Way to issue a challenge that all large communities struggle to solve!
So I have two thoughts that I think are in a different vein than many comments below (tried to read them all but may have missed some. Apologize for repeats)
1. Similar to other suggestions, but with a slight twist, modify the up/down votes to utilize the Net Promoter Score methodology. It has its issues but it reduces a really difficult problem to a simple question that provides a broader spectrum than y/s. Could limit the "would highly recommend" super-vote to one story per day so users would save those votes for those articles they find extremely valuable.
Actually, thinking about it. Would be cool to get a view of only stories that people have "spent" their one super-vote as that is signaling extreme importance. I think many people find many stories interesting, but would only find a few EXTREMELY interesting enough to spend their super-vote on.
2. One challenge is that HN has grown in size so much that there is no set of top stories to satisfy the entire group. Would be interesting to provide a view that matches your personal preferences. Reddit does this by subreddit, stackoverflow by tags. My personal background is personalization in the context of eCommerce, which looks more at user segments. So users who find hard-core tech knowledge interesting vs. VC news vs. geographic location. In some ways this is already being done via segmentation in the classic view: https://hackernews.hn/classic Are there some other obvious segments on HN?
Yep. The reason is we are actually in beta mode right now. More interested in finding early adopters and proving utility than making a quick buck. However at some point we will likely turn on a subscription billing service, then that page will become more relevant.
Interesting... I am going to have to setup some a/b testing or just a quick email to a larger group to see how this plays out across a larger data set.
As a separate question:
When you hit the page, does the copy below the Ask / Learn/ Win columns help or is it either
a) not helpful text
b) your eye didn't even go there
It's helpful, but secondary. By the time my eyes get there, I should be thinking "How does this compare to other products" or "Will this work with my application" not "What the heck is this?" I do think the columns and text are helpful though.I think a better one-liner and tagline would be sufficient in the top portion.
Hi there. Any reason why you feel that would be a good change?
Here is my thinking (So you can see where I am coming from). It is better to articulate the end-goal, or what the client will get in return from using the product, instead of articulating the functional way it goes about to achieve that goal.
You think differently. Any thoughts or experiences on why that may be a better approach?
Paypal lets you specify the name you want to appear on credit card statements. You get to specify an 11 character and a 19 character name for the charge:
PayPal and Authorize.net's CIM (in front of a merchant account). CIM (Customer Information Manager) lets you store customers' payment information on Authorizenet's servers, and charge it by reference at any time. A daily cron job checks which accounts have not been billed in over 30 days and issues the charges through the CIM API. It's not terribly complicated, and a lot easier than the type of setup you need to store credit card numbers yourself while complying with PCIDSS.
If you ever look at the "subscription management as a service" companies, avoid Recurly. Chargify and Spreedly seem alright, but having implemented recurring billing with CIM and PayPal a few times already, they don't save me anything worth paying for.
I would first post an explanation to your users as to why you are moving on / seeking other opportunities. Also offer very preferential treatment if any of them are interested in purchasing the app. You are going to have to be very transparent on the fact you are selling because
a) The fact that you don't know who to talk with first means it is likely you don't have the proper in's at competitors or obvious interested parties. This was me when I went to sell my first start-up. It makes it harder but a good product sells itself:)
b) You need to reach a wide audience. Selling an app is a very illiquid market meaning not a lot of active buyers. By the way, I mean this in a relative sense. Yes, I know there are many apps bought every day but percentage-wise, its low.
Don't bill for travel as income. Either bill it as an expense, or what is often more convienent/easier to manage since the client doesn't worry about it is if you have a car, is take the tax write-ff at 58 cents per mile (or whatever that figure is). For airfare, bill if you are doing work on the plane. The rest is the cost of doing business and should be built into your hourly rate.
If you are under contract, yes bill for the first meeting. If not, depending on the relationship, there are two ways of handling this. The first, and what I do with the clients I am most comfortable with, is simply add those in at a later date as line items. The rationale is because the second way to do it is bake it into your hourly rate post-contract (Notice everything is either they pay directly or indirectly). Many clients, when you explain how you need to structure rates go with option 1, BUT and this is a huge BUT, with new clients, never explain option 1. Sales is all about slanting and simplifying. Trying to sit down and explain this subtlety will likely mean you lose the business.
So moral of the story is the easier it is for the client to do mental math, the easier it is to win business. Trying to explain subtleties that are important to you are a waste of time. Add in a clause to your contract that expenses are not included in your quote and will be billed separately. Depending on your field, you also may want to include things like stock photography, software licenses, and/or hardware are not part of the quote.
I am really struggling with some of the comments on TC. Maybe I am naive, but $50 is a drop in the bucket for the amount of time padpressed could save you plus the increase of your brand affinity.
Given I am going to be launching a start-up soon that is a lot more expensive than $50, wondering what the communities thoughts are.
Does the HN community feel $50 is too high, too low, or just right for padpressed?
Considering most of the people who bother to comment on a TechCrunch article are just trolling for backlinks I wouldn't let what they say bother you too much.
Also, I think TC readers are notoriously poor performers when it comes to actionable signups/registrations/purchases of the things they're so quick to comment on. I'm not sure their thoughts on pricing are worth much.
Yeah, the overly one sided (good or bad) comments on TC or the net in general don't hold much weight.
Our thought on initial pricing was this: People pay for Wordpress themes AND plugins. This is somewhere in the middle. Woothemes charges $70 no problem, wptouch pro is $30, and other advanced plugins can cost $100. Let's start with $50. It's less than WooThemes, but more than wptouch pro.
Good to hear that I wasn't alone in that thinking!
I would be an interesting experiment in pricing. All things "iPhone" get premium priced (except the amount a user is willing to pay for the app), so I wonder if it could be priced higher, or if since the iPad distribution is much lower, it will result in a lower price point.
Of course it is always easier to wonder when it is not your product that is being impacted :)
I see this as being comparable to a premium theme price, those run $50-75 from woothemes or wherever. If you're serious about your blog, and a big ipad user or have heavy ipad traffic, its nothing.
that being said, i think we'll see a LOT more premium plugins and themes for sale soon for wordpress.
So I have two thoughts that I think are in a different vein than many comments below (tried to read them all but may have missed some. Apologize for repeats)
1. Similar to other suggestions, but with a slight twist, modify the up/down votes to utilize the Net Promoter Score methodology. It has its issues but it reduces a really difficult problem to a simple question that provides a broader spectrum than y/s. Could limit the "would highly recommend" super-vote to one story per day so users would save those votes for those articles they find extremely valuable.
Actually, thinking about it. Would be cool to get a view of only stories that people have "spent" their one super-vote as that is signaling extreme importance. I think many people find many stories interesting, but would only find a few EXTREMELY interesting enough to spend their super-vote on.
2. One challenge is that HN has grown in size so much that there is no set of top stories to satisfy the entire group. Would be interesting to provide a view that matches your personal preferences. Reddit does this by subreddit, stackoverflow by tags. My personal background is personalization in the context of eCommerce, which looks more at user segments. So users who find hard-core tech knowledge interesting vs. VC news vs. geographic location. In some ways this is already being done via segmentation in the classic view: https://hackernews.hn/classic Are there some other obvious segments on HN?