Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability • Hacker News Board

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#31

Post by fallentimes » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 6:02 PM UTC

albertcardona wrote: post #26

drusenko wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing Many of these issues are covered in basic marketing 101. As to how the pricing scheme is deceptive is beyond me. There are multiple different psychological price theories in use. As mentioned in the article, the .99 pricing scheme is fairly prevalent, although some retailers use a .00 pricing scheme to reinforce quality. Walmart has used a somewhat random pricing sch…

Thanks for sharing. The random pricing scheme reads most evil of all. Perhaps a conclusion is that there is no such thing as a naked price--all pricing schemes have psychological load, whether intended or not, because the consumer will add it.

Why is random pricing evil?

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#32

Post by blurry » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 6:13 PM UTC

drusenko wrote: post #23

shafqat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it's not easy to find. I had to log into my account, and was then offered the choice to upgrade. FYI, its 3.99 a month.

We've shied away from displaying $$ signs on our front page, as the Weebly service is very much free -- we don't want to create a perception on the user's part that they have to pay to use the service. On the other hand, most users run into our "upgrade" form organically, when they try to use a Pro feature, and are offered the ability to upgrade -- this is a very logical point for the user, when there is already some…

Understandable, but perhaps you could include it in your FAQs?

How much, the number one FAQ the world over for the last 5,000 years :)

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#33

Post by babul » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 7:36 PM UTC

shafqat wrote: post #12

blurry wrote: post #8

I just spent a good fifteen minutes trying to find out how much Weebly charges for the pro accounts and I still don't know. What is it with websites hiding their pricing? Argh.

I agree, it's not easy to find. I had to log into my account, and was then offered the choice to upgrade. FYI, its 3.99 a month.

Thanks, so using napkin calculation...

(1,000,000 users) x ("well over 1% conversion", we'll call it 4% to be generous) = 40,000 customers x $4 = $160,000 in revenue.

They have 6 people in the team, so allowing modest salary of $50,000 each = $300,000.

So, they must make the bulk of thier money by Adwords (11,000,000 uniques will generate $$$) as I assume the others services offered are not generating much cash yet.

Anyway, it is still a good and sustainable model and well done to them for turning a profit, something so many big(ger) name startups have yet to do.

EDIT: $160,000 x 12 months = $1,920,000. Also, allowing conversion rate of 2% rather than generous 4% = $960,000.

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#34

Post by kleneway » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 7:39 PM UTC

Congrats!! I love Weebly - a few weeks ago I was doing a post about how easy it is to create an online web shop using a local startup, and even after wasting 20 mins trying to fiddle around with a similar site, I was still able to get the site up in under 2 hours. Absolutely the right balance between ease of use for noobs and flexibility for more advanced users. http://tinyurl.com/weeblyrocks

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#35

Post by matthewking » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 7:45 PM UTC

babul wrote: post #33

shafqat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it's not easy to find. I had to log into my account, and was then offered the choice to upgrade. FYI, its 3.99 a month.

Thanks, so using napkin calculation... (1,000,000 users) x ("well over 1% conversion", we'll call it 4% to be generous) = 40,000 customers x $4 = $160,000 in revenue. They have 6 people in the team, so allowing modest salary of $50,000 each = $300,000. So, they must make the bulk of thier money by Adwords (11,000,000 uniques will generate $$$) as I assume the others services offered are not generating much cash yet.…

That $160,000 would be monthly, as I understand it. But id give 1.5% for "well over 1%" otherwise they might say, almost 5% :)

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#36

Post by babul » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 7:50 PM UTC

matthewking wrote: post #35

babul wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, so using napkin calculation... (1,000,000 users) x ("well over 1% conversion", we'll call it 4% to be generous) = 40,000 customers x $4 = $160,000 in revenue. They have 6 people in the team, so allowing modest salary of $50,000 each = $300,000. So, they must make the bulk of thier money by Adwords (11,000,000 uniques will generate $$$) as I assume the others services offered are not generating much cash yet.…

That $160,000 would be monthly, as I understand it. But id give 1.5% for "well over 1%" otherwise they might say, almost 5% :)

Doh! For some reason I thought it was $4 per year. Must learn to read properly.

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#37

Post by albertcardona » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 7:59 PM UTC

fallentimes wrote: post #31

albertcardona wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing. The random pricing scheme reads most evil of all. Perhaps a conclusion is that there is no such thing as a naked price--all pricing schemes have psychological load, whether intended or not, because the consumer will add it.

Why is random pricing evil?

Because of the pretension of being real--as in, adjusted to the real price--when they are not.

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#38

Post by globalrev » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 8:01 PM UTC

fallentimes wrote: post #13

globalrev wrote: post #9

Not to be negative but they have existed for 3 years and that is all they have produced? Maybe I missed something when I tried it a couple of months ago but it seemed more like something that had been around for 3 weeks. I really wanted something like it but for sure there wasn't much to it. Some simple drag and drop features but nothing that let a noob create a cool webpage by just dragging and dropping. Did I manag…

Most people in the world are n00bs.

That answer means you must have misunderstood what I said. Anyway, I was mostly looking for an explanation of what is so great about Weebly because I didn't get it.

Surely we must be able to critisize here right?

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#39

Post by SwellJoe » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 8:05 PM UTC

There are a handful of companies in YC (aside from my own) that I would love to personally invest in (if I were in the position to invest). Weebly is definitely near the top of the list, and was from the first moment I saw it during Winter '07. They're totally pragmatic, and just get things done...not one information astronaut in the bunch.

And they work in that space where nobody wants to be: technology for newbies. A couple of folks in this thread are criticizing Weebly for the very things that make it so explosively successful. I'd advise anyone who thinks they're smarter than the Weebly folks to pause for a moment, and think about traffic, and what it means for there to be 1 million websites at Weebly. That's one million occasions where someone browsed to the site, filled out the form, and went through the process of creating a website. How many people have signed up for your web application? How many made it to actually using it to do real work? And how much money does your app make if you imagine 1% of those users being willing to pay you a monthly fee? When the number of people committed enough to create something with your site reaches a million, you almost can't not make money with it.

Re: Weebly (YC winter 07) scores 1 million users, reaches profitability

#40

Post by fallentimes » Mon, Nov 03, 2008, 8:20 PM UTC

albertcardona wrote: post #37

fallentimes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is random pricing evil?

Because of the pretension of being real--as in, adjusted to the real price--when they are not.

Sorry, I'm still not following (I could very easily be missing something so I apologize if this is the case). As long as the buyer isn't being forced to buy, how can variable prices be evil?