

Without this, your product is doomed to fail - benhomie
http://benhomie.com/2013/without-this-your-product-is-doomed-to-fail/

======
neya
I'm just a curious user - How can a start-up be profitable if it charges only
a one-off fee, and that too only something as low as $50-$60? I think it's a
very risky business model.

In my opinion, it's a terrible trade off and you're probably going to bite
more than you can chew. Let me explain. For example, let's consider two apps A
and B.

A charges a $50 one-off fee and B charges a $20 recurring fee. Sure, A will
grow exponentially and you will appear to be instantly profitable, but it's a
risk.

Think of this - You take $50 from the customer only ONCE this means, for the
next two years, you need to pay for his support from your pocket. More the
customers, more the support needed and more you will end up burning your
pocket.

The problem with exponential growth is that it becomes static after a while
and this is when things will become ugly. It will be a difficult situation
because you can't switch to charging your customers monthly, because you've
already charged them once. You will have very few options left then.

I can't imagine supporting a million users through a support system that I'm
paying off monthly, but from an income that isn't monthly.

I think the best way would be to charge the customer annually like $99/yr or
something like that..

This is a good read:

[http://justinmares.com/why-real-businesses-dont-
charge-5mont...](http://justinmares.com/why-real-businesses-dont-
charge-5month/)

~~~
siong1987
You don't have to worry about scaling it to hundreds of millions revenue a
year if you are not running a startup.

In this case, it seems like the OP isn't running Sendy as a startup. He is
working on Sendy as a lifestyle business which is making more than enough
money for the OP and maybe more than some of us who are working on our own
startups.

~~~
ujal
I disagree here. If growth is the main factor for a startup, charging one-off
fees guarantees you not to be delusional about your growth. It is actually
much easier to get stuck with the recurring fee model, where you reach ramen
profitability but don't grow as fast or worth - not at all.

EDIT: Actually the same psychological effects that push entrepreneurs to
charge a recurring fee, push the customers to prefer a one-off fee.

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lenazegher
Late last year you mentioned RSS-to-email was on your roadmap. [1] Do you know
when it will be implemented?

I've been looking for a dead-simple RSS-to-email subscription service for one
of the sites I work for. The only offering I've found (and dislike) is from
MailChimp.

[1] [http://forum.sendy.co/discussion/40/rss-to-campaign-
segments...](http://forum.sendy.co/discussion/40/rss-to-campaign-segments-
inside-lists/p1)

------
l-p
I hope you fixed your security issues.

(<http://redd.it/14o4ki>)

~~~
duiker101
I do not see the connection between this and OP.

I am not saying you are wrong or else, I am just asking to point me to it
because I can't see it.

~~~
l-p
The reddit post is mine and was about Sendy (without disclosing its name).

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visualR
Why not a happy middle ground - $59/year?

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critiq
Thanks

