Definitely double the prices right now. Since there is a free version that is generous, it won’t be “selling out”. I’m sure it felt right back years ago, but think of how much the product has improved since then. You can grandfather all current customers in (or just a year) if it makes it feel better.
I am impressed by that video from 99designs. How much did you spend? Do you have a link to their profile?
This is basically saying: "You got them hooked, now squeeze every cent you can out of them", which I think is very dishonest advice. There is at least one costumer who won't (or can't) pay a penny more than they are currently paying, and "experimenting with prices" would be like telling them: "well, go away, there's a guy here in line with more dough than you".
Given the very-skewed distribution of wealth, this line of thought leads to very expensive services for the rich, and the poor having to leave without them (housing market, I'm looking at you).
Let me explain a bit more. I don't suggest raising prices for early customers who are receiving the same product they signed up for originally. They can stay at the same price, which is grandfathering them in.
More typical though is Customer 1 signs up in 2015 when the product had features AB. Then in 2018 the product adds feature C. Is it fair to raise prices on them? Maybe, maybe not. In this case, I would still recommend today doubling prices for all new customers. You can go back to Customer 1 and say either:
1) we raised prices, but since you are an early supporter you get the current price for life with features ABC (if feature D is added, don't give it to them for free, they have to upgrade to the new pricing).
2) we raised prices since adding feature C is providing more value, but as an early supporter we are going to keep you at the original rate for 1 more year.
Surely that depends what the price right now is. As the cheapest paid version is $1/month, I don't really think doubling it to $2/month would be excessive.
We'll definitely give pricing some thought, you're right that it's probably time to revisit.
Re: the video, actually now that I look back we used a company called xp-studios.com - we just provided the script. I believe it was around $3k but this was back in 2013.
I came to suggest the same. The prices feel way too low. If you haven't experimented a lot with these, I'd recommend trying it. If you have paying customers now, I suspect you could increase new monthly revenue by several multiples.
You mentioned wanting to play with paid ads. I think you'll quickly find that your current LTV is way too low to justify any campaigns (unless your enterprise plan is converting like crazy?)
(Unpopular opinion) Also consider experimenting with killing your free plan if your goal is to increase revenue. I'm not saying you definitely should kill it long-term - just experiment with removing the option in an A/B test and see how it impacts conversions on paid plans. Freemium normally benefits products with network effects. It's not totally obvious to me how your product might benefit from that.
I've been using Stripe for several years and love it. Switching to payment intents this year was seamless.
One thing I'd love you guys to do is create your own QuickBooks connection app. Most companies offer their own - yours is through Sush.io with your logo and bad ratings. I can't get it to work and I'm not the only one.
And while you're here, have you read Joseph Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies"? He is a very underrated thinker in the lack-of-progress area you've shown interest in.
I'm not at Stripe but would be keen to work on this as a side-project. Would you be willing to be user #1? If so, please ping me (email in profile). Thanks!
Methane doesn't have a half-life, but you are correct it doesn't stay around forever. In about a decade it will react to become carbon dioxide and water vapor, which both contribute to warming themselves.
Scientists know this when they state that over a 100 year period, methane traps 32 times more heat than CO2 [1]. This is the number widely cited. Over a 20 year period it is even worse: 104 times greater! Considering we are trying to drastically reduce the human contribution to global warming over the next 10 to 20 years, methane is a great thing to focus on.
Other thoughts:
It is interesting that the cow population only increased 35% since 1960 according to that source. But what about the methane per cow? Some quick searches suggests the slaughter age may have decreased from 3 years to 15 months during that time. They are growing much faster, fed grain that leads to the methane burps. At a minimum several times more emissions per cow.
CO2 only sticks around for 100 years, by your line of reasoning we should just shrug that off too?
That is interesting. So if cows are slaughtered at 15 months instead of three years, methane per cow life time has been cut by more than half. So we could have twice as many cows with the same methane output, right? Something doesn’t seem right about that though...
> A Climeworks app could be installed on my smartphone, he explained. It could then be activated by my handset’s location services. “You fly over here to Europe,” he explained, “and the app tells you that you have just burned 1.7 tons of CO₂. Do you want to remove that? Well, Climeworks can remove it for you. Click here. We’ll charge your credit card. And then you’ll get a stone made from CO₂ for every ton you sequester.” He sat back and sighed. “That would be my dream,” he said.
That's what I'm working on! Get people who care to take personal responsibility for their own travel. It is just $2-4 dollars a week - a tiny sum for people who fly frequently. In beta for iOS now if you are interested in giving it a shot: https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/pledge-balance
An independent app has the benefit of not being stuck with just this Climeworks best case $100/ton direct air capture. Soils and grasslands seem to be a low hanging fruit closer to $10/ton.
I’m sorry, but trying to save the planet via a charity while taking a vig to get rich at the same time isn’t going to work. The scale of the problem is just too large, and the number of individuals at the retail end of the carbon economy with the desire and disposable income to not only undo their own emissions is tiny.
The tough part about a problem of massive scale is no solution is good enough. So you sit around debating a global carbon tax for decades while attacking any other effort that is an incremental approach?
Someone less convinced about these issues will react to this by saying: „good idea, make those who are interested in this climate thing pay and leave the rest of us alone“.
Hopefully this is a more palatable solution for skeptics than a big carbon tax or even doing nothing. There is an obvious connection between cars and airplanes spewing gunk into the air, you don't need to make a case with global warming models - just be responsible for your own mess and nothing more. Everyone understands pollution and being responsible for their direct actions.
I would argue being vegan is a very hard change, equivalent in my mind to asking people who care about the environment to never fly or get in a car with an internal combustion engine. Those people exist, but man is that a lot to ask!
It is a much smaller ask to opt into paying 5 cents more for a burger to offset. But with travel the connection to emissions is more obvious and wealthy people have a larger share (a rich person doesn't eat 10x more steak than average, but does fly 10x more).
You lost me on the comparison between never flying/driving and eating responsibly and well, but i think the "never" part of the equation is going to cause a lot of friction.
If being a vegan is hard, use condiments! Don't be a vegan, just eat way less meat (especially red) and stuff made with palm oil which would both benefit both the climate and your health. Actually the heck with the planet, heart disease will take your number faster than climate change.
"By 2020, 90% of Ford’s North American sales will consist of larger vehicles with lower fuel economy" Not buying an SUV that never leaves the pavement which rides on GIANT tires might also be something to consider in the personal choices category. If you really need to see above everyone else, install a periscope.
I see it more as a stop-gap. Reducing some of the damage transitioning to renewable energy over the next 1-3 decades. And optimistically doing my small part.
I started https://pledgebalance.com/ in February and just launched an iOS beta group this month. It's an app to balance the negative impact of your daily travel with tiny payment that goes 100% to carbon offsets. My drive today was 17¢ to balance, which is invested in projects like planting trees.
Only $50 of revenue this month, but hopefully will grow quickly from there. Also will add premium features like corporate accounts for additional fees, though will never take a cut of a person's balanced travel.
It was also fun diving into React Native for the first time, I learned a lot. I used a starter kit (https://market.nativebase.io/view/react-native-fiber-firebas...) I would definitely recommend as it provided a lot more structure than just learning from tutorials.
> What if I just can’t avoid that flight, or cut down on driving? If you simply can’t make every change that’s needed, consider offsetting your emissions with a trusted green project
> we are still decades away from commercial flights running on solar energy
Offsets need to be a bigger part of the conversation. This article buried it at #10, behind a bunch of changes no one is likely to do. It is so incredibly cheap, they should have brought it up earlier in the article and give exact numbers in order to result in more personal actions.
I'll quote you some numbers to show just how accessible offsets are for people who fly. A rough estimate is about 1% of the ticket:
- SF to San Diego: 68 cents
- SF to New York: $3.87
- SF to Paris: $8.43
Driving is similar, to offset a gallon of gas it is about 9 cents, tack on 2-3% more than what you pay at the pump.
I understand that it isn't ideal to pollute then clean it up [0], but this is a much more practical solution than asking people to stop traveling. The cost is so low that just about everyone who is doing the flying and driving can afford it.
The concern is that by putting a price to clear your conscience for a bad behavior you will induce more of that behavior [1]. I would argue that personal travel isn't very correlated in this manner. How many people cut back their travel now because of their emissions? Very few. Would the average person who hasn't cut back suddenly start traveling more? Doubtful. It's not like they will suddenly drive for fun or it was factoring in on their vacation decisions [2]. So while I would be hesitant to put a price on all bad environmental behaviors, I think travel is safe.
> Social scientists have found that when one person makes a sustainability-oriented decision, other people do too.
That's good news! First make it easier to take an action, then make it easier for it to be public. That's why I'm working on an app that is a personal pledge to balance the negative impact of your travel.
While carbon offsets exist, they are an infrequent action that cost a lot at once, and are opaque. We will make it more frequent for smaller amount of money, give a scoreboard of your continued impact, and help make it visible for inspiring others to join.
[0]: YC recently asked for carbon removal technology startups. It will continue to get more impactful than simply planting trees, and those projects that prove successful will need money to scale. http://carbon.ycombinator.com/
This is exactly why I think offsets are a better short-term solution. Don't travel is too big of an ask even for the "eco aware". Would they pay an extra 17 cents to offset their driving that day or $3 for a flight across the US? It is shockingly cheap and much easier to say yes to that change. It isn't as direct as just not traveling in the first place, but will get much more adoption.
I'm working on an app to make a personal travel offset pledge and track your impact publicly. If anyone is interested in keeping in the loop on progress: https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/pledge-balance
What percentage of houses burn down out of all houses ever built? I think not that many. Most probably stand for a hundred years and then are torn down and their component parts recycled.
