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A solo journey to $100k in sales

draculatheme.com

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Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#71

Post by nkingsy »

wastedhours wrote: post #42
Swizec wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$99 for a great config file is buying time. A good config can take years to hone. Easily adds up to 50 hours over 10 years. How much are your 50 hours worth? What about cutting that 10 year lead time down to 1h? LastPass on the other hand is a tool you use because the world sucks. And their UX is pretty bad. And switching away is an annoying chore. You feel trapped and extorted into paying. I configured my own editor…

> LastPass on the other hand is a tool you use because the world sucks I feel like this gets missed a lot when questions about price/value come up. Just because something's useful doesn't mean you want to buy it, and things you don't want to buy, but need, are likely to be thought of more harshly when it comes to price.

This emotion seems obvious and I wonder why we don’t have clear, sustained global consensus for creating/maintaining non-profit alternatives for strict needs.

Is this part of mainstream economics yet? I see “the economist” argue around the edges of this, but then they ran a front page hit on Bernie sanders.

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#72

Post by zenorocha »

imwillofficial wrote: post #11

An amazing body of work. I’m beyond impressed. Thoughtful, well designed, and well researched. I never liked the Dracula theme much, but I’m going to snag this just to support great stuff being put out into the world.

That's awesome! Give it a shot and if you don't like it I can give you a refund right away.

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#73

Post by spoonjim »

Lich wrote: post #64
xtracto wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I am one of those. I generally don't like "subscription model" products. I am OK paying whatever price one time to buy something, but having to keep paying recurrently for some service incites locking to me, as the moment I decide I don't want to pay anymore I end up empty handed.

I’m asking out of curiosity, as someone who is thinking about implementing a subscription model, do you not like it even though you know the product you’re using has recurring costs for usage (e.g. charges for API/DB calls), or are you only against subscription models when the cost of usage is minimal to none (e.g. MS Office, Adobe CS)?

Both Office and Adobe CS now have hosted features (file sharing) too so they are moving more in that direction.

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#74

Post by johnx123-up »

brtkdotse wrote: post #15

Without knocking the creators achievement, I find it curious how devs will rage and cry murder when LastPass wants a few bucks for a hosted product but don’t bat an eye for shelling out $99 for what is, when you come down to it, a config file for your IDE .

FWIW... I guess, the paying customer segment might be different. Since he seems to be selling the bundle, he may not be knowing the demographics. I vaguely guess the paying segment might be from the designer ecosystem like Sketch or Figma.

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#75

Post by wastedhours »

nkingsy wrote: post #71
wastedhours wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LastPass on the other hand is a tool you use because the world sucks I feel like this gets missed a lot when questions about price/value come up. Just because something's useful doesn't mean you want to buy it, and things you don't want to buy, but need, are likely to be thought of more harshly when it comes to price.

This emotion seems obvious and I wonder why we don’t have clear, sustained global consensus for creating/maintaining non-profit alternatives for strict needs. Is this part of mainstream economics yet? I see “the economist” argue around the edges of this, but then they ran a front page hit on Bernie sanders.

I guess because the more it looks and feels like a public service, the more it feels like a tax. Or the more it feels like a non-profit, the more it feels like charity.

Each of those concepts has had a long time to become embedded, but the kind of globalised, "net-good" non-profit that still gives you as an individual benefits, has barely even reached the corners of HN yet (would assume there's people here who haven't yet discovered LetsEncrypt, for example).

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#78

Post by aeturnum »

quaffapint wrote: post #9

I commend you for getting people to pay for a color theme - something that people think of as a freebie. I would just think that no one would ever pay for this and not even try. You tried and you are succeeding. There's a lesson in that.

One of the things I think about is how important scale is for evaluating the viability of a product.

I suspect that there aren't enough people who would pay $99 for a IDE theme to support an ongoing company with employees. However, for a single designer, it's perfect. The fact that 99.9% of the population turns their nose up doesn't matter because 0.1% is still 600,000 people. $100k is just over 1000 sales, which seems eminently doable for nearly any project.

My take-away is that - if you're considering a solo side project that will only work if you charge a "high" price (which probably isn't as high as you think it is) or if you get a ton of sales - try charging the high price!

Re: A solo journey to $100k in sales

#79

Post by jdxcode »

brtkdotse wrote: post #22
imwillofficial wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know that it is the same people holding these conflicting stances? Seems like HN is a big place, room enough for both cheap devs and more well-heeled devs.

Nope, just some good ol’ generalizin!

I admire your honesty!
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