3 ms·
I routinely give out "Call the low plan 'Hobby'" advice. Here's why: a) Price-sensitive customers with side businesses often either affirmatively identify of
by patio11 13y ago
I routinely give out "Call the low plan 'Hobby'" advice. Here's why:
a) Price-sensitive customers with side businesses often either affirmatively identify of hobbyists (I would have said that about myself for the first 5 years of my business -- at which point $20 a month would have made it somewhere around the 10th most expensive thing I was buying, by the way) or are willing to buy it without thinking too much about the name.
b) At larger customers, there are social reasons to avoid putting Hobby on a purchasing card / requisition form / etc where one does not have any technical/quota/etc objections against the lowest-tier plan. I've told the following anecdote two dozen times but it's still good: I was once instructed by a boss to get CrazyEgg set up. We were in the $9 a month Hobbyist tier. I put in a requisition for it and he redlined the Hobbyist and price, went to the pricing page, and picked the Enterprise tier (at $500 at the time, IIRC). When I pointed out that I was intimately familiar with the numbers and sure we could make do with Hobbyist, he said (translated loosely from the Japanese) "Eff if I'm going to pass a request for Hobbyist services to [my boss]."
c) See the anecdote above? I can tell you the anecdote. I can't show you the data. But trust me, the anecdote has scaled for companies before.
- rmc 13y agoIsn't this similar to why Windows XP came in 2 versions, "Home" and "Professional"?
- nhebb 13y agoActually, I thought about your CrazyEgg anecdote as I was writing my comment. Having worked for a large Japanese company for several years, I did see a cultural difference between what US and Japanese managers were willing to sign off on for purchase req's. But aside from that, I do think a $9/month CrazyEgg plan is within the scope of a true hobby site, whereas $20/month for a status page service isn't. The proof is in testing, but my gut tells me that customers could be segmented without using a plan name that is arguably demeaning.