6 ms·

My new favorite startups are the ones with a "Pricing" link and without "Share", "Collaborate", "Easy", "Friends".

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
markessien 18y ago
Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link - google, skype, wikipedia, youtube, facebook, myspace, craigslist, plentyoffish, instant messaging etc. And what the people want is free - torrents, muxtape, tvlinks, etc. I'm not saying it's wrong to charge money, but not charging money has been a successful strategy for a good number of startups.
- rokhayakebe 18y ago
  All the companies named above are the exception in their categories. I do not know another successful Google, Skype, Craigslist.... By the way Youtube, Facebook and Skype are not profitable yet (at least not to my knowledge so excuses it if I am wrong). Let me give you a good example of "Pricing". Take a company such as ClickCare. They provide a web based environment for home care providers to remotely ask questions to doctors, and share photos & videos of patients. The doctors can review the information from anywhere and make the proper suggestions. That is what they do, well they are also HIPPA compliant to ensure the privacy/security of the patient information. Now this video, photo, wiki company charges doctors 20,000 USD a year. I am not saying that is all to their enterprise, but whatever effort two guys in a garage are going through to build the next Flickr, they could apply their technology in less sexy field and have a significantly higher chance at being successful. But not everyone wants to build a profitable, not famous business. They want to be rockstars.
  - pg 18y ago
    I do not know another successful Google, Skype, Craigslist That's because these companies are so successful they've killed off all their competitors.
    - rokhayakebe 18y ago
      That is correct. Yet some companies surge every now and then to offer premium video conferencing services, or offer custom search services to companies with millions of documents across their network and they charge a nice fee for it. You have companies such as Webex dominating web conference, yet you have startups such as MeetCast with a promising technology (although I have only seen a short screencast once) and I am confident they can make a good amount of money from this technology.
- teej 18y ago
  > Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link If you define "success" to mean "lots of traffic" and not "profitable and growing". Clearly this is the case, because half of the companies you listed aren't profitable. There are -lots- of internet companies who charge and are very successful. I'm not talking 37 Signals and Fog Creek - literally drops in the bucket. I'm talking about Amazon, Salesforce, and Google AdWords. Oh and how does Craigslist make money? Charging users. > not charging money has been a successful strategy for a good number of startups. No offense, but you're blowing both the "successful" and "good number" part of this way out of proportion.
axod 18y ago
It's considered "HIP" to say that at the moment. That doesn't make it right though. In the same way it's hip to hate Java right now. That doesn't mean that Java isn't good at solving a set of problems in a good way - it clearly is. There's millions to be made from advertising revenue. If you can get people to pay for something, great, but not every product is the type where paying would make any sense at all. By charging consumers directly, you massively reduce your audience to a small subset of users. It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real" revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay directly. You know what the most powerful marketing word in the world is? "FREE". The clever thing is using that to your advantage and still making money. Tons of industries do that though, loss leaders work, 'free cellphone (with contract) works' etc etc.
- adamhowell 18y ago
  > It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real" revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay directly. As long as numbers like these hold true: "At the $1 RPM (CPM/CPA/CPC) level achieved by most general sites, you need 4 billion page views/month ... to [reach] $50M in revenue per year" (http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_of_o.html http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_...), charging money for a product that creates value is going to be a more viable way of starting a successful company online
  - markessien 18y ago
    Don't be short sighted. Advertising on the web can be highly targeted and very effective. It's also measurable. Advertising on TV is dying, in papers, it's dying too. Ads on the web are the future, and though it may not seem like an excellent way for now, it's not going to get worse in the future. Compare 5 years ago to now. More companies can survive on ads than 5 years ago.
    - trapper 18y ago
      It wouldn't take much to put a big stop to that. Imagine if adblock came installed by default in 3.2!
pg 18y ago
I don't have a new favorite. Mine have always been the ones that make something people want.
- sofal 18y ago
  I think the ones that go for the intersection between what people want and what will genuinely improve people's lives are the best.
  - pg 18y ago
    To some extent, yes. But it can be dangerous to go too far down that road. You're saying in effect you're going to give them what you think they should want, instead of what they do want. You have to be extra careful when doing that. Historically it has been responsible for a lot of bad things.
wschroter 18y ago
I love how people confuse "selling to Google" with a viable business. Just because you sell the company (YouTube) doesn't mean the business was successful. It just means you've handed the loss to another company.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link - google, skype, wikipedia, youtube, facebook, myspace, craigslist, plentyoffish, instant messaging etc. And what the people want is free - torrents, muxtape, tvlinks, etc. I'm not saying it's wrong to charge money, but not charging money has been a successful strategy for a good number of startups.

rokhayakebe 18y ago
All the companies named above are the exception in their categories. I do not know another successful Google, Skype, Craigslist.... By the way Youtube, Facebook and Skype are not profitable yet (at least not to my knowledge so excuses it if I am wrong). Let me give you a good example of "Pricing". Take a company such as ClickCare. They provide a web based environment for home care providers to remotely ask questions to doctors, and share photos & videos of patients. The doctors can review the information from anywhere and make the proper suggestions. That is what they do, well they are also HIPPA compliant to ensure the privacy/security of the patient information. Now this video, photo, wiki company charges doctors 20,000 USD a year. I am not saying that is all to their enterprise, but whatever effort two guys in a garage are going through to build the next Flickr, they could apply their technology in less sexy field and have a significantly higher chance at being successful. But not everyone wants to build a profitable, not famous business. They want to be rockstars.
- pg 18y ago
  I do not know another successful Google, Skype, Craigslist That's because these companies are so successful they've killed off all their competitors.
  - rokhayakebe 18y ago
    That is correct. Yet some companies surge every now and then to offer premium video conferencing services, or offer custom search services to companies with millions of documents across their network and they charge a nice fee for it. You have companies such as Webex dominating web conference, yet you have startups such as MeetCast with a promising technology (although I have only seen a short screencast once) and I am confident they can make a good amount of money from this technology.
teej 18y ago
> Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link If you define "success" to mean "lots of traffic" and not "profitable and growing". Clearly this is the case, because half of the companies you listed aren't profitable. There are -lots- of internet companies who charge and are very successful. I'm not talking 37 Signals and Fog Creek - literally drops in the bucket. I'm talking about Amazon, Salesforce, and Google AdWords. Oh and how does Craigslist make money? Charging users. > not charging money has been a successful strategy for a good number of startups. No offense, but you're blowing both the "successful" and "good number" part of this way out of proportion.

axod 18y ago

It's considered "HIP" to say that at the moment. That doesn't make it right though. In the same way it's hip to hate Java right now. That doesn't mean that Java isn't good at solving a set of problems in a good way - it clearly is. There's millions to be made from advertising revenue. If you can get people to pay for something, great, but not every product is the type where paying would make any sense at all. By charging consumers directly, you massively reduce your audience to a small subset of users. It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real" revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay directly. You know what the most powerful marketing word in the world is? "FREE". The clever thing is using that to your advantage and still making money. Tons of industries do that though, loss leaders work, 'free cellphone (with contract) works' etc etc.

adamhowell 18y ago
> It's quite funny to see people imply that advertising revenue isn't "real" revenue, or is in some way less valuable than getting customers to pay directly. As long as numbers like these hold true: "At the $1 RPM (CPM/CPA/CPC) level achieved by most general sites, you need 4 billion page views/month ... to [reach] $50M in revenue per year" (http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_of_o.html http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/03/a_vcs_view_...), charging money for a product that creates value is going to be a more viable way of starting a successful company online
- markessien 18y ago
  Don't be short sighted. Advertising on the web can be highly targeted and very effective. It's also measurable. Advertising on TV is dying, in papers, it's dying too. Ads on the web are the future, and though it may not seem like an excellent way for now, it's not going to get worse in the future. Compare 5 years ago to now. More companies can survive on ads than 5 years ago.
  - trapper 18y ago
    It wouldn't take much to put a big stop to that. Imagine if adblock came installed by default in 3.2!

pg 18y ago

I don't have a new favorite. Mine have always been the ones that make something people want.

sofal 18y ago
I think the ones that go for the intersection between what people want and what will genuinely improve people's lives are the best.
- pg 18y ago
  To some extent, yes. But it can be dangerous to go too far down that road. You're saying in effect you're going to give them what you think they should want, instead of what they do want. You have to be extra careful when doing that. Historically it has been responsible for a lot of bad things.

wschroter 18y ago

I love how people confuse "selling to Google" with a viable business. Just because you sell the company (YouTube) doesn't mean the business was successful. It just means you've handed the loss to another company.