Tell HN: Thank you • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#51

Post by greyman » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 9:10 AM UTC

brandon272 wrote: post #40

staunch wrote: post #22

I may be way off base, but the cynic in me sees your post as related to the recent changes you made with Mixergy. I really liked Mixergy. I turned lots of people onto it. When you decided (almost out of the blue) to turn it into a strictly money making venture for yourself I felt burned. I thought you were following in the footsteps of Charlie Rose's interviews, Paul Graham's essays, or one of the dozens of great Pod…

I'm intrigued by this response because, as others have mentioned, there is nothing inherently wrong with charging for content. People do it all of the time. We all need to make a living somehow, right? I think one mistake that may have been made in this case, and others may disagree with me, is that there was (as far as I know) no disclaimer about the content not being free forever. I think some people stumble upon a…

As I understood the staunch's complaint, it was not primary about "it's wrong to charge for content". Obviously, it is not wrong in and of itself. What is probably not 100% kosher is that you first create a service for free, then thanks to this property of being free people would promote you and give other forms of help for free, and then you switch to a pay model. That's exactly "bait and switch," as it was mentioned above.

The equivalent in the real world would be, that I will start to build a house where people can sleep for free as a public service, that will attract volunteers to help me build that, and then after some time I remake it into a hotel...

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#52

Post by pennyfiller » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 10:02 AM UTC

I've stumbled onto Mixergy from onstartups.com and it is the most useful site for entrepreneurs I've ever seen. Thanks for putting it together! It's like the book Founders at Work except with video. Amazing.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#53

Post by jayphelps » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 10:08 AM UTC

I'm new to these parts, but I'm lovin' things so far!

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#54

Post by IsaacL » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 1:16 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #22

I may be way off base, but the cynic in me sees your post as related to the recent changes you made with Mixergy. I really liked Mixergy. I turned lots of people onto it. When you decided (almost out of the blue) to turn it into a strictly money making venture for yourself I felt burned. I thought you were following in the footsteps of Charlie Rose's interviews, Paul Graham's essays, or one of the dozens of great Pod…

I'm a student, and can't afford to pay to watch Mixergy. But I still enjoy watching the videos while they're available for free, and I don't begrudge Andrew for wanting to make money off his own hard work.

"HOME OF THE AMBITIOUS UPSTART" - I love that line.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#55

Post by Keyframe » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 1:37 PM UTC

I'm happy for you Andrew, but you could've played out monetization side differently, albeit the hard way. You could've pitched yourself for syndication to sites like channel9 and live interviews to conferences - that's where your money would be at while keeping the site free. Just an idea.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#56

Post by bjplink » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 2:51 PM UTC

gridspy wrote: post #49

staunch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users are often upset about any change whatsoever. A certain percentage of people simply don't like the things they're familiar with changing at all. They will complain loudly. You have to ignore these people to succeed. If you let them convince you to remain static you will lose . I don't think that's the case here though. It's hard for me to be objective, but I'm fairly certain this change was executed poorly and m…

Paul Graham made is essays for free. As a result he has a loyal following of hackers. Long after his essays were popular, he started tapping into that following with YC. Joel Spolsky had a popular programming blog. He mentions a site that he is involved with (SO) and suddenly it has the attention of a large number of people. We all know Andrew Warner, what a nice guy is his, how good he is at building relationships.…

Paul Graham certainly didn't give Viaweb to Yahoo for free.

Joel Spolsky sells software for a living and is looking to turn a profit with StackExchange soon.

Why should people be criticized, on a site specifically built to attract entrepreneurs, for trying to turn a profit with their venture? How hypocritical.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#57

Post by xelipe » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 4:12 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #46

mattmaroon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty common reaction you get whenever you first try to monetize anything on the net. People feel entitled to whatever you do at no cost to yourself. They always say "you could make money in other ways" but never suggest any specifically or show any evidence they would actually gain traction. If you like what the guy does enough to shell out some $, fine. If you don't, also fine. But the guy has a right to…

Users are often upset about any change whatsoever. A certain percentage of people simply don't like the things they're familiar with changing at all. They will complain loudly. You have to ignore these people to succeed. If you let them convince you to remain static you will lose . I don't think that's the case here though. It's hard for me to be objective, but I'm fairly certain this change was executed poorly and m…

Users get update because they feel like the rug has been pulled right under them. I for one, thought "Mixergy is kewl, Andrew is building an awesome community" but as soon as I saw his subscription model I realized that he was not building a community, he was building a business around a community. Building a community and building a business around a community are not the same thing and I probably won't be able to participate because I probably won't pony up to see a video. But funny enough, I would have bought a book if he had one in Kindle form like I have for Paul Graham, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jessica Livingston, etc. I probably would have gone to a conference like I have for Ruby Conf, Java One, Future of Web Apps, and Google I/O. I would have bought audio books as I did for Seth Godin, John Maxwell, and Stephen Covey because of Leo Laporte's and Jason Calacanis' podcast ads.

Andrew can fire his staff, fire his clients, and fire his users and he can certainly follow whatever business model he wants but for someone has had interviews with Seth Godin subscription models are a plain ol' boring not-purple sort of cow.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#58

Post by xelipe » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 4:27 PM UTC

bjplink wrote: post #56

gridspy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham made is essays for free. As a result he has a loyal following of hackers. Long after his essays were popular, he started tapping into that following with YC. Joel Spolsky had a popular programming blog. He mentions a site that he is involved with (SO) and suddenly it has the attention of a large number of people. We all know Andrew Warner, what a nice guy is his, how good he is at building relationships.…

Paul Graham certainly didn't give Viaweb to Yahoo for free. Joel Spolsky sells software for a living and is looking to turn a profit with StackExchange soon. Why should people be criticized, on a site specifically built to attract entrepreneurs, for trying to turn a profit with their venture? How hypocritical.

It maybe true that some of these comments sound hypocritical but I feel that you are comparing apples and oranges with your comparison. Joel Spolsky spent a lot of time/energy on his Joel on Software blog and from his user base there "spun off" a business. Joel might have never spent on marketing for Fog Creek but he sure spent a lot of time on his blog that functioned as marketing for his business. His blog was not his business, he didn't wrap a subscription model to it. The same is true with Paul Graham, he built a following with his essays which "spun off" a book and a following to his other ventures.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#59

Post by brandon272 » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 5:15 PM UTC

greyman wrote: post #51

brandon272 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm intrigued by this response because, as others have mentioned, there is nothing inherently wrong with charging for content. People do it all of the time. We all need to make a living somehow, right? I think one mistake that may have been made in this case, and others may disagree with me, is that there was (as far as I know) no disclaimer about the content not being free forever. I think some people stumble upon a…

As I understood the staunch's complaint, it was not primary about "it's wrong to charge for content". Obviously, it is not wrong in and of itself. What is probably not 100% kosher is that you first create a service for free, then thanks to this property of being free people would promote you and give other forms of help for free, and then you switch to a pay model. That's exactly "bait and switch," as it was mentione…

That's true. I suppose when you factor in all of the free promotion and help under the guise of a free service, it starts to look a little more unseemly.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#60

Post by mattmaroon » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 5:42 PM UTC

gridspy wrote: post #49

staunch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users are often upset about any change whatsoever. A certain percentage of people simply don't like the things they're familiar with changing at all. They will complain loudly. You have to ignore these people to succeed. If you let them convince you to remain static you will lose . I don't think that's the case here though. It's hard for me to be objective, but I'm fairly certain this change was executed poorly and m…

Paul Graham made is essays for free. As a result he has a loyal following of hackers. Long after his essays were popular, he started tapping into that following with YC. Joel Spolsky had a popular programming blog. He mentions a site that he is involved with (SO) and suddenly it has the attention of a large number of people. We all know Andrew Warner, what a nice guy is his, how good he is at building relationships.…

This logic is poor. It's not the same because Mixergy IS his startup. It's not a promotional vehicle. What you're saying is that content (video, writing, etc.) can't be a startup but can only be used to promote something else.

There's no reason it couldn't be used either way.