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Most of the really successful ideas started without a "pricing" link - google, skype, wikipedia, youtube, facebook, myspace, craigslist, plentyoffish, instant m

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.

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.