

Why You Should Charge from Day One - robn_fastmail
http://rocketship.fm/episodes/ep-79-rob-mueller/

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jcr
Rob, I spotted this on the download page:

 _> "During this 15-year journey they were acquired, but subsequently bought
the company back a few years later and are now wholly owned by the staff."_

Non-small tech companies owned by staff are pretty rare. Have you ever written
anything about the experience? Does it work well? Is it structured like a co-
op or similar?

(sorry for the barrage of questions, but I've always wondered about this)

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kourt
Several companies on this list are household names; Avis was run as a typical
corporation, W. L. Gore has no managers, and Springfield ReManufacturing is
discussed in Jack Stack's book _The Great Game of Business_
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-
owned_compani...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-
owned_companies)

~~~
ak39
Thanks. Interesting to see Huawei on the list.

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100k
If I ever start another company, I am definitely going to do this. The burden
of supporting only paying customers is so much lower, and you can really focus
on what's important to them.

~~~
danieltillett
You only really have the choice of doing this if you are running a
bootstrapped lifestyle company. You are not going to be a VC "outlier" if you
do things like charging people for your product.

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danieltillett
The fact that we even have a discussion about this is amusing. Outside the
tech bubble what business even questions if they should be charging customers
or not [1].

1\. I am not saying that tech businesses are wrong to not charge (it is the
most rational thing to do in many cases), but just pointing out how unusual
tech is.

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fwn
This really depends on who is considered to be a customer.

Imagine a street musician who wants every listener to pay money instead of few
voluntary contributors. (Would fail - too little reach)

Or a shopping mall / water front/ etc. with an entry fee as an alternative to
charging their retailers (without significant wow effect driving people in..)

~~~
danieltillett
A street musician is not a business. Shopping malls and the like are most
definately businesses and they certainly charge their customers (the
retailers) a great deal.

The whole reason that tech businesses can get away without charging their
customers is their customers are not the people using the product. If you are
cynical their customers are investors (and they certainly charge them). If you
are less cynical the customers are some future user of the product. Tech is
certainly an unusual business sector.

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jmckib
I enjoyed hearing about the history of FastMail, but there isn't really much
here about "Why You Should Charge from Day One". How do we know FastMail
couldn't have had more success with ads?

