Your Product is Going to Fail if you Don’t Ask Users to Pay | Hacker News Reader

Your Product is Going to Fail if you Don’t Ask Users to Pay

whatspinksthinks.com

19 pointsdavidspinks25 comments

> If you EVER plan on charging for your product you have to ask for money NOW

There are actually a lot of good reasons to wait before you start charging. Like, getting situated, getting everything working, working out the kinks, evaluating possible monetization models, etc. etc.

> The second one usually refers to media companies and massive networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. If you’re the next Twitter, Techcrunch, Facebook or Instagram then kudos. For the other 99.99999% of you who fall in the first group with the rest of us, if you haven’t asked your users to pay yet, then your startup is completely bullshit until you do.

Uhh, no. A lot of companies can work on this model. And do so. The examples are numerous.

And, what is it with this condescending style of writing? If the content of the article wasn't full of reductive, hand-wavy half-baked ideas, the arrogance in that entire piece would be forgivable. But that's not the situation it looks like.

"Like, getting situated, getting everything working, working out the kinks, evaluating possible monetization models, etc. etc."

What does getting situated mean? Working out what kinks? People aren't paying for your product they're paying for what they believe your product to be. Kinks don't matter.

"Uhh, no. A lot of companies can work on this model. And do so. The examples are numerous."

Lets hear them.

"And, what is it with this condescending style of writing? If the content of the article wasn't full of reductive, hand-wavy half-baked ideas, the arrogance in that entire piece would be forgivable. But that's not the situation it looks like."

Sounds a lot like your feedback.

I think what you're missing is that there are very different kinds of startup. There is the high stakes "next facebook or bust" kind, where it makes a lot of sense to first grow a userbase, get a lot of investors to pay you and take it from there. And then there's the "we are starting a business" kind of startup you seem to be talking about. And a lot in between.

Any examples?

I don't think examples are needed here, since this is just common sense. Also if you could reply to the actual content of my post, that would be great.

I'm trying to respond to the content of your post. If it's such common sense then it should be easy to come up with examples. I'd argue that there isn't much in between. Either you're building a company that has to sell a product or you're building a high growth monetize later company. This post is addressing the former option.

For the high stakes kind youtube or twitter are good examples. For the business kind every old little business around the corner is an example. Why do I need to spell this out to you? For in between - can't really be bothered to research this, so I'll just give you that.

Instagram and Snapchat come to mind as companies who don't monetize their huge userbase. Instagram was in business to get bought out. We'll see what Snapchat does.

Zenefits is a licensed insurance broker it's free for users, they collect a referral fee from insurance companies. Since it's online they're sustainable from broker fees alone and don't charge users. I think some travel startups also work on a commission model for hotels + flights. Hipmunk etc...

Though referral/affiliate models are uncommon they challenge the statement about "Two kinds of companies".

Yea that's a good point...though one could argue that they're still selling a product, the insurance. But yea this model may require a different approach.

I guess it's a little semantic at this point.

Though, there's services like pricegeek that crawl Ebay graphing the better deals. They piggyback of Ebay's existing affiliate model. They never solicit anything from the customer, nor does backlinking alter the price of the item. I guess the utility is of an 'aggregator', that makes decently priced items for more accessible.

My main point was that 'Your Product is Going to Fail if you Don’t Ask Users to Pay' seemed a little overtly broad.

It was definitely broad and sure doesn't cover the entire spectrum of companies. I do believe that it include a whole lot of startups today though, and I hope that this helps them think about how to better set themselves up to succeed.

Why not put out an MVP for free (beta testing, so to speak), then once your product is feature-complete, start charging for it?

Kinks matter if they make your product unsalable.

I have a hard time taking provocative titles and harshly written articles like these serious. Especially when the author has no real, credible experience building sustainable businesses.

So you disagree with what the post is saying?

I think you may be a little too active in your own post's discussion. You don't need to reply to every comment, especially if all you're going to do is argue and shut down any critical debate.

How am I shutting down debates? I think it's important to respond to anyone who has a unique perspective.

It's very naive and silly to make blanket statements like this.

Charging immediately just because you're "supposed to" is just as bad a strategy as not charging because you're "supposed to."

Some business models are "get as many users as possible, get acquired, and live as a loss leader for a larger organization" and that's perfectly fine.

"Some business models are "get as many users as possible, get acquired, and live as a loss leader for a larger organization" and that's perfectly fine."

I agree, and address that in the article.

Is there a Marketer News for these posts?

How is this marketing? It's about validating an idea to make sure you're building the right thing.

Starting and growing businesses is very much within the scope of Hacker News.

I see what you're getting at, but your language may have been a little bit too hard-hitting.

Shall we at least agree on the idea that "maybe some products should not be free and the creators should consider paying for them"?

"maybe some products should not be free and the creators should consider paying for them"?

Not sure what you mean by the creators should consider paying for them.

Hah, typo! I meant, "charging" not "paying".

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