Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why anyone would think $32 million is a reasonable price point for a car rental site to begin with.

It's not just a website. They were merging at least three different enterprise level backend plus deploying the front end to thousands of locations. That's a gigantic effort.

If the front-end is a website, deploying it to thousands of locations is as difficult as deploying it to one.

Large companies do pay software vendors to fly out and deploy new browser based software at their locations. Deploying means training staff, hardware integrations, etc. I’ve had several clients over the years request this. If you have someone willing to fly out to do it for a fat bonus check, why not?

I could do it for $5M, and it would work.

I'll bid $4M.

it's psychological but maybe also pragmatic

if your billion dollar business relies on the web site working well, you wouldn't think of trusting it to a small freelancer that quotes you 50k or whatever, it's almost like they start with a budget in mind (7 digits ought to do it) and then find someone who will take that much money

disclaimer: I have no experience here but I think this lecture on pricing design touches on it, that big corps aren't going to touch you if you're not charging them outrageous fees

[0] https://youtu.be/RKXZ7t_RiOE

Reply on news.ycombinator.com