Here's my rough process for figuring out pricing early on:
- Research what people are currently paying to solve the problem. This could be a competing product, labour hours times hourly rate in case my product automates manual work, etc.
- Price it a bit below that. How much depends on your situation, but the goal here is not to optimize for the most revenue, but rather get as much information as you can. A lower price means you'll get more customers and thus feedback (although if the price is too low you might get feedback from the wrong customers).
- Increase the price over time and roughly keep track what it does to your conversion rate. Stop increasing until you've found the sweet spot.
In your case TailwindUI is a competitive product priced at $150-$250. They have a stellar reputation though being the makers of TailwindCSS. Pricing below them which you're doing now is probably a good idea.
On the other hand though, if you count the development hours saved times the average hourly rate, then you can argue for much higher prices. But yeah TailwindUI kinda anchors people to a lower price point.
Personally I'd try and differentiate yourself more from TailwindUI (or if you already do, communicate that better) and focus on a high-value niche such as e-commerce or enterprise. If you go niche you no longer compete with TailwindUI plus if you focus on the right niche you might be able to charge significantly more.
First, thank you very much for your post.
Hmm, I can definitely focus my product on a Niche.
I created Mistral CSS because as a Maker/Dev I always spend way too much time creating every component for my products, and I always create the same types of components (Cards, Contact form, Gallery, etc... ) So, I've built this tool to make my life a little bit easier and to kickstart all my future products.
I should definitely re-focus my communication on the makers and bootstrappers niche:
"For the Makers,
By a Maker."
Again, thank you @marc
It depends on the situation.
You mentioned "as seen in". In the case of the media writing about your product, it's generally fine to add their logo and link back to the article, etc. They will expect that to happen and I have never heard of anyone objecting to it.
As for showing customers' logos, I'd lean towards asking them for permission. You wouldn't want to risk damaging a relationship. If they are okay with it you might even get a testimonial out of it too. If they aren't okay with it, it's better you find out now and avoid any issues.
Where it gets a bit more tricky is when you've got some employees of a big company like Apple or Google using your product, but without the company itself being an actual customer. I've seen plenty of startups state "used by people at Apple" and I'm pretty sure they haven't asked Apple for permission, nor would they ever get it.
I think those situations are a bit of a gray area. Those startups might be telling the truth, but there's no real affiliation with Apple which in a way they are suggesting. So in these cases I think it really depends on the context, how you present the logos, etc.
Yeap agreed. A while ago a company used some feedback I sent them privately over email, as a testimonial on their website, with my name and profile picture. 🤦🏼♂️
I asked them to remove it.
I like the idea of focussing on a niche. This would make it easier to build a great product (because you don't have to be everything for everyone), and it will be much clearer who your target audience is. That will make a lot of things much easier like market research, marketing, copywriting, branding, etc.
@yucheng You can always expand to a wider audience once you've got some success. But it's probably easier to start deep and narrow and expand, than start broad and grow from there.
The crux will be finding a market where the model works. I'd lean toward professionals of some kind. People for who this expertise would be worth a lot of money. It's easier to create a sustainable business this way.
Value proposition is clear. Anyone with a big enough following can host a Q&A section where they get paid to answer questions.
I would not use the app as a host. If I'm going to host a Q&A, I'd rather do it somewhere where my followers already are such as Twitter rather than having to try and direct them to a new channel. I prefer my answers to be at a place where as many people as possible can see them (again, Twitter is a good example). I'm not interested in making a few cents off my followers. I'd rather do a free Q&A, grow my network/influence, and monetize later on by selling products etc with high higher margins.
I might use the platform if you could get some amazing people on there which I couldn't reach otherwise. For example, if I could ask Tim Cook and get an answer I'd pay for that. But I can't imagine anyone like that doing a Q&A for the money.
I don't believe in this model, but I might be wrong! So take my feedback with a grain of salt. I would focus on trying to prove/disprove the model. Everything else is secondary.
Here's how I would try to prove/disprove the model: find a handful of people that are open to doing a Q&A like this and for which you think you can reach a decent sized audience willing to pay to participate. Figure out the simplest product to test it out with them.
In other words you don't need a sign up flow for Q&A hosts, etc. You could even hardcode separate pages for each. For tipping/payments, come up with something that you can execute as quickly as possible. Maybe that means not tipping per answer, but just a flat fee for access. Use Disqus for Q&A. Etc. Simplify things a lot so you can prove/disprove the model as quickly as possible. Get real user feedback as quickly as possible. Iterate based on that.
Yes it was for GDPR. It's for a platform where my customer is asking their customers to sign up. That's why they are legally required to get such an agreement. This is different from a regular privacy policy that only applies to me and my own customers.
Then in this case, I don't know. but on the official website of the GDPR, there is this: gdpr.eu/data-processing-agree…
100% – We've discussed the idea of accountability buddies before and there was definitely some interest. I haven't gotten around to facilitating this, but I'm hoping having a place for new members to introduce themselves will be a good first step.
Hi David, welcome to WIP, and congrats on launching Codebird! 🥳
You mentioned having raised funding and building a team before. Many wippers are bootstrapped solo-founders. I'm curious to hear what your plans are for Codebird and any future products you might be working on.
Have you considered going the bootstrapped solo-founder way? Are there any unexpected pros and cons about working with team and raising outside funds?
For anyone else reading this, here are the links:
P.S.
Cute dog!! 😍
Hey Marc!
Thanks I found myself becoming a manager and I realized I prefer crafting and building products to managing. I am currently working 4 days a week as CTO and spending the rest of the time working on codebird/other projects with the aim to ala bootstrap solo founder.
I think raising funds is necessary for some types of startups and its a fine way to go for many startups if you're not sure what you're doing. Hiring great people is a lot of work and its hard to do and expensive and I think its a mistake to try to solve problems by throwing more people at them.
Thanks for posting the links!
Unfortunately not my dog but thought people might enjoy a cute dog
Thanks for sharing your insights. Wishing you the best with your bootstrapping endeavor. Here to help if you need it!