Want to meet people, try charging them for it?
notes.eatonphil.com
notes.eatonphil.com
https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/say-hi/
and many of my speakers suggested that I should charge for the calls.
Many of my calls involve tech/product advice (often from people with a ton of experience in other areas, e.g. ex FAANG managers, already accomplished founders, designers). Many of the people who message me with concrete questions, asking for my expertise are often already well-off, established and happy to pay.
The thing is:
1. I often get calls from students or people struggling financially 2. I enjoy serendipitous interactions with beautifully weird people
I can probably solve 1. by adding two call lines. But I worry that adding a commercial aspect will prevent 2. from reaching out. I don't live in London any more, and most of my nerdy/artsy/techy/hacker friends live allover the world.
Ah, and:
3. I genuinely love speaking with people in this manner, and personally, I'm getting so much of my Say Hi calls. I just finished a call with a very clever engineer setting their first steps as a solo-founder. They're not "indie hackers", they're people with genuine curiosity, talent and will to help people. It feels amazing to be able to help someone like that, and even better -- to become infected with that enthusiasm!
I am very much aware that I'm rationalising this and perhaps even preventing myself from letting people pay for my work. Whether it's impostor syndrome or the fact that this is such a precious subject to me is a question that I'm trying to answer.
Gosh, I wish I could articulate that into words when I was younger. I remember having a fun conversation with a batshit insane lady who walked into a porch party, and one of my friends thought that I actually thought she was sane.
Not sure how much of it was staged, but the creators went to a public place and stood next to some “free hugs”-people and then put up a sign “Premium hugs $1” and apparently collected more hugs to the chargrin of the free-huggers.
It ties in with the story in Freakonomics about the daycare that started to charge a small "fine" to discourage parents picking up the child late, with the effect that these incidents happened more often. Because the cost went from implicit (shame, etc) to explicit (it's only $10).
> If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable.
To address your point explicitly, if someone believes the cost of a hug is higher than $1 ("higher than expected cost"), then offering one for $1 should trigger a similar suspicion in your head.
Think about it, if a stranger offered you a free Porsche, you'd rightly be suspicious. Would you be less suspicious if they offered that same car for $500?
Porsches are worth big money. The “costs” for hugs are more of a social calculation.
I expect that the act of taking a small social good that would not normally be available, or even allowed, but is being offered for free, feels subtly wrong.
“Why would this person give me X for free?” Makes us feel uncomfortable. We feel we are not seeing something, or perhaps freeloading. Which prompts a subconscious threat or status calculation, not a simple cost calculation.
But being able to pay for it suddenly fits a common pattern, even if the “product” (hug or conversation) is novel.
Well with that mentality this whole conversation is useless. You can't argue any perspective on a faulty premise.
Yes, it very well might be. Let’s look at the post I’m replying to:
>> If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable.
That’s some deep psychological explanation for something when the simplest explanation could be “it was staged.” I hate to be cynical but it’s not exactly uncommon in show business!
Likewise, "free car" can come from a family or friend. So I might trust it more than a $500 beater that I'd immediately take to shop.
Although, given this is in an area where streetside parking can be $20-$30 for a couple of hours...
Parents wanting ever-so-forgiving cheap daycare need to move an idle grandma into town.
My wife and I were moving city and needed rid of some perfectly functional appliances and furniture.
We listed it all for free because we needed it gone quick and the cost of taking it with us was too high.
When by the next day we'd had one enquiry from someone who didn't turn up, we changed tactic and switched everything to £1.
Within a day the entire lot was gone, people turning up with copper coins from their piggy bank which we told them to keep.
One fond memory of that was a student looking guy who came to the door for the dining table, I opened the door and greeted him, extending my hand for a hand shake, and he looked confused for a couple of seconds, didn't say a word, then reached in his pocket for the money and held it out. Never had anyone misunderstand an invitation for a handshake before or since.
I wonder if it's a UX thing in these apps that the "free" stuff isn't surfacing but low-priced things are. Perhaps there's just too much free stuff to stand out.
Higher price => higher demand, seemingly paradoxically
hmmm.. but would private premium hugs attract unexpected customers/demographics?
Instead I think that the payment creates the expectation that the inquiry will be answered and when someone expects an answer they are more willing to inquire. When the consultation is free or "time permitting", then it might simply be refused but making the inquiry itself isn't zero cost for the individual and their mental calculus makes it not worth asking. The mental calculus is, "What is the person getting out of this interaction and why would they choose to answer me but not someone else?" When it is financial you can see that you are equal to everyone else and you see exactly what the consultant is getting out of it.
Daycare was annoyed with parents picking up their kids late. They introduced a fee for this. As a result, late pick ups increased.
Something that was not considered to be socially acceptable, became more acceptable when you put a price tag for it.
But charge $100 and that's it, that's all the strings attached. Straightforward transaction.
In the rest of life I usually am the captive audience (kids, wife, etc.) and put my own stuff on the back burner. The author is questioning why people would pay, but it is nice to curate a conversation that is intentionally one-sided, otherwise if you contact him the onus is on you to make it worth his time.
Kind of like how some people will do one get rich quick scheme after another despite none of them working.
Some people claim it’s gatekeeping or access to the brand name of the school, but I think it’s more than that.
Most of them know they won’t read the (text)books and learn on their own. Even though the knowledge is available. I guess the money is for the transmission of the knowledge.
And to be clear, I am not talking about this submission (which I didn't read, and from other comments is charity-driven regardless), but this industry is absolutely rife with Fake It Till You Make It people who claim they can barely contain the hordes clamouring to give them money and super high-paying consulting gigs. But then it's coupled with a beg that makes everything previously said look super questionable, yet somehow people buy it.
It's the supermodel girlfriend that lives in Canada.
I put a link to my linkedin and a contact form, just for that. No one contacted me. But funnily enough, when I speak to people they often tell me they've read my blog. And I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at giving startup advice - mostly thanks to my failures and a podcast that I've been listening to.
Might end up trying this.
You could kind of emulate it by buying stackoverflow upvotes, then placing that as a bounty. Its not exactly money but it made it more comfortable (and successful) than hoping someone answers for free.