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Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

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Re: Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

#11

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

chii wrote: post #7
quanticle wrote: post #3

If you were never allowed to provide tech support, in any form, what would have to change? Am I the only one who thinks that the answer to that question, for quite a few companies, is, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, that's pretty much what we do right now."

What if we switched the question around: you have to provide individualized tech support for each customer? Essentially, they would get hand-holding. What would need to change?

I'm trying to think of how that would change the product.

I would have to hire a team of folks to actually provide tech support, for sure.

But the product? Would need less attention to detail because we'd always be a phone call away.

Edit: Maybe I can train a ChatGPT embedding on how to use my product and force customers to use that...

Re: Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

#13

Post by 082349872349872 »

chii wrote: post #7
quanticle wrote: post #3

If you were never allowed to provide tech support, in any form, what would have to change? Am I the only one who thinks that the answer to that question, for quite a few companies, is, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, that's pretty much what we do right now."

What if we switched the question around: you have to provide individualized tech support for each customer? Essentially, they would get hand-holding. What would need to change?

With high enough margins, you get customers who are willing to provide an engineer or two specifically to travel to you and learn how your product works.

Re: Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

#14

Post by toast0 »

gnicholas wrote: post #10

I like this. In the past, we've considered making our B2C products completely free, as a way to drastically increase our rate of adoption and spur further adoption of our B2B product (which is much more lucrative). But we've never pulled the trigger, out of a fear that we'd be giving up existing revenue, and because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision. Although…

> because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision.

You don't have to tell people it's free. Tell them it's free for the first year, and don't actually charge them for future years. Automatically extend their subscription at 30 days.

Or only charge some people. Or cut them off when it expires, and then extend them 7 days after expiration.

Lots of options if direct revenue isn't super required and you've got room to expirement.

Re: Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

#15

Post by creakingstairs »

gnicholas wrote: post #10

I like this. In the past, we've considered making our B2C products completely free, as a way to drastically increase our rate of adoption and spur further adoption of our B2B product (which is much more lucrative). But we've never pulled the trigger, out of a fear that we'd be giving up existing revenue, and because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision. Although…

My two cents is that it feels like you've had an answer to an extreme question, but that answer had more extreme questions that needed to be answered like;

- If your company were to suddenly lose all B2C revenue (without the benefit of increasing your rate of adoption), what would happen? Would your company survive? If not, what would need to be done for your company to survive with only B2B revenue? (More sales training? more enterprise features? resource cuts? or more aggressive growth to fulfill client requirements? etc)

- Compared to those things you said you've needed, how important would be the increased rate of adoption from making your B2C free of charge?

High-risk high-return problems are never easy, but I guess asking these different extreme questions lets you find some low hanging fruits to high-returns or get a plan going to make those moves less risky.

Re: Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

#16

Post by gnicholas »

toast0 wrote: post #14
gnicholas wrote: post #10

I like this. In the past, we've considered making our B2C products completely free, as a way to drastically increase our rate of adoption and spur further adoption of our B2B product (which is much more lucrative). But we've never pulled the trigger, out of a fear that we'd be giving up existing revenue, and because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision. Although…

> because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision. You don't have to tell people it's free. Tell them it's free for the first year, and don't actually charge them for future years. Automatically extend their subscription at 30 days. Or only charge some people. Or cut them off when it expires, and then extend them 7 days after expiration. Lots of options if direct re…

Great suggestions. We've experimented with a free "student pass" (1/4 our users are university students), but it hasn't had a huge impact. This might be because there's some friction involved.

Our current focus is on revamping our freemium structure, so that instead of 2 weeks of unlimited usage and then extremely limited functionality thereafter, it would instead offer indefinite usage on a limited number of websites (it's a browser plugin that enhances text to make it easier/faster to read). Previously we've (not surprisingly) seen a ton of uninstalls at 2 weeks, and with the new structure we're hoping to hang onto more users for the long haul. Some of them would eventually convert, and some would just continue to think about us and recommend to friends. But another side effect is we could increase the number of 'favorite sites' that people get, up to some arbitrarily large number so it's effectively free unlimited usage.

Interestingly, the development that got us to pull the trigger on this change is the manifest v3 transition, which required us to revamp a lot of stuff about our extension so we figured we'd go for it. If this turns out to be a big plus for adoption, I guess we'll be thankful for being forced into the transition?

Re: Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

#17

Post by gnicholas »

creakingstairs wrote: post #15
gnicholas wrote: post #10

I like this. In the past, we've considered making our B2C products completely free, as a way to drastically increase our rate of adoption and spur further adoption of our B2B product (which is much more lucrative). But we've never pulled the trigger, out of a fear that we'd be giving up existing revenue, and because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision. Although…

My two cents is that it feels like you've had an answer to an extreme question, but that answer had more extreme questions that needed to be answered like; - If your company were to suddenly lose all B2C revenue (without the benefit of increasing your rate of adoption), what would happen? Would your company survive? If not, what would need to be done for your company to survive with only B2B revenue? (More sales trai…

You're right, I didn't ask these follow-on questions, probably because it's scary to think about them! The organization would survive either way, but it would feel like a pretty big failure to have nuked B2C revenue and then regretted it. But making business decisions based on emotional considerations probably isn't the wisest way to go.

I guess what I really need is to talk to someone who's had to make this call in the past and get a sense of how scary this should be, and how to know when I've asked all the important follow-on questions. I imagine it's the sort of thing that one gets braver/better at after having just done it once or twice.

Re: Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

#18

Post by jraby3 »

gnicholas wrote: post #10

I like this. In the past, we've considered making our B2C products completely free, as a way to drastically increase our rate of adoption and spur further adoption of our B2B product (which is much more lucrative). But we've never pulled the trigger, out of a fear that we'd be giving up existing revenue, and because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision. Although…

You could test it by offering free memberships to a limited country or number if people.

Re: Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

#19

Post by gnicholas »

jraby3 wrote: post #18
gnicholas wrote: post #10

I like this. In the past, we've considered making our B2C products completely free, as a way to drastically increase our rate of adoption and spur further adoption of our B2B product (which is much more lucrative). But we've never pulled the trigger, out of a fear that we'd be giving up existing revenue, and because it would make it hard to start charging again later if we decided it was the wrong decision. Although…

You could test it by offering free memberships to a limited country or number if people.

How would one limit a free offer to a certain country? We could definitely to a user-limited free pass, but we'd want to have it exposed only to new users, so we don't lose existing recurring revenue.
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