

Ask HN: Is my product priced too high? - marcomassaro

I want to gauge feedback from startups and entrepreneurs here who are in the pitching phase - whether it be to investors, partners or anyone else. Mainly looking to see if the pricing of my product is too high and what other HNers think about it.<p>My product is www.getapitchdeck.com and it allows any startup or entrepreneur to create an attractive pitch deck for pitching investors, partners, an idea, concept, service and so on. A license includes the source files (html, css, .psds) for editing and a video walkthrough. In the future I want to create this as an online service, but I'm in the validation stages right now and making it a service is a much bigger project.<p>Here are some benefits and my goals with this product:<p>• Make pitch decks the new standard for pitching instead of powerpoint.<p>• A pitch deck on your own URL makes it easy to share versus sending a bulky   attachment<p>• Pitch deck makes you stand out: its interactive and tells a story which keeps the user engaged<p>Some questions:<p>• Is the price too high? (Its a $1000 value)<p>• Is this something you would find useful? (more focus on your startup rather than spending tons of time creating a deck from scratch)<p>• Anyone here interested in giving it a test run for free?<p>Appreciate all the help and feedback
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smishca54
I was just about to purchase the most economical option at getapitchdeck.com
but stopped because of the Paypal checkout. I would offer traditional checkout
method with the drop down menu of credit cards. I have had too many issues
with Paypal over the years and even the guest option turned me off. However
for those that use it all the time it is nice to see, I am probably a minority
in that aspect.

Your pricing seems fair, the demo video could be expanded and show more of how
information is inputted and from the viewpoint of a new user instead of the
finished product. It does look sharp and I hope it is easy to make but I was
left wondering exactly what I was purchasing and how long it would take to
make our final product. Website design is sharp, we love it! Overall looks
like a great product and we may purchase later on today if we don't find
something else to suit our needs. Keep up the great work!

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marcomassaro
Appreciate your response. We are going to tweak our homepage and payment
options very soon. Email me at marco@getapitchdeck.com as I'd like to answer
any more of your questions and talk a bit further.

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donebizkit
Hmmm ... I personally think it's overpriced. Your initial users will probably
be technology startups who can easily hack an HTML pitch deck. They can even
use a blogging platform and there are a bunch of JS libraries that gives
powerpoint style presentation. So your best bet is to lower the price as much
as possible to give a better incentive for them not do it manually and then
you can make money on the volume of subscriptions. Anyways, I like the look
and feel of the whole thing. Good luck.

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marcomassaro
Appreciate your feedback. I'm getting mixed opinions on pricing - some are
telling me its good, others are saying to lower it. I'm going to A/B test the
pricing. What do you think is an acceptable range? $20-$30?

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donebizkit
I would personally pay $15-$20 if need be. And A/B testing on the prices won't
be fair to the B category. Don't you think :)

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creativeone
How did you figure that its a $1000 value? You're providing 3 pages of text
and graphics.

Can pitch decks produced on your site generate _results_? If you can point to
even one success story with your product, your value goes up in my eyes, but
right now it looks like and fluffy.

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marcomassaro
Custom design & coding from a legitimate company would cost $1000+:
<http://deckfoundry.com/pitch-deck-design/>

Besides that I am looking for a startup or a few to take free copies to use as
a case study / get feedback

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creativeone
If that is the case, you could show a side by side comparison of the prices
involved with alternatives, like Deck Foundry.

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marcomassaro
Good idea - I appreciate your response

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marcomassaro
Another question:

I'd like to add a "live demo" of the product in action but I'm afraid of
people ripping the source or doing a file > save as hence the video on the
homepage. Any ideas on how I can show the product without the source being
ripped?

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gshahlot
You can consider putting one long screenshot of the page as demo. This is the
closest you can get without putting the actual thing out there.

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marcomassaro
Good idea. Perhaps the video + a screenshot, although with the screenshot some
users may not realize that the deck is built with jQuery for the navigation
(slides to each deck).

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ilija139
It's a really nice product and the price is just right IMHO.

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marcomassaro
Thank you.

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franklaemmer
hm. At the end we have done our pitch deck as a "Google Docs Presentation". We
considered reveal.js by Hakim or even Apple Keynote.

The best thing about the service is that it gives you a good starting point.
Why not give the template away for free and offer custom support for a good
amount of cash?

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marcomassaro
Interesting concept - thanks for sharing. Ours come with documentation and
video walkthroughs along with support. I'm afraid if we are targeting startups
(who tend to be hackers), there won't be much money in providing just support.
I like what reveal.js has done. We are a bit different in the sense that we
follow a more standard pitch deck - I think reveal.js can get a bit confusing
or overwhelming for an older crowd.

