$10/month is not a cheap tool. I'm paying $90/year for Intellij Idea which is my main development tool. IMO that cost is extremely prohibitive for most users and it's definitely not a way to get plenty of people on board to monetize it later.
Proving that the total addressable wallet is sufficient to sustain a YC company is a) non-trivial, and b) their problem. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there can be remarkably large markets in remarkably unexpected places, so while yes, this one looks like a totally conventional small-software-shop play, and the 75th percentile outcome across all YC companies is crater-shaped, I'm not going to second-guess whether they might have something.
Finally, maybe the biggest variable is non-billable hours. Maybe there isn’t 2000 hours of work available at that rate. And a lot of people who charge that much spend a substantial time finding new clients, writing new project proposals (many of which don’t get executed), and doing things to promote themselves like conference talks or speaking to press.
It would typically net out to anywhere from $500k-$900k depending on how much of those overheads you have. Nothing to sneeze at but similar ballpark as senior FAANG comp
How long of chain of dependencies on other technologies does a conventional Meat Thermometer have?
At some point in the future I plan on offering additional locations (at a compellingly low per location monthly service fee TBD).
And all of that is ignoring the possibility that the idea is to build into some other thing, but there's minimal advantage to waiting.
If you want those features, you'll have to look at my competitors' more economy priced offerings, I'm afraid.
Of course none of the people who say such things could actually do so. Instead, they continue to post the aforementioned type of comment along with the following:
- Ask HN: Where are all the profitable ideas? - Show HN: I built some half-assed idea that no one will ever use to learn the latest technology fad. - Who’s Hiring: I hate my job at some random SaaS firm because I hypocritically don’t assign worth to building software.
Anyhow, where is this mythical weather widget getting its data? How reliable are its forecasts? What makes it better than the tools Apple/Google build into their OSes after spending millions acquiring formerly indie weather tools?
Would I pay for this startups calendar? Probably not, but it seems nice, and I can definitely see people paying 2 cups of coffee a month for it.
To make it crystal clear – it seems odd to launch a product that's much more expensive than your competition and delivers much less.
It’s also very easy to say that X is most valuable and Y is nothing when you have very limited X and have a lot of Y.
more on topic, time is inherently more valuable than money due to its fundamental scarcity. there are only 24 hours in a day, and only so many days in a person's life. if you have time, you can always trade it for money. but if you have money, you can't always exchange it for time.
However, if you work on your own product, you might save more than $10 per month indeed.
Now that's a tool to actually work, not increase your productivity (or mess with it). So $90 is pretty affordable.
People who are surviving on a $500-$2000/year budget, are not on the market for a full-fledged IDE.
On the other hand, researching and trying out alternative free/cheaper tools might take hours. For a busy person making good money, $10/mo to make them more productive isn't a crazy ask IMO.
And maybe that's the intent.
If you're not Apple, where price insensitive customers beat down your door, then finding them is a non-trivial problem. And not just any customers, but ones who would be interested in your (I assume) follow-on product in a similar space.
I was just offering the way I would approach considering to buy something like this
Personally, I don’t think this tool would make me significantly more productive, but if it could truly save me a few hours a year maybe 120/yr isn’t that bad.
I would also contest your claim that a lot of the HN audience makes $200K a year. I’d wager that it’s a lot lesser.
Paying similar price for simple software? Well, I would expect something like one-time purchase for $10, that's how much I'm paying usually for those kinds of programs.
It might sound a little bit communistic, I know. Sorry.
If I'm making $20k/year, I could pay $10k for Intellij Idea. Because it's essential for my work. But I'm paying $90, because Idea creators put a reasonable price. May be that's because they're in a hard competition with free tools, I don't know.
Text editor for 30€ is a good business, everyone needs a text editor.
Database client for 30€ is probably a little less profitable, not as many people need that.
Client for a specific database like the protein data bank for 30€ -- well, you might sell two or three copies.
All of these are probably a similar amount of work, but you can't sell them for the same price.
That being said, a menu bar widget has such a huge market that I don't see why they are pricing it so high.