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Pricing low has nothing to do with being rude. That statement is a major disconnect from reality. I also think that there are many service out there that are b

Pricing low has nothing to do with being rude. That statement is a major disconnect from reality. I also think that there are many service out there that are buying into this 'high pricing' doctrine and are giving prospective customers sticker shock. These starving young companies can't afford to do that so early in the game. The other day I saw a site on HN selling business ebooks to startups: "how to drive more traffic to your website" $99, a customer segmentation ebook for $39, a copywriting ebook for $49. All this stuff is way overpriced. Dozens of quality articles can be googled up in a few minutes for the same information. I know because I did just that. The people that tell these young startups to jack their prices are not being helpful or even honest. Maybe its a way of trying to justify their own high pricing. I suggest young startups get users by any means possible, even if it means discounting heavily. They need habitual users, and that requires making it affordable enough that the enduser uses the tool / service for a long enough time that it becomes a habit and the tool becomes too entrenched in their workflow. If anything is rude, it's telling young startups how to price their businesses when it looks like they don't have a clue on pricing even their own.

jacques_chester 14y ago
You are substituting what you think are acceptable prices for what the market will bear.
- bravoyankee 14y ago
  There's a little more to it than that. If your not priced to keep users long enough to get addicted to your offering, the cost of churn and marketing spend trying to get fresh customers will kill you. There is a lot of choice out there. Everybody is executing nowadays, and it's the same sort of apps that are flooding the market. The advice in this post is not helpful.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    Most of the money in the economy is tied up in the capital structure -- ie, it's not actually in the hands of consumers, it's in the hand of producers. Producers can and do pay a lot more for goods and services if it helps them to make a profit. The market for todo apps and other consumer software is, you're right, absolutely a mad scrabble for volume. The market for intelligently targeted vertical segments is juicy and prime for picking. I know where I'm aiming my current venture.
patio11 14y ago
How many copywriting ebooks have you purchased in the last quarter? What is your budget for enterprise software? If the answers are "zero" and "none" then is any price I could possibly quote to you giving a potential customer sticker shock?
- bravoyankee 14y ago
  It's probably over $100 this year that I spent on copywriting books, and almost that the year before. I will pay for information if it will help me, but the examples I've given is very basic information that's been written about for free so many hundreds of times, I'm surprised anyone would buy those ebooks. They are ripping off the very startup community they say they are helping. I think there's a pricing bubble going on with startups. Many monthly subscription rates are too high, especially when there are so many choices available to the consumer, and at a time when the budgets and attention span of buyers is so limited. There seems to be no imagination in pricing, only to charge more and more. It's bad advice and I'll bet its mortally wounding a lot of young startups and impressionable kids that are trying to make a go of it. Again, it's a con game and it's trying to gouge and profit off the start up community they say they are helping. It's shameful, but its only time before the herd snaps out of it and realizes what is happening.
  - noahc 14y ago
    RE: "I will pay for information if it will help me, but the examples I've given is basic information that's been written about for free so many hundreds of times" I suspect your google-fu is stronger than most. Many people don't have the skills or time to do this. Should I spend 2 or 3 days searching and building a marketing strategy that works in 2012 by filtering through all the stuff written over the last 4 years and half of it is out of date or should I pay $99 dollars to get it in my inbox in PDF form. For many the $99 makes sense. They are certainly not ripping off the startup community! If you even value your time as a startup founder at $100, it's cheaper just to by the dumb book. Most startups doing subscriptions are doing b2b or b2h (business 2 hacker examples: github, seomoz, etc) business. Businesses and to a much lesser extent hacker don't care about the cost, but look at the value provided. RE: "There seems to be no imagination in pricing, only to charge more and more. It's bad advice and I'll bet its mortally wounding a lot of young startups and impressionable kids..." This is absolutely absurd! This is like saying "There seems to be no imagination in cars today, only to get better gas milage more and more". Of course, that's the point of a business is to charge so much your customers complain, but still pay you none the less. You're capturing the most value possible, while they still enjoy a net gain. I'd argue even if this is bad advice for a majority of people, it's still good to get it out there that it is possible. Once we know it's possible, much like the 4 minute mile, we can achieve it. When it's locked away and only a choosen few know it is possible that is the real danger to impressionable kids.
thenomad 14y ago
Why is $49 for a copywriting ebook overpriced? Speaking personally, if I can get one useful idea from a book on copywriting, the chances are it's going to pay for that $49 somewhere between 10 and 100 times over, perhaps more. And many copywriting books I've bought had 2 or even more useful ideas in them.

jacques_chester 14y ago

You are substituting what you think are acceptable prices for what the market will bear.

bravoyankee 14y ago
There's a little more to it than that. If your not priced to keep users long enough to get addicted to your offering, the cost of churn and marketing spend trying to get fresh customers will kill you. There is a lot of choice out there. Everybody is executing nowadays, and it's the same sort of apps that are flooding the market. The advice in this post is not helpful.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Most of the money in the economy is tied up in the capital structure -- ie, it's not actually in the hands of consumers, it's in the hand of producers. Producers can and do pay a lot more for goods and services if it helps them to make a profit. The market for todo apps and other consumer software is, you're right, absolutely a mad scrabble for volume. The market for intelligently targeted vertical segments is juicy and prime for picking. I know where I'm aiming my current venture.

patio11 14y ago

How many copywriting ebooks have you purchased in the last quarter? What is your budget for enterprise software? If the answers are "zero" and "none" then is any price I could possibly quote to you giving a potential customer sticker shock?

bravoyankee 14y ago
It's probably over $100 this year that I spent on copywriting books, and almost that the year before. I will pay for information if it will help me, but the examples I've given is very basic information that's been written about for free so many hundreds of times, I'm surprised anyone would buy those ebooks. They are ripping off the very startup community they say they are helping. I think there's a pricing bubble going on with startups. Many monthly subscription rates are too high, especially when there are so many choices available to the consumer, and at a time when the budgets and attention span of buyers is so limited. There seems to be no imagination in pricing, only to charge more and more. It's bad advice and I'll bet its mortally wounding a lot of young startups and impressionable kids that are trying to make a go of it. Again, it's a con game and it's trying to gouge and profit off the start up community they say they are helping. It's shameful, but its only time before the herd snaps out of it and realizes what is happening.
- noahc 14y ago
  RE: "I will pay for information if it will help me, but the examples I've given is basic information that's been written about for free so many hundreds of times" I suspect your google-fu is stronger than most. Many people don't have the skills or time to do this. Should I spend 2 or 3 days searching and building a marketing strategy that works in 2012 by filtering through all the stuff written over the last 4 years and half of it is out of date or should I pay $99 dollars to get it in my inbox in PDF form. For many the $99 makes sense. They are certainly not ripping off the startup community! If you even value your time as a startup founder at $100, it's cheaper just to by the dumb book. Most startups doing subscriptions are doing b2b or b2h (business 2 hacker examples: github, seomoz, etc) business. Businesses and to a much lesser extent hacker don't care about the cost, but look at the value provided. RE: "There seems to be no imagination in pricing, only to charge more and more. It's bad advice and I'll bet its mortally wounding a lot of young startups and impressionable kids..." This is absolutely absurd! This is like saying "There seems to be no imagination in cars today, only to get better gas milage more and more". Of course, that's the point of a business is to charge so much your customers complain, but still pay you none the less. You're capturing the most value possible, while they still enjoy a net gain. I'd argue even if this is bad advice for a majority of people, it's still good to get it out there that it is possible. Once we know it's possible, much like the 4 minute mile, we can achieve it. When it's locked away and only a choosen few know it is possible that is the real danger to impressionable kids.

thenomad 14y ago

Why is $49 for a copywriting ebook overpriced? Speaking personally, if I can get one useful idea from a book on copywriting, the chances are it's going to pay for that $49 somewhere between 10 and 100 times over, perhaps more. And many copywriting books I've bought had 2 or even more useful ideas in them.