Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 77 posts

Re: Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

#31

Post by mahmud »

e4m wrote: post #23
mahmud wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a 50k GUI with FLTK in less than half an hour, and it compiles to a static binary. The API is at about the same "complexity" as Tk and the bloody thing is in C++. Get Dev-Cpp; click Tools -> Check for Updates -> [scroll around to find a recent FLTK devpak -> Select -> Download. Restart FLTK and New -> Project -> GUI -> FLTK. Get it done!

Wow... thank you very much! I've never heard of this library. Looks ideal. I really do appreciate it. I've been struggling with WX.

There is even GUI4CLI, which is a wrapping scripting language which generate GUIs for CLI utilities. It's used by Avanti, which is a GUI for ffmpeg and avisynth. It's about the same complexity as a clean tiny, basicish, shellish pascal:

http://gui4cli.com/html/interface.htm

But FLTK will have better integration.

Re: Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

#34

Post by phreanix »

Have you tried putting it online with a paypal donate button? That's worked wonders for our site and we make more than enough to break even. You'll find that firearms enthusiasts are generally a generous and thankful bunch and if you phrase a request for donation the right way they'll be more than happy to contribute towards your expenses.

I know of one who made a similar app for airgun users that is free but has nag screens but most everyone I know on the airgun forums have shot over (excuse the pun) the small fee to get rid of them out of gratitude for the app, which we all have found quite useful.

http://www.chairgun.com/offset/chairgun2.htm

Re: Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

#35

Post by mahmud »

e4m wrote: post #6
mahmud wrote: post #2

What does it do? What other software does the same thing and why is yours better?

It calculates trajectory, drop, etc of a bullet depending upon caliber, grain, powder, etc. It's command line only. It's windows only. No GUI, but it's very simple to use and accurate. Very useful for folks who reload their own ammunition. Covers all calibers from smallest to largest.

It calculates trajectory, drop, etc of a bullet depending upon caliber, grain, powder

Talk with the old lady and put together a grand to take out an ad in Soldier of Fortune, then slap a big fat "Please see our ad in Soldier of Fortune" on your website.

SoF is such a highly coveted niche publication, the mention of its name is more profitable than the revenue generated from ads on it. "As Seen In Soldier of Fortune" has a nice ring to it, rhymes with "cha ching".

Again, Get it DONE!

Re: Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

#36

Post by mahmud »

pasbesoin wrote: post #27
e4m wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It calculates trajectory, drop, etc of a bullet depending upon caliber, grain, powder, etc. It's command line only. It's windows only. No GUI, but it's very simple to use and accurate. Very useful for folks who reload their own ammunition. Covers all calibers from smallest to largest.

What about making it an iPhone/Android/similar application? I envision people using it not just when reloading, but at the range, when buying ammo at the store, etc. I may be completely off in my opinion, but it seems the kind of thing that aficionados would drop a few bucks on. Some for making actual decisions; others to use as an adjunct/reference in conversation. And those phones are becoming a vast marketplace. F…

iPhone app; for some reason I don't think the intersection between gun owners and iphone owners is big enough to justify the cost of development.

Re: Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

#37

Post by fluffster »

e4m wrote: post #6
mahmud wrote: post #2

What does it do? What other software does the same thing and why is yours better?

It calculates trajectory, drop, etc of a bullet depending upon caliber, grain, powder, etc. It's command line only. It's windows only. No GUI, but it's very simple to use and accurate. Very useful for folks who reload their own ammunition. Covers all calibers from smallest to largest.

Can I buy one?

Re: Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

#38

Post by mahmud »

stuff4ben wrote: post #13
e4m wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It calculates trajectory, drop, etc of a bullet depending upon caliber, grain, powder, etc. It's command line only. It's windows only. No GUI, but it's very simple to use and accurate. Very useful for folks who reload their own ammunition. Covers all calibers from smallest to largest.

As a general rule, I don't pay for command line utilities. Put a shiny GUI on it and I'd probably reconsider. Plus command line applications are not user friendly (especially Windows based ones) and take more effort to run than a nice clickable icon and GUI. My suggestion, either give it away for free or develop it to a point where you can add a GUI to it (shouldn't be hard with a couple hours of C#) and then charge…

As a general rule, I don't pay for command line utilities.

Thank goodness it's only you. I made a decent living writing database archiving tools as CLI utilities because the vendor supplied GUIs weren't scriptable.

Re: Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

#39

Post by pclark »

mahmud wrote: post #36
pasbesoin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about making it an iPhone/Android/similar application? I envision people using it not just when reloading, but at the range, when buying ammo at the store, etc. I may be completely off in my opinion, but it seems the kind of thing that aficionados would drop a few bucks on. Some for making actual decisions; others to use as an adjunct/reference in conversation. And those phones are becoming a vast marketplace. F…

iPhone app; for some reason I don't think the intersection between gun owners and iphone owners is big enough to justify the cost of development.

got any research to back that up?

Re: Pricing a Simple, Useful Desktop App

#40

Post by tom_rath »

patio11 wrote: post #25

The single best advice I've ever heard for pricing: charge more. Seriously. Whatever number you're thinking of, it is too low. Think of a number that makes you wince. That number is too low, too. Many people here will suggest you charge like $5 or $10. These people are unwilling to buy your application at any price. They are not your customers. Their opinion on your price is irrelevant. (I mean this in the nicest pos…

Exactly what I hopped on here to say. To add to it:

If someone is going to open their wallet and bother to enter a credit card number on your site, $10 is the same as $25. If your product saves someone a few hours of effort, $25 is a trivial amount of money to buy that time -- you will have a sale.

Don't compete on price -- compete on provided value. Make your app the best way to resolve 'Task X' and people will buy it.

Ignore those people who say you're too expensive. If they're wincing about $25 you really do not want them as a customer. Back when I priced software to be competitive 'on price', I attracted people who were looking for the cheapest solution and those people are, by far, the biggest pain in the tail for support that you will ever run into.

Post reply on HN