Hacker News Reader

egmikeon Review my Startup. Help a guy out.

Just a thought, but maybe consider offering the ladies a bigger percentage? They're the ones doing the actual answering and you're taking 50%... Or, maybe increase the cost per question so that they get paid more (but still, you should probably give them a slightly bigger chunk).

Just a suggestion though, maybe $1 is enough.

egmikeon Ask HN: Is $2.95/month too cheap for a B2C SaaS?

Thanks for your response. I actually don't know how wealthy the group is/will be because I haven't actually figured out the target just yet. I have an idea of who the product will benefit, so I'll be trying to reach them and see how they like it. :)

I'll certainly be doing a/b testing, but could you elaborate a bit on interpreting the data correctly please? I know I shouldn't just look at the numbers, but I get the impression that you may have some specifics on interpreting the data that I'd love to hear.

egmikeon Ask HN: Is $2.95/month too cheap for a B2C SaaS?

Thanks for that, they'll definitely be additional plans! :)

egmikeon Ask HN: Is $2.95/month too cheap for a B2C SaaS?

It's more subtle than that: you need to discover what the current features are worth to people. You might be surprised to find that value is higher than what you would think, regardless of the number of features... As for the psychology of it, people are ok with paying less for something that used to cost more, but the opposite situation can create resentment.

Very, very good points, thank you again! Wow, it looks like I've got some thinking to do.

Anyway, the gist of it was: at too low a price (e.g., $1, $2) people just don't bother getting out their credit card to pay for something.

Hmm... interesting. Thanks, I'll look into this.

egmikeon Ask HN: Is $2.95/month too cheap for a B2C SaaS?

Also a very good point, thank you for that! :)

egmikeon Ask HN: Is $2.95/month too cheap for a B2C SaaS?

Very good point, thank you. Yes, I'll definitely be testing the pricing, but since it's a new service I'm trying to avoid people not subscribing for silly reasons like "it's too cheap" or something.

egmikeon Ask HN: Is $2.95/month too cheap for a B2C SaaS?

Annual subscriptions are a good idea, thank you, and thanks for the references.

egmikeon Ask HN: Is $2.95/month too cheap for a B2C SaaS?

Thanks you two, that's good advice... and I'll definitely be offering multiple packages for premium usage. :)

egmikeon Ask HN: Is $2.95/month too cheap for a B2C SaaS?

Thanks for your response. Hmm... see, I used to think starting with the higher price was better, but now I think it definitely depends on the feature set at the beginning.

Right now I'm planning on launching it mainly as a Minimum Viable Product, so I'm thinking of starting at the lower price and raising it as features are added. I think that waiting to see if people buy at the higher price may take too long, since I'll be trying to validate whether people are willing to pay for the product at all.

For the yearly price, do you mean remove the monthly option entirely and replace it with the yearly option? Are people more likely to spend $24 or $36 upfront than $3/month? I was planning on offering a yearly option at a discount...

egmikeon SaaS Subscription Billing, or How to avoid getting your n*ts in a vice

Another option is Spreedly. They store the credit card information internally (they're DSS compliant), so that you can switch merchant accounts/gateways as needed. If you want to transfer out of Spreedly, they'll work with your new provider to get the CC data out to them (it has to be a secure exchange).

egmikeon Security Lessons Learned From The Diaspora Launch

Good advice, thanks you two!

egmikeon Security Lessons Learned From The Diaspora Launch

Interesting. Any other recommendations on how to secure regex's that take in user input in Ruby/Rails?

egmikeon Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

Interesting points. I'm leaning towards having PayPal as an option, but I don't think I'd use them as my main provider, at least not for long... Thank you both.

egmikeon Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

It certainly does help, thank you Ramit. Have you done any split testing to see if your conversions increase with PayPal though? Any thoughts/data on having PayPal as a secondary payment option, for those who prefer it?