Hi Ryan, we think at $99/month the pro account is great value for a small business. You get unlimited custom domains, ssl, scaling and premium support.
And if you really can't afford it, get in touch about your project, we'll probably give it to you for free anyway.
HN is demonstrably pathological about pricing; 80% of the readers here assume they could build whatever you built in a weekend (look back to the original Stack Overflow threads).
Use this to your advantage. If you can stay on-message about your pricing and value-prop on HN, you'll have no trouble doing it with people who actually pay money for computery things. Make a game out of it.
When you say "if you ask we'll probably just give you this for free", what you may accidentally be communicating is, "I'm not secure in how much this product is worth". You make one potentially pathological low-value customer marginally happier, but subtly degrade your valuation with the entire rest of the community.
Believe me I feel your pain. I don't care that much about PaaS products, but I'm in the process of launching a new product and going out to customers about pricing. It's hard to put price tags on things! Wow is it hard! I have a total admiration for people who can hustle this stuff.
>HN is demonstrably pathological about pricing; 80% of the readers here assume they could build whatever you built in a weekend
This is so true! For EffectCheck [1], when I see three segments of people:
1. People who refuse to believe that the technology works, because every person is a unique flower that overcomes 40 years of psychological research. Even linking these people to studies [2,3] that are happening all the time simply will not convince them that it may work.
2. Developers who want to use it for free. They post things like "it's too bad this isn't publicly available, I'd love to check my emails with EffectCheck." I have been through the motions with these people, and it usually ends with them being willing to pay somewhere in the < $10/mo range for unlimited access.
3. People who appreciate the technology and contact us to see if we can help address their business needs.
The gap between people in the first two groups and those in the third group is huge. People who are comfortable with B2B sales simply do not blink an eye at our prices, because they know they're more than fair. On top of that, we're a full service agency, and when we tell them our hourly rate for customization they find that reasonable as well.
Engineers and scientists are not necessarily naturally adept business people. Those that are may become some of the best (Larry and Sergei). Those that are not will waste their time complaining about pricing rather than assessing the true value.
When Conan O'Brian got screwed by NBC and Jay Leno on the Tonight Show, he made an appeal [4] to his viewers: "Please do not be cynical... It doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they would get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."
Sounds like there are only two segments, people who think it's a cool toy to run their emails through and people who have businesses to run and see how it can help them refine their message.
It's not about the person as a person, it's about what they see themselves using it for.
Yes, but the problem is that "Show HN"'s have two contexts: "maybe you want to use this", and, "offer me advice about my new offering". On the latter, HN's aversion to paying money for goods and services harms its utilities to companies offering premium goods and services.
I agree, except for the fact that I think it's more about HN having no use for some premium goods and services and saying "I could think of some cool side-projects to use this in if it cost $10/mo" rather than "I have no use for this, but I think it is reasonably priced for its target market".
All things considered, $99/mo is nothing for a business that wants to make money out of its infrastructure. The way HN approaches DotCloud is "man, I could use this for my side-projects if it weren't so business-oriented". Most people here just aren't its target market.
And if you really can't afford it, get in touch about your project, we'll probably give it to you for free anyway.