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Comment by XCSme | Hacker News Reader

- The cheaper you price your product, the cheaper customers you attract. I get a lot more support tickets for customers that paid $45 than those that paid $1500. Discounts often lead to the same issues.

- Your competition is not better. Even if your competitor has 1000 employees, that doesn't make them better, they more likely work a lot slower and less efficient than a smaller company. Also, a big company is more likely to ruin a perfectly good product trying too hard to squeeze profits.

- If a customer wants a refund, just accept it, even if they try to scam you. Often times, the trouble of trying to convince a customer not to leave is not worth it. Also, if the customer feels trapped, they are unlikely to buy from you in the future.

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Regarding your last point: One thing I did in my B2C startup that helped tremendously with this is to have all customers pay monthly up-front, with no contracts and no free trials. I think most folks avoid this because it "leaves money on the table" but it does 2 important things:

- Brings clarity to your relationship: "If you aren't finding value in the product, or think you can find better value elsewhere, you can leave at any time." - Keeps you honest. Because you can't hide your failure to deliver a valuable product behind contractually-obligated revenue.

I'm not against contracts at all, and the larger your customer or the more involved your customer relationship gets, the more necessary they become, but even in bigger engagements I shoot for the contract to be payment up-front or in regular installments with easy offramps should the customer stop seeing value in the engagement. The important bit is that if a customer wants out, you should let them out, and it should not cause _you to lose any money or any sleep_.

I don't know how widely applicable that is to other businesses, but for mine, it's a helpful way to structure the relationship.

I have a B2C app with a prepaid model as well since 2011. It works like a charm. Very easy to understand, no confusion. Refunds are maybe 1 per month. I haven't had a single credit card chargeback ever and I think only 2-3 PayPal "conflicts" in more than 10 years. (But this, of course, also depends on the kind of customers you have).

But I do offer a 30 days free trial.

I do provide a free trial because it lowers the friction for users trying my product. I sell a self-hosted software, so the main push-back against such software is that installation could be too complex. The main purpose for trial in this case is to let customers test the installation for free and if it works for them as expected they can then purchase a license.

Your first and third points are areas I've found open source companies pleasant to work at. The cheap customers go to the open source code; the ones looking to actually pay buy support contracts. Customers that you can't please also switch to open source; meanwhile ones who find a good fit but want some guidance, end up paying a support contract.

Doesn't work for lots of businesses, but where it does it's quite nice.

A good client can provide more than revenue. All the staff that have contact with them will be exposed to their expertise, inspired by their high standards, and bring back their good business practices.

A bad client can poison a company culture with their own problems and cost more than money.

It's as important to have good clients as it is to have good employees.

That's true, but that being said, most of the bugs/issues are reported by low-paying clients that like to complain, so they also do provide extra value (apart from revenue).

These are all good, but I want to reiterate the 3rd point about refunds. It happens occasionally. And it's wrong. And it drives you crazy because it's wrong. Consider it a cost of doing business, and move on.

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