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In those days, two things: 1) The possiblility of "Oh, crap, I just bumped the decimal to the right, by accident, on 1000 customers." 2) The likelihood that s

In those days, two things: 1) The possiblility of "Oh, crap, I just bumped the decimal to the right, by accident, on 1000 customers." 2) The likelihood that someone would tell me that I was "a joke", to be charging money for my software. So, fear of rejection and fear of screwing up on the money side. Thankfully, there are billing services which eliminated #1 a few years ago, and that was probably the tipping point for me. #2 is an ongoing concern, and always will be. Thanks for the question!

mijustin 14y ago
I think the fear of rejection is huge. I'm a pretty confident guy (I'll speak in front of crowds without too much trouble). But the idea of putting a price tag on something and asking people to pay for it is scary. The biggest fear: "What if no one buys it?"
- thetrumanshow 14y ago
  I had a leg up to begin with. I started with an audience (of sorts) that I was able to poll to gauge interest. I didn't start building until literally 200 people told me they would buy it from me. Turns out most of them were blowing some kind of sunshine (or else they found another solution before I could launch one to meet their needs), and very few converted... But, just the fact that they said yes to my product and price point gave me the confidence to start. But, I think you can hijack someone else's product-confidence... by which I mean you should find a 800-pound gorilla competitor in your market and just follow them into battle, and eventually outflank them. Not gonna lie, I did this too, because I got to a place where my market-vision was limited... so I piggybacked on a competitors market vision. :)
- NamTaf 14y ago
  "Pay what you think it's worth" might be a good way to mentally offset this? That way, you're not affixing a price to your work but instead just asking for a demonstration of what they value it at. It's probably a unilateral upside if the entirety of your payment process is 'post me a cheque if you feel it's worth it!', for the following reasons: 1) By not affixing a price to it, people will pay what they think it's worth. By affixing, say, $20, those who think it's worth less may not pay but those who think it's worth more won't pay more. There's a small risk that people may stretch to make your price tag but instead not bother but my completely untrained gut would say that'd be minimal? 2) You're already relying on people to go out of their way to send it based on goodwill. You're not going to lose customers simply by floating the amount they can choose to send. 3) Your conscience doesn't tell you 'hey, are you SURE this is worth $20? What if something breaks for someone? You forced them to pay $20 rather than $5, you owe them more than this!'. That's got to be liberating. Of course, PWYW works mainly if it's a supplemental income and you're not relying on it to feed yourself :) That said, I'd expect it's pretty confidence-boosting to see someone voluntarily pay for something you made, since it basically says 'hey, I think you're worth this, thank you!' The OP and this discussion is incredibly inspiring too, it makes me want to build and release stuff in my spare time that people are completely free to pay as little or as much as they want for, just to see what happens :)
nja 14y ago
Not to mention the fear of anger from free software advocates...
- thetrumanshow 14y ago
  Surprisingly, yes, this is a thing, along with people who are anti-SEO. I speak as a convert from the church of anti-SEO, thanks to our mutual outspoken SaaS comrade in Japan.

mijustin 14y ago

I think the fear of rejection is huge. I'm a pretty confident guy (I'll speak in front of crowds without too much trouble). But the idea of putting a price tag on something and asking people to pay for it is scary. The biggest fear: "What if no one buys it?"

thetrumanshow 14y ago
I had a leg up to begin with. I started with an audience (of sorts) that I was able to poll to gauge interest. I didn't start building until literally 200 people told me they would buy it from me. Turns out most of them were blowing some kind of sunshine (or else they found another solution before I could launch one to meet their needs), and very few converted... But, just the fact that they said yes to my product and price point gave me the confidence to start. But, I think you can hijack someone else's product-confidence... by which I mean you should find a 800-pound gorilla competitor in your market and just follow them into battle, and eventually outflank them. Not gonna lie, I did this too, because I got to a place where my market-vision was limited... so I piggybacked on a competitors market vision. :)
NamTaf 14y ago
"Pay what you think it's worth" might be a good way to mentally offset this? That way, you're not affixing a price to your work but instead just asking for a demonstration of what they value it at. It's probably a unilateral upside if the entirety of your payment process is 'post me a cheque if you feel it's worth it!', for the following reasons: 1) By not affixing a price to it, people will pay what they think it's worth. By affixing, say, $20, those who think it's worth less may not pay but those who think it's worth more won't pay more. There's a small risk that people may stretch to make your price tag but instead not bother but my completely untrained gut would say that'd be minimal? 2) You're already relying on people to go out of their way to send it based on goodwill. You're not going to lose customers simply by floating the amount they can choose to send. 3) Your conscience doesn't tell you 'hey, are you SURE this is worth $20? What if something breaks for someone? You forced them to pay $20 rather than $5, you owe them more than this!'. That's got to be liberating. Of course, PWYW works mainly if it's a supplemental income and you're not relying on it to feed yourself :) That said, I'd expect it's pretty confidence-boosting to see someone voluntarily pay for something you made, since it basically says 'hey, I think you're worth this, thank you!' The OP and this discussion is incredibly inspiring too, it makes me want to build and release stuff in my spare time that people are completely free to pay as little or as much as they want for, just to see what happens :)

nja 14y ago

Not to mention the fear of anger from free software advocates...

thetrumanshow 14y ago
Surprisingly, yes, this is a thing, along with people who are anti-SEO. I speak as a convert from the church of anti-SEO, thanks to our mutual outspoken SaaS comrade in Japan.