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Cool product! Congrats on launching. I can think of several companies off the top of my head who should implement this yesterday. But I have to take issue with

Cool product! Congrats on launching. I can think of several companies off the top of my head who should implement this yesterday. But I have to take issue with the price point. $3 a month? If you're doing it for fun, make it free. Otherwise, the price should be 10x if not 100x your current rate. Trust me, if someone is going to go through the effort of setting up your product, they'll be willing to pay more than $3 a month. At that price point you'd need 1,000 customers just to be ramen profitable!

ebzlo 14y ago
Thanks! The problem with being 10x or 100x the current rate is that we can't actually justify that cost for the value we provide. When we set the price point, we basically asked ourselves how much we'd actually pay for the same thing.
- sgdesign 14y ago
  Instead of asking yourselves "what's the minimum amount someone would pay?", you should be asking "what's the maximum?". I'm really cheap, and even I find $3/month ridiculous. It should at least be $9/month, and you should find a way to have multiple plans (say, $9, $29, $59).
  - mikhaill 14y ago
    I'll second @therealarmen point and agree with @sgdesign. You priced the product based on real value and not perceived value, which represents how much customers feel a product is worth and is willing to pay for it. If I have a web app, I sit and suffer as I look at my low conversion rate, low engagement and high amount of tickets coming to the support desk with annoyingly simple questions. All these items take up my time and effort, which cost money. If your product means five less support e-mails, three more users that do not cancel because they understand how to use my app and ten more conversions a month, that right there is worth much more than $3 a month and I'd would be willing to pay for it.
    - ebzlo 14y ago
      Okay, you all have convinced me. Back to the drawing board on that.
- itships 14y ago
  Are you saying that you don't think your product provides $30/month value compared to tooltip scripts like on Code Canyon, or compared to not having a web app tour at all? - I think most web apps with users or revenue would get $xxx+ of value from a tour. - I've thought about creating a tour for some of my sites, but I've always been too intimidated by the idea of mucking around with scripts that I don't understand. A WYSIWYG tooltip product might as well be the only tooltip product from my point of view. I agree that you should be charging 10x-100x more.
- runako 14y ago
  What others have said, plus: I don't trust you to stay in business at $3/mo. You may deliver an awesome product, but I simply don't believe the economics will work at all for $3/month. At best, you'll cut corners and your service will start to suck. This makes me much less likely to put you in the critical path of my business. So charge more and make everybody happy! Suggestion: segment on the complexity of the product tour? Maybe by the # of steps included? Or (better) allow me to add audio/video to my tours and charge me more for that.
  - ebzlo 14y ago
    Great suggestions! # of steps included is something we haven't thought to implement, will do!
- dantiberian 14y ago
  In this video https://training.kalzumeus.com https://training.kalzumeus.com patio11 describes how building product tour's can increase sales by 20-100%. Taurus.io is definitely worth more than $3/month and could be priced far higher.
  - ebzlo 14y ago
    This is great (and flattering). We're definitely going back to the drawing board in regards to how we price this thing.
- dchuk 14y ago
  I don't mean this in an insulting way, but you're wrong here. You don't think a product tour that potentially hundreds if not thousands of people use and can significantly increase your customers' ROI is worth more than a Big Mac a month? Come on now, don't fall into the trendy startup blackhole of improper pricing. Charge.For.This. Make a lot of money. Build in analytics. Prove your value.
  - ebzlo 14y ago
    No offense taken. Everybody here is completely right. We're going to change our pricing as soon as we step out of our closed beta.
- hopeless 14y ago
  You are not your customers! If is irrelevant what you would pay or how much value you would get from the service. If a good tour helps to retain just one subscription customer a month, that easily justifies x10 the $3 price.
redguava 14y ago
$9/month at the cheapest.
- ebzlo 14y ago
  Cheapest? Or most? Edit: Based on what everyone else is saying, I've assumed you indeed meant to say cheapest.
  - redguava 14y ago
    I meant cheapest. Also, I saw your comment above about once you are out of beta. I wouldn't wait. Set it at $9 or above and see what happens. The longer you leave it at $3, the more expensive it will look when you raise it (and I really think you should raise it).
    - ebzlo 14y ago
      Alright. Done. I'm setting at $9. Updated now.
      - xauronx 14y ago
        I don't know what these people are talking about... Call me crazy but when I saw that I had to pay for this at all I thought "Hmm, couldn't I implement that quickly myself?". Perhaps I could or couldn't, but it seems to me that it would be better served as a one time purchase. I wouldn't want to pay a monthly fee for any other premade component (lightbox, image carousel, etc). I'm guessing there's some service associated with this, but from the tour it wasn't obvious. I'm not attacking your product, but want to give my experience/thoughts.
        ebzlo 14y ago
        Sure thing. The problem we're attempting to address is not necessarily the HTML/CSS/Javascript component of creating a tooltip, but rather the creation of a system and its continued maintenance. When we hand rolled our own product tour code for a previous project, what we quickly learned was that maintenance was a nightmare. As soon as layouts updated or changed, editing the tooltips we had created already was tedious. We, however, have plans for other features that we think could really add a lot more value. So if you don't see it now, perhaps later on when we roll them out.
hendi_ 14y ago
Great idea! But 3$ is really way to cheap, even at the current 9$/month I'd just have signed up without thinking twice! Why? Because I know how much value a tour provides my app/my revenue! I already have a simple tour in Bunker App but it is really a PITA so I've postponed doing improvements to it. I have hopes that your software helps me, and if it does, it's totally worth some money for me! I've just signed up for your mailing list, I hope I'll get into beta to test it soon. My app is a JS-heavy, single HTML page app so I'm curious to see how Taurus works with my app.
- ebzlo 14y ago
  We've given the popups the ability to trigger JS events and we will be adding the ability to trigger popups with JS events as well. Could you send me an email (ebzlo@ebzlo.com)? I'd be more than happy to send you an invite immediately if we could work together on making this work for you, single page apps are definitely something we want to be viable for. Edit: Bunker looks really cool. If I start freelancing again, I might just have to try it out. ;)
  - hendi_ 14y ago
    Thank you for the nice words, I've just sent you an email :)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

ebzlo 14y ago

Thanks! The problem with being 10x or 100x the current rate is that we can't actually justify that cost for the value we provide. When we set the price point, we basically asked ourselves how much we'd actually pay for the same thing.

sgdesign 14y ago
Instead of asking yourselves "what's the minimum amount someone would pay?", you should be asking "what's the maximum?". I'm really cheap, and even I find $3/month ridiculous. It should at least be $9/month, and you should find a way to have multiple plans (say, $9, $29, $59).
- mikhaill 14y ago
  I'll second @therealarmen point and agree with @sgdesign. You priced the product based on real value and not perceived value, which represents how much customers feel a product is worth and is willing to pay for it. If I have a web app, I sit and suffer as I look at my low conversion rate, low engagement and high amount of tickets coming to the support desk with annoyingly simple questions. All these items take up my time and effort, which cost money. If your product means five less support e-mails, three more users that do not cancel because they understand how to use my app and ten more conversions a month, that right there is worth much more than $3 a month and I'd would be willing to pay for it.
  - ebzlo 14y ago
    Okay, you all have convinced me. Back to the drawing board on that.
itships 14y ago
Are you saying that you don't think your product provides $30/month value compared to tooltip scripts like on Code Canyon, or compared to not having a web app tour at all? - I think most web apps with users or revenue would get $xxx+ of value from a tour. - I've thought about creating a tour for some of my sites, but I've always been too intimidated by the idea of mucking around with scripts that I don't understand. A WYSIWYG tooltip product might as well be the only tooltip product from my point of view. I agree that you should be charging 10x-100x more.
runako 14y ago
What others have said, plus: I don't trust you to stay in business at $3/mo. You may deliver an awesome product, but I simply don't believe the economics will work at all for $3/month. At best, you'll cut corners and your service will start to suck. This makes me much less likely to put you in the critical path of my business. So charge more and make everybody happy! Suggestion: segment on the complexity of the product tour? Maybe by the # of steps included? Or (better) allow me to add audio/video to my tours and charge me more for that.
- ebzlo 14y ago
  Great suggestions! # of steps included is something we haven't thought to implement, will do!
dantiberian 14y ago
In this video https://training.kalzumeus.com https://training.kalzumeus.com patio11 describes how building product tour's can increase sales by 20-100%. Taurus.io is definitely worth more than $3/month and could be priced far higher.
- ebzlo 14y ago
  This is great (and flattering). We're definitely going back to the drawing board in regards to how we price this thing.
dchuk 14y ago
I don't mean this in an insulting way, but you're wrong here. You don't think a product tour that potentially hundreds if not thousands of people use and can significantly increase your customers' ROI is worth more than a Big Mac a month? Come on now, don't fall into the trendy startup blackhole of improper pricing. Charge.For.This. Make a lot of money. Build in analytics. Prove your value.
- ebzlo 14y ago
  No offense taken. Everybody here is completely right. We're going to change our pricing as soon as we step out of our closed beta.
hopeless 14y ago
You are not your customers! If is irrelevant what you would pay or how much value you would get from the service. If a good tour helps to retain just one subscription customer a month, that easily justifies x10 the $3 price.

redguava 14y ago

$9/month at the cheapest.

ebzlo 14y ago
Cheapest? Or most? Edit: Based on what everyone else is saying, I've assumed you indeed meant to say cheapest.
- redguava 14y ago
  I meant cheapest. Also, I saw your comment above about once you are out of beta. I wouldn't wait. Set it at $9 or above and see what happens. The longer you leave it at $3, the more expensive it will look when you raise it (and I really think you should raise it).
  - ebzlo 14y ago
    Alright. Done. I'm setting at $9. Updated now.
    - xauronx 14y ago
      I don't know what these people are talking about... Call me crazy but when I saw that I had to pay for this at all I thought "Hmm, couldn't I implement that quickly myself?". Perhaps I could or couldn't, but it seems to me that it would be better served as a one time purchase. I wouldn't want to pay a monthly fee for any other premade component (lightbox, image carousel, etc). I'm guessing there's some service associated with this, but from the tour it wasn't obvious. I'm not attacking your product, but want to give my experience/thoughts.
      - ebzlo 14y ago
        Sure thing. The problem we're attempting to address is not necessarily the HTML/CSS/Javascript component of creating a tooltip, but rather the creation of a system and its continued maintenance. When we hand rolled our own product tour code for a previous project, what we quickly learned was that maintenance was a nightmare. As soon as layouts updated or changed, editing the tooltips we had created already was tedious. We, however, have plans for other features that we think could really add a lot more value. So if you don't see it now, perhaps later on when we roll them out.

hendi_ 14y ago

Great idea! But 3$ is really way to cheap, even at the current 9$/month I'd just have signed up without thinking twice! Why? Because I know how much value a tour provides my app/my revenue! I already have a simple tour in Bunker App but it is really a PITA so I've postponed doing improvements to it. I have hopes that your software helps me, and if it does, it's totally worth some money for me! I've just signed up for your mailing list, I hope I'll get into beta to test it soon. My app is a JS-heavy, single HTML page app so I'm curious to see how Taurus works with my app.

ebzlo 14y ago
We've given the popups the ability to trigger JS events and we will be adding the ability to trigger popups with JS events as well. Could you send me an email (ebzlo@ebzlo.com)? I'd be more than happy to send you an invite immediately if we could work together on making this work for you, single page apps are definitely something we want to be viable for. Edit: Bunker looks really cool. If I start freelancing again, I might just have to try it out. ;)
- hendi_ 14y ago
  Thank you for the nice words, I've just sent you an email :)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]