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Sooner founder starts thinking about monetization — sooner it will happen
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I’m seeing kinda magical thinking in the thread: “if we create stable product with a lot of features (already done, but more is coming) — user will come and star donating. No, it will not happen. Or will, but in 5-10y
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All mentioned open source products different: the had a potential to be used on enterprise world. This product is totally for private use.
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To support a development product must make at least 10K $ per month. If you will charge for subscription 3$ per month, you will need 3333 paid users. In freemium world conversion from free to paid is 1%, very rarely 2-3%. So, you need to have more then 100k active users. Is it real?
You can play with digits, but you will see that this is a tough question. Such tool might not be wide spread, so I it must cost 5-7$ -
You either charge a lot from small about if users (1000$+ per month from business client) or little from large amount. Everything which is on the middle — is dead valley (there are very few exceptions). It’s a bitter truth
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Regular user don’t need so many features, it needs less. 3 times less. But more polished.
More features == higher maintainance cost and steeper learning curve. -
This tool need to position itself clearly
Eg: “cheaper roam research”
I’d buy wthis folks know what is roam research.
“outlining” niche has been already occupied by WorkFlowy and Dynalist
Graph knowledge base — there too many competitors.
- I see several option here for monetization
Short term
- supporters get “badges” and early access to all new releases
Long term
- self hosted solution — free.
- cloud hosting — paid.
I done want to bother myself with all this technicals question, I what a reliable solution with mobile support and I don’t care about privacy so much.
Other possibilities
- go to the niche “collaboration tool” for teams
“Like roam research but for teams”
It will be kinda geek wiki-project-management tools for teams of roam-style-lovers.
This niche is free. For now.
I’m sure somebody will occupy it soon.
I see two paths
- got for b2c market: less & more polished features, niche name “cheaper roam research” (in few years it can be changed, no worries)
- for for b2b market: focus on collaboration, niche name: “roam for teams”
I see next risks
- project can’t become financially stable; developers have to work park time, a lot and are burning out.
- lot of features doesn’t help to make project stable and maintainable.
Hope it was helpful
I made a lot of mistakes then I did my projects. Most of them died but some still alive