty affordable.
- ipaddr 6y ago
  Coffee does not cost 1 us dollar. The poorest countries survive on $500.00 to 2000 us a year. $90.00 isn't even affordable to everyone in the west.
  - csomar 6y ago
    I'm really talking about home-made coffee (with some milk). Even in the cheapest countries, a cup of coffee (in a cafe) costs more than $1: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310492 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310492 People who are surviving on a $500-$2000/year budget, are not on the market for a full-fledged IDE.
    - Tarsul 6y ago
      first off, you're calling bulgaria, india etc. poor countries. relatively, okay, but op was about even poorer countries. But more to the point the prices you quoted were about buying coffee in restaurants. Most people drink their coffee at home (or at work) not in shops. And it's much cheaper then. E.g. I usually drink senseo and it costs me about 25 eurocents per cup.
      - csomar 6y ago
        You might be surprised but if coffee is imported, it might actually be cheaper in Europe than in these poor countries. Import duties, corruption, bad port infrastructure... all of these issues inflate costs.
    - yunohn 6y ago
      This study is definitely flawed. It costs approx. 10-15 INR (0.2 USD) for a milk coffee, not 1.51 USD. Even at Starbucks, it would cost at most 1 USD.

api 6y ago

IntelliJ IDEA is one of the best software values for the money I have.

regularfry 6y ago

It is, however, a way to get a validated group of people who are price insensitive (compared to you, anyway) and willing to pay money for that specific sort of tool. Whether that's enough for a YC hail-mary to work is a them-problem.

Grustaf 6y ago
Why though? People who are price insensitive enough to pay 120 bucks a year for a menu bar widget are not your target audience, they are a tiny tiny minority.
- regularfry 6y ago
  They might be a minority. They might be a minority you're not in. So (I'm guessing) is the minority that buy genuine Louis Vuitton handbags. The question isn't the size of the market in total audience numbers, or the proportion of some arbitrary population they represent, it's the readiness with which they can be parted with a sizeable chunk of cash in aggregate. Proving that the total addressable wallet is sufficient to sustain a YC company is a) non-trivial, and b) their problem. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there can be remarkably large markets in remarkably unexpected places, so while yes, this one looks like a totally conventional small-software-shop play, and the 75th percentile outcome across all YC companies is crater-shaped, I'm not going to second-guess whether they might have something.

zffr 6y ago

To put it into perspective, for someone making $200k+/yr (a lot of the HN audience), $10 is about 6min of their time/month (assuming a 40hr work week). Over a year it adds up to 72min of time. On the other hand, researching and trying out alternative free/cheaper tools might take hours. For a busy person making good money, $10/mo to make them more productive isn't a crazy ask IMO.

adrianN 6y ago
I think very few people buy things according to such a calculation.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  As was pointed out here, though... by pricing at such a point (initially), they find people who do. And maybe that's the intent. If you're not Apple, where price insensitive customers beat down your door, then finding them is a non-trivial problem. And not just any customers, but ones who would be interested in your (I assume) follow-on product in a similar space.
- zffr 6y ago
  Plenty of successful products appeal to very few people. I was just offering the way I would approach considering to buy something like this Personally, I don’t think this tool would make me significantly more productive, but if it could truly save me a few hours a year maybe 120/yr isn’t that bad.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  If you're living in a Western country as a coder you can afford $90 a year for something that can save you more hours than that unless something is taking most of your money (say alimony or garnished wages from bankruptcy caused by our poor medical system). I prefer emacs and vs code to IDEA editors but that's just me. Even when I was at $50K a year I wouldn't have though twice about $90 for an editor (or other tool) if I thought it would save me time and cussing.
wtmt 6y ago

ryanSrich 6y ago

I don't get when people say $X/month is too much. Too much for you maybe. But for me, if I can save 1 hour per month, that's worth $500. That's the top of what I've charged per hour for some consulting gigs. So $10/m is literally nothing for me if I can save time. Time is your most valuable asset. Money is nothing. Focus on time.

evanlivingston 6y ago
erm, isn't that assuming an income of $1,040,000 after tax based on a 40 hour work week?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bartread 6y ago
  Well, GP did say that was the top end of their hourly rate, so maybe not that much, but I think it's safe to say they're very solidly into six figures. Under those circumstances the calculus does no doubt change/ I don't think it reflects the reality experienced by the majority of people with less otherworldly remuneration, families, etc.
- nilsbunger 6y ago
  Not exactly. To make it equivalent first you need to consider employer side of FICA, which take about $100k. Then health insurance and other benefits. And vacation, sick pay, and any equipment you need to do the work. Finally, maybe the biggest variable is non-billable hours. Maybe there isn’t 2000 hours of work available at that rate. And a lot of people who charge that much spend a substantial time finding new clients, writing new project proposals (many of which don’t get executed), and doing things to promote themselves like conference talks or speaking to press. It would typically net out to anywhere from $500k-$900k depending on how much of those overheads you have. Nothing to sneeze at but similar ballpark as senior FAANG comp
- ryanSrich 6y ago
  I don't do consulting anymore, but I know plenty of consultants that gross over a million per year. Of course, business expenses, taxes, etc. bring their net income down considerably.

alexashka 6y ago

Shhh, don't give Jetbrains any ideas now :)

onion2k 6y ago

If you're someone whose main work tool is your calendar (C-level execs, PAs, salespeople, project managers, etc) then that puts it in exactly the same ballpark as you and Intellij Idea.

csomar 6y ago

Even in the poorest of countries, $90/year is not too much for any serious (heck, even amateur) software developer. A coffee costs around $1 (in poor countries), that's $365/year and most people drink more than a cup per day. Now that's a tool to actually work, not increase your productivity (or mess with it). So $90 is pretty affordable.

ipaddr 6y ago
Coffee does not cost 1 us dollar. The poorest countries survive on $500.00 to 2000 us a year. $90.00 isn't even affordable to everyone in the west.
- csomar 6y ago
  I'm really talking about home-made coffee (with some milk). Even in the cheapest countries, a cup of coffee (in a cafe) costs more than $1: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310492 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310492 People who are surviving on a $500-$2000/year budget, are not on the market for a full-fledged IDE.
  - Tarsul 6y ago
    first off, you're calling bulgaria, india etc. poor countries. relatively, okay, but op was about even poorer countries. But more to the point the prices you quoted were about buying coffee in restaurants. Most people drink their coffee at home (or at work) not in shops. And it's much cheaper then. E.g. I usually drink senseo and it costs me about 25 eurocents per cup.
    - csomar 6y ago
      You might be surprised but if coffee is imported, it might actually be cheaper in Europe than in these poor countries. Import duties, corruption, bad port infrastructure... all of these issues inflate costs.
  - yunohn 6y ago
    This study is definitely flawed. It costs approx. 10-15 INR (0.2 USD) for a milk coffee, not 1.51 USD. Even at Starbucks, it would cost at most 1 USD.