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This article rings so true. There are lots of ways to make a lot of money selling a service. The best way IMO is to build a service that is easy to integrate
by efitz 2y ago
This article rings so true.
There are lots of ways to make a lot of money selling a service. The best way IMO is to build a service that is easy to integrate and customize, delights your customers, and has a simple pricing model. There should be no surprises in any of these traits. Customers will be loyal because you’ve made their lives easier - you didn’t just “solve their problem”, you solved their problem in a way that doesn’t require them to change anything else about their business to adapt to you.
The other way involves minimum viable products, basic features only available at top tier pricing, only have a single way to integrate and no meaningful customization. You make your product a black box that your customers can only escape with Herculean effort and lots of begging on many time consuming phone calls.
It seems like startup culture somehow funnels everyone into the second category.
- tptacek 2y agoIf you're not deeply steeped in startup business model lore, the search query you want here is [product led growth], the very-fashionable trend of go-to-market and business models that admit your preferred way of marketing products. Tailscale, Slack, Notion, and Dropbox (at least, early Dropbox) are all big examples of PLG startups. This model works especially well when your early (pre-series-B go-to-market) is not big companies (say, 1000+ employees).
- dilyevsky 2y agoYour first model works for some products/industries doesn’t work with others where second model works better. Generally, medium/large businesses have long, drawn out processes for buying things coupled with politics and limited pool of folks with purchasing power so your first model will almost never work if you’re selling to those