41–50 of 57 posts
Kudos to someone else who actually wants to make money these days, not just spark investor interest, burn a ton of other people's money and then retire to write a book while their company goes down in flames.
Purely from a user's perspective, the Mac app store has a considerable advantage in centrally managing updates. Non-MAS apps each have their own eclectic ways of updating. Some support automatic update checks, while users have to explicitly check others. For the ones with automatic updates, there are a number of ways it's handled. Users don't generally want scores of update daemons running, and the whole business of…
Update on the way out? ie. Pop up with two options "close" and "update and close", at least this time you've already accomplished what you were after with the application.
Purely from a user's perspective, the Mac app store has a considerable advantage in centrally managing updates. Non-MAS apps each have their own eclectic ways of updating. Some support automatic update checks, while users have to explicitly check others. For the ones with automatic updates, there are a number of ways it's handled. Users don't generally want scores of update daemons running, and the whole business of…
The time-limited trial is essential for selling productivity software, unfortunately most companies are doing it wrong. Beyond Compare[1] has a 30-day trial that is 30 days of use - not just 30 consecutive days. If I actually use a piece of software 30 different times on different days, then it's definitely worth a purchase. It's too bad more developers don't design their trials this way. [1] - http://www.scootersoft…
I find time limited trials useless. For user, it is inconvenient, because maybe the time is not enough to test complex software. For developers it's bad because user can simply reinstall the software again when trial period is over. In my apps, I limit the amount of data you can store in trial version. So, you can try it as much as you can. For example, if your software was an e-mail client, you could limit it to 30…
> PDF Expert is available at an introductory price of $19.99, but that will rise in the near future to $60–70 once we add PDF editing and OCR. $60–70 for a fancy PDF reader ? By doing this you will get only the people that really, really need your software, the others will turn away unable to justify such an expense for a non vital software. A bit like an iPhone in fact. I could afford one, but I don't want to make s…
Finally, it all depends on what exactly you need from the app. Fast, reliable and well-designed software can't be cheap - and I don't think it should.
It's interesting that their views on competition run counter to what YC / Peter Thiel advocate for in all startups - that is, avoiding competitive spaces and going for monopolies. Perhaps monopolies are necessary for huge growth and investor upside, but it should be made clear that there's obviously space in startups for modest goals like a nice PDF reader, and I hope their employees makes a reasonable living off it…
My office setup is almost exactly what you describe. Switch out the macbook for an imac and then add a height adjustable desk, some headphones, and a hydroflask. The article though was pretty effective in making me want to try the app since I make a handful of pdfs and exporting from photoshop is a pain since I always forget the settings I want to use to make the file not gigantic. But to your point, I kind of like t…
This is what a 'small business' is. Not every entrepreneur is out to take over the world.
It's interesting how he says videos are important. I find videos to be much slower to parse than reading features or reviews from notable people within the industry the app is part of. For example, in the case of Sketch, I didn't watch the video (didn't even know they had them until I checked today) but instead read what it's like to use the application from a couple different designers. In the case of Dropbox (whoa,…
If you want video, go for it, but make sure to also include text somewhere because if the only way to find out what your product does is to watch a video I'll probably just close the tab.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My office setup is almost exactly what you describe. Switch out the macbook for an imac and then add a height adjustable desk, some headphones, and a hydroflask. The article though was pretty effective in making me want to try the app since I make a handful of pdfs and exporting from photoshop is a pain since I always forget the settings I want to use to make the file not gigantic. But to your point, I kind of like t…
Well, PDF Expert can potentially bring $10M a year if we do it right. We just feel that the PDF experience with Adobe isn't great... And for people who work with PDFs that does matter. Speaking about lifestyle business: we definitely decided not to do it. It's been 7 years, we grew to 85 people and 45 million users... that is why we are aiming for something that is much bigger and has much more impact! Have a look at…
On PDF Expert, one feature I'd love to see would be an option to add links to sections of images in a PDF. That's the only thing I use Acrobat for, and it'd be incredible to be able to quit using it forever.
It's interesting that their views on competition run counter to what YC / Peter Thiel advocate for in all startups - that is, avoiding competitive spaces and going for monopolies. Perhaps monopolies are necessary for huge growth and investor upside, but it should be made clear that there's obviously space in startups for modest goals like a nice PDF reader, and I hope their employees makes a reasonable living off it…
https://twitter.com/Desk?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Es...
If you look for more than a second, you realize nothing, absolutely nothing about it makes sense. It's insane.
It's interesting that their views on competition run counter to what YC / Peter Thiel advocate for in all startups - that is, avoiding competitive spaces and going for monopolies. Perhaps monopolies are necessary for huge growth and investor upside, but it should be made clear that there's obviously space in startups for modest goals like a nice PDF reader, and I hope their employees makes a reasonable living off it…