Tell HN: Thank you • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#61

Post by mattmaroon » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 6:20 PM UTC

AndrewWarner wrote: post #26

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 understand the frustration. I'm listening to the feedback on this the way I heard and adjusted to past issues. I don't have the right formula yet. But I'll keep at it. For what it's worth, I paid for 2 years of Charlie Rose interviews on Audible even though I could have watched them for free on TV. It took him a few years to figure out the paid vs free model that you (and I) admire. Hopefully it'll take me less tim…

I'm sure you know this, but be careful not to listen too much. Studies have shown that people abhor losses. In fact, a loss of $1 is 2-3x as significant as a gain of $1 to them.

When a product first starts charging, it triggers that reaction. If you had described Mixergy to them and said "this will cost $5" some people would have probably said "sure I'd pay that". But those same people, when used to getting it for free, now feel a loss of $5 when the price comes in.

The point being, not only will they get over it in time, but your new customers (which you hope to be 100x the size of your current base) will never have felt that loss.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#62

Post by mhartl » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 7:51 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #43

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…

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…

There's nothing wrong with monetizing content, but I think the main issue is that Andrew didn't manage expectations effectively. If Mixergy had started with a hint of a commercial angle, it would have telegraphed the change and softened the blow. Instead, many Mixergy fans (including me) thought that Mixergy was a feel-good project "giving back" to the entrepreneur community, and we felt blindsided by what seemed like a sudden shift in emphasis.

That's not to say the balancing act is easy. I'm working on a Ruby on Rails tutorial project (http://www.railstutorial.org/) that definitely has an altruistic component, and it has been a challenge to indicate that it's not a charity. For example, although I'm giving away the HTML version of the book, I've emphasized that I'll eventually be selling a screencast version of the tutorial. I'm also offering "Unlimited free downloads [of the PDF version] 'til the book is done", which creates the expectation that I may eventually charge for the PDF.

Managing expectations is an art, and even highly capable people sometimes blow it. Imagine how much friendlier the reception to Arc would have been if pg had soft-launched it in '03 rather than writing essays about it for half a decade and calling it the "hundred-year language". It was pretty hard to live up to those expectations.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#63

Post by gridspy » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 8:17 PM UTC

xelipe wrote: post #58

bjplink wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is exactly my point. The free content becomes a personal marketing vehicle - usually an extremely valuable one. You don't have to charge directly for the content to unlock this value.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#64

Post by gridspy » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 8:18 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #60

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.…

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.

That is not what I am saying.

What I am saying is that if you create free, popular, useful content you can't help but make money from the word of mouth it generates.

Re: Tell HN: Thank you

#65

Post by gridspy » Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 8:19 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.

My blog http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/ is never going to turn a profit. Hopefully it does attract more eyes to my other ventures, such as http://gridspy.co.nz/