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Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

notes.eatonphil.com

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Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#51

Post by llm_nerd »

daedrdev wrote: post #4

If you charge money successfully it signals you are legit enough to get others to pay.

The corollary of this is that some people lie and claim that people are paying to shortcut to credibility or legitimacy.

And to be clear, I am not talking about this submission (which I didn't read, and from other comments is charity-driven regardless), but this industry is absolutely rife with Fake It Till You Make It people who claim they can barely contain the hordes clamouring to give them money and super high-paying consulting gigs. But then it's coupled with a beg that makes everything previously said look super questionable, yet somehow people buy it.

It's the supermodel girlfriend that lives in Canada.

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#52

Post by al_borland »

dotBen wrote: post #18
wodenokoto wrote: post #9

This reminds me of video that went simi viral a decade or so back. Not sure how much of it was staged, but the creators went to a public place and stood next to some “free hugs”-people and then put up a sign “Premium hugs $1” and apparently collected more hugs to the chargrin of the free-huggers.

The best way to get rid of junk is not to put it outside your house with “free” on it. It’s to put “$10” on it. Someone will steal it.

Not in my experience. I put a free item on Craigslist once and it was like a feeding frenzy. The first person who emailed me got it, but between their email and them getting to my house to pick it up, I got at least 40 other emails. It was very overwhelming.

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#53

Post by croisillon »

alias_neo wrote: post #33
bravesoul2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah no. Gumtree free means 10 messages in the next 30 minutes. 1c or higher = ghost town.

I experienced the opposite a few years back. My wife and I were moving city and needed rid of some perfectly functional appliances and furniture. We listed it all for free because we needed it gone quick and the cost of taking it with us was too high. When by the next day we'd had one enquiry from someone who didn't turn up, we changed tactic and switched everything to £1. Within a day the entire lot was gone, people…

had a similar experience getting rid of furnitures the owner told me i could dispose of: free brings no eyeballs on it, €10 and people were begging if i could do at €8 :)

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#54

Post by ryandrake »

al_borland wrote: post #52
dotBen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to get rid of junk is not to put it outside your house with “free” on it. It’s to put “$10” on it. Someone will steal it.

Not in my experience. I put a free item on Craigslist once and it was like a feeding frenzy. The first person who emailed me got it, but between their email and them getting to my house to pick it up, I got at least 40 other emails. It was very overwhelming.

Yea, I did the same thing on Craigslist exactly one time before learning my lesson, and got the same feeding frenzy. Now if I want to give something away, I just set it out by the curb with a “free, first come, first serve” note on it, and it’s gone in under 30 minutes.

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#55

Post by rpastuszak »

OK, this is a very interesting post for me because in the past 5 years I've met 200+ people via my Say Hi page:

https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/say-hi/

and many of my speakers suggested that I should charge for the calls.

Many of my calls involve tech/product advice (often from people with a ton of experience in other areas, e.g. ex FAANG managers, already accomplished founders, designers). Many of the people who message me with concrete questions, asking for my expertise are often already well-off, established and happy to pay.

The thing is:

1. I often get calls from students or people struggling financially 2. I enjoy serendipitous interactions with beautifully weird people

I can probably solve 1. by adding two call lines. But I worry that adding a commercial aspect will prevent 2. from reaching out. I don't live in London any more, and most of my nerdy/artsy/techy/hacker friends live allover the world.

Ah, and:

3. I genuinely love speaking with people in this manner, and personally, I'm getting so much of my Say Hi calls. I just finished a call with a very clever engineer setting their first steps as a solo-founder. They're not "indie hackers", they're people with genuine curiosity, talent and will to help people. It feels amazing to be able to help someone like that, and even better -- to become infected with that enthusiasm!

I am very much aware that I'm rationalising this and perhaps even preventing myself from letting people pay for my work. Whether it's impostor syndrome or the fact that this is such a precious subject to me is a question that I'm trying to answer.

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#56

Post by verbify »

jpalomaki wrote: post #26

It's a similar as described in Freakonomics book. Daycare was annoyed with parents picking up their kids late. They introduced a fee for this. As a result, late pick ups increased. Something that was not considered to be socially acceptable, became more acceptable when you put a price tag for it.

Clearly the fine wasn't high enough.

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#57

Post by lotsofpulp »

trainerxr50 wrote: post #47
poisonborz wrote: post #5

Title is a bit misleading, he became a popular academic/author and the proceedings are for charity. Once you are well known, you can charge for a lot of things, especially if it's for a good cause.

The title is ridiculously misleading when people are donating to charity.

It is sort of entertaining to see the gymnastics writers (or LLMs) do to get clicks.

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#58

Post by kimjune01 »

rpastuszak wrote: post #55

OK, this is a very interesting post for me because in the past 5 years I've met 200+ people via my Say Hi page: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/say-hi/ and many of my speakers suggested that I should charge for the calls. Many of my calls involve tech/product advice (often from people with a ton of experience in other areas, e.g. ex FAANG managers, already accomplished founders, designers). Many of the people who me…

you can simply make another page that is commercially oriented

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#59

Post by [deleted] »

HPsquared wrote: post #14
wodenokoto wrote: post #9

This reminds me of video that went simi viral a decade or so back. Not sure how much of it was staged, but the creators went to a public place and stood next to some “free hugs”-people and then put up a sign “Premium hugs $1” and apparently collected more hugs to the chargrin of the free-huggers.

If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable. It ties in with the story in Freakonomics about the daycare that started to charge a small "fine" to discourage parents picking up the child late, with the effect that these incidents happened more often. Because t…

[deleted]

Re: Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

#60

Post by guappa »

bravesoul2 wrote: post #29
HPsquared wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable. It ties in with the story in Freakonomics about the daycare that started to charge a small "fine" to discourage parents picking up the child late, with the effect that these incidents happened more often. Because t…

Free hugs? Yeah probably going to be churchy!

I've only met them at gay prides… not churchy at all.
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