
Introducing Trello Gold - Kiro
http://blog.trello.com/introducing-trello-gold-board-backgrounds-stickers-and-more/
======
LeafStorm
Meanwhile, I'm completely on board with this. Trello is used by a lot of
people who make lots of money and want to throw some of it at Fog Creek
because they're awesome, but it's also used by a lot of people who make not
lots of money (in some cases zero money) and are organizing things like school
projects and community service. (For example, I use Trello to organize all my
homework, and a club I'm part of at school [with near-zero budget] used Trello
to organize a big charity fundraising event.)

This lets the people who want to give Fog Creek money give them money, and get
something in return, while letting people who can't afford to give Fog Creek
money still use Trello for all the important stuff.

(Also, 250 MB file uploads are a legitimate feature worth paying for. Heck,
even pretty backgrounds and stickers are an important feature for a lot of
people, just maybe not HN-reading programmers.)

~~~
dpcan
I upgraded the instant I saw it for 2 reasons:

1) I've been wanting a way to PAY for this service for a long time now so I
know it's there year after year. I'm super happy to give them $5 per month.

2) I wanted pretty backgrounds.

I am what I am.

~~~
ruswick
I've never understood the pure desire to give away one's money. In my book,
parting with money is a significant thing that only comes after careful
consideration and knowledge of clear benefits. Even then, I'm never happy to
get rid of my money. The unpleasantness of giving up my money is simply
outweighed by the utility of the thing I'm buying.

What is the reasoning as to why one would voluntarily give money when not
absolutely necessary? It just seems odd that one would be happy simply because
of that. (In commerce, that is. Charity is a different animal.)

Then again, I might be the weird one.

~~~
steve19
Take a look at Google Reader. If they had let me pay for it I would have. They
did not want my money and now it is gone.

I am rational consumer. I only pay to get something in return. Often I pay
because I want to know someone is employed to keep updating the service or
product. I don't really care if other people are freeloading.

~~~
judofyr
Paid products gets cancelled as well.

------
chao-
After finally being convinced that this _isn 't_ a joke, I had a horrible
revelation:

If Trello came with all of that by default, I would pay just as much to _make
it go away._

~~~
buro9
Ah, the lesser known "Sneetches" business model.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sneetches_and_Other_Stories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sneetches_and_Other_Stories)

~~~
James_Duval
As practised here:

[http://blogs.hbr.org/2010/08/an-innovation-lesson-from-dr-
se...](http://blogs.hbr.org/2010/08/an-innovation-lesson-from-dr-seu/)

------
swanson
Two points on why stickers are a sneaky-good feature IMO

1) Trello is used by some as a digital Kanban board. A bit thing is Kanban is
the idea of a "blocker" \- on physical boards this is usually a big, in-your-
face, bright red sticky note. The point is that it jumps out at you and gets
the team to swarm in and address the issue. Trello didn't really have this
before (yes, you could use labels but it wasn't obvious). Now you can slap a
big WARNING sticker on the thing and people will notice.

2) Trello has been trying to move away from being strictly a tool for software
developers. Look at the marketing home page - the example board is for an Art
Project, not a software app. With people using Trello to plan weddings [1] or
to help their kids with homework [2], they are aiming for a different market
than techies. Ever have a chore list when you were a kid? And what did mom put
on it when you did your chores and earned a reward? Yup, a sticker. Brilliant
move if you ask me.

[1]: [http://www.22ideastreet.com/blog/2013/09/12/the-tech-
behind-...](http://www.22ideastreet.com/blog/2013/09/12/the-tech-behind-my-
wedding/)

[2]: [http://heartofwisdom.com/blog/get-organized-with-trello-
list...](http://heartofwisdom.com/blog/get-organized-with-trello-lists/)

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
Those stickers are literally spaceships and puppies, how can they be used for
any serious work? There is nothing more obvious than a label, a colored
rectangle with text denoting its meaning, instead you get this -> ;)

~~~
LeafStorm
Besides the fact that some of these stickers are in fact useful for "serious
work" (like "big red exclamation sign"), "serious work" isn't Trello's only
target audience. And it's not like they took away the labels.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
It's not a fact, I happen to find that exclamation sign too silly. I used
Trello for keeping track of chores around the house, and I think more than 5
or 6 labels (what's so hard about adding more fields?) would be far more
useful than these tacky emoji.

I'm just not into Trello Gold, I hate gaudy things.

~~~
hellopat
I completely agree. Additional (unlimited?) labels would be a serious upgrade
to Trello. It's a tool to help people get shit done - which it's very good at
- but adding useless features like custom emojis don't assist in the core
function.

------
thomasd
My first reaction was just like everyone else's. I thought this is a joke.
"After just about every chat app minus WhatsApp have added stickers, plus the
recent inclusion of them in Path, now a productivity app?"

But it actually make a lot of sense. I think if you're already a Trello users,
you're not the target market for this. Trello can be used in small families,
among friends to help arrange things. Read:
[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3546-how-we-the-kims-use-
base...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3546-how-we-the-kims-use-basecamp-at-
home)

And this strikes right at the heart of it. It makes Trello less of a scary
productivity app, and more of an everyday helper and organizer.

~~~
spolsky
[trello co-creator, here]

Definitely not a joke :)

But also not something you need to buy. We're working very hard to make sure
everybody understands that Trello is free and will always be free.

With that, we have to make money to support the development and servers. Our
ultimate goal is that the 1% of people who get the most value out of Trello
will pay us, and that will collectively bring in enough money to pay for the
whole operation.

The people getting the most value out of Trello are organizations, and super-
fans.

The organizations pay us by buying Trello Business Class
([https://trello.com/business-class](https://trello.com/business-class)),
which gets them advanced administrative features that organizations like to
have.

The super-fans are people who really just want a way of showing their love for
Trello and supporting the company, and that's who Trello Gold is for. They
show us some love by either (a) paying us or (b) referring friends to Trello,
and in exchange we give them some cute stickers and board backgrounds and a
little crown thing on your avatar so they can show all their friends how cool
they are.

We actually thought of calling it "Trello Fan Club."

Either way, the long term goal remains to keep Trello 100% free, but still
have a way where the 1% of people who get the most value out of it can pay us.
For those 1% it's an easy sell. There are people running their businesses on
Trello and they've told us that if we sold a brown paper bag called Trello
Brown Paper Bag they would buy it, just to support the software they love and
make sure it has a future.

~~~
ThinkEzy
Why is the idiom of offering it for free (100% that is) and then look out for
supporting the development? How can you honestly do both? Instead, place it
for 14 day trial, offer the entire thing cheaper by 99% (leave 1% fan club
away), and support both the causes sufficiently.

------
caioariede
From the blog post:

“What does Trello Gold mean for Business Class?” Nothing. They work totally
independently. Trello Gold is for individuals and Business Class is for
organizations.

[https://trello.com/business-class](https://trello.com/business-class)

------
julien_c
I have a hard time figuring out if it's a parody or if it's for real.

~~~
jwarren
I honestly checked the date.

~~~
prawn
We're clearly months from April, so is there another prank date of which I'm
not aware?

------
davidjgraph
Well, this is awkward. Take a tool where I'd define two of its key points as
being clean and simple (to look at and use), then charge money to add two
fairly random features that mess up the look.

~~~
avenger123
Everyone likes to bring out their individuality. I can definitely see a lot of
users happily uploading personal pictures for board backgrounds.

~~~
yogo
Like MySpace? I think people should let their tools look the way the want it
to, but it always goes downhill from there. It's one of those things where
it's better to just keep it simple and standard looking.

~~~
avenger123
If you want to keep it simple and standard looking, go ahead. I don't see that
changing in any way.

A classic use case of the new feature for business users, would be using
different board colors to easily differentiate between boards.

Just this would be a nice usability win.

~~~
jacalata
You'd think so, but from when they said 'Trello Gold is for individuals' it
sounds like it won't even be available to business accounts.

------
programminggeek
If Trello's user base is average people using iphone and want a fun todo list,
this is brilliant. Nerds probably won't get it, but there is a reason that
Geocities, Myspace, etc... were terribly popular - making ridiculous things
that express your personality is fun for a lot of people.

~~~
freyr
Your examples would probably be more effective if you chose companies that
didn't die and fall off the map.

In fact, it's been suggested that Facebook's clean and simple design gave the
site an edge over Myspace's garish and annoying clutter.

------
kriro
Is this some analytics project of an intern or something. So strange, almost
looks like a parody.

Oh well Trello is awesome that cannot be stressed enough :)

~~~
wikwocket
A lot of the features for Trello are worked on by interns actually, if you
read the blog. Pretty good work so far!

------
AznHisoka
Yeah! I'm so gonna pay for this. Talk about added value! The only thing left
they need is an API that will let you send POST requests for stickers. Because
APIs and SaaS's are cool! Who cares if it doesn't solves a pain?

------
gdilla
I feel like I'm looking at MySpace circa 2006.

------
badman_ting
Oh man, my coworkers are gonna go nuts with this. We already have the thing
that makes cards "age" if you don't do anything to them for a while. (I admit
it's a cool idea, it just looks like hell.)

~~~
KurtMueller
| It makes things look like hell.

... Which is why it's awesome and incredibly useful. It gives you a rough
estimate of how long you've neglected a card.

------
Finbarr
I don't plan to use most of these features, but I upgraded purely because
Trello has become an integral part of how I work and I want to see it stick
around.

------
morgante
Though it's not April 1, I thought this must be a joke.

Not because these features don't make sense. They do. I know plenty of people
who would love them.

Except those aren't the people who would pay for them.

Simply put, the sort of people who use emojis are definitely not the sort of
people who pay for _productivity_ software. Nerds (and generally
"professionals") will pay for a Trello board. But nerds don't particularly
like stickers.

Normals love stickers, but barely ever pay for anything—least of all
subscription web services. Even today, I just don't see many teenage girls
willing to toss $5 at a web productivity board.

It's just a sad and bizarre case of product-market mismatch.

------
bgertonson
It looks like this basically gives you the ability to customize the look for
yourself. And add some custom things (stickers and emoji) will be visible by
others, but not usable. Thankfully, it looks like a basic sticker set is
available for free. While maybe tacky, I can see stickers being used to
indicate things that labels are used for now, but they will be more obvious.
Labels are a small color bar on the front of the card. Remembering what they
mean can sometimes be difficult. Getting attention via a sticker is probably
more obvious. But can we filter by stickers? Probably not.

------
gmack
I'd pay for Trello 3D. With music.

~~~
adrr
I'd pay for the ability to back date changes on the card logs

------
jmduke
_“What does Trello Gold mean for Business Class?” Nothing. They work totally
independently. Trello Gold is for individuals and Business Class is for
organizations_

Getting upset that your Kanban board will get cluttered by stickers is missing
the point.

(I think stickers are awesome. You might not think so, but I think so, and I'm
generally inclined to give Trello my money. This, if nothing else, gives me a
venue to do so.)

------
awjr
Honestly they appear to have found a nice way for me to personally give them
money and get something in return. I don't have to use the features but the
fact I can give them a little bit of money for a product that has had a
massive impact on my day to day work and a small impact on my home life
(mainly shopping lists) is cool.

Great great great product.

------
nilkn
I think people are forgetting there's already a business class option for
organizations that need more serious power usage. This isn't so odd when you
take that into account. This seems like it's aimed at individual users or
people who specifically want to have more fun in Trello but not necessarily
more power.

------
weisser
I find Trello very tough to use with a team but great for keeping track of
individual process. Asana (while very different) seems to work better with our
team of 5.

I was hoping Trello Gold would have offered the things that keep us from using
Trello in the first place because I really do like the the Kanban method.

~~~
giovannibajo1
Mind elaborating on specific details/workflow that you find superior in Asana
compared to Trello?

~~~
weisser
Sure. The most obvious one is that you can't filter by user (or at least it
wasn't readily apparent that you could).

I also think the keyboard shortcuts on Asana are faster and more intuitive.
Don't get me wrong - I love Trello's layout and Kanban - but it feels very
light in comparison to Asana (which some probably consider a positive).

~~~
spolsky
You can filter by user in Trello... even using keyboard shortcuts! It's right
on the Filter menu, and the handy "q" keyboard shortcut filters to your own
cards.

------
mgrouchy
Hrm. Scanning the comments here, this is not a joke. Weird. To me, wouldn't
larger board uploads be a good enough up-sell to pay 5 bucks for? This
sticker/background thing just seems strange.

------
torbit
Is this real? If it is, the stickers look over sized for the small boards.

------
plg
is this the basic idea, give trello a bunch of money and what you get in
return is some cheesy-ass backgrounds and clip-art?

------
mead5432
This seems to be right in line with the business model for Path.

But Trello is way more useful.

------
hackula1
Add a couple basic reports and I would pay $20/mo without question.

~~~
dshanahan
Yeah, drives me nuts there's zero reporting/analytics. Considering leaving
Trello altogether because of this.

~~~
hackula1
Jira has a kanban feature now (Greenhopper, I think?). I have seriously
considered it, although I am fearful of the ability for PMs and clients to use
Jira's bazillion other features to make my workflow process hell. I do enjoy
Trello's forced fluidity, and cannot wait to port my last few clients off
redmine (love the project, kanban fits my flow 1000x better).

~~~
chrismorgan
GreenHopper has just been renamed to JIRA Agile recently.

------
rywalker
This must be a joke.

------
lifeformed
How about custom label colors?

------
dsego
Gold is best. Best best best.

------
pkrumins
wat

------
swombat
Is it April 1st again???

------
contextual
Trello, if you want a life-long subscriber, please bring Trello to BlackBerry
x10 users.

Love this "gold" feature btw!

~~~
gecko
I can pretty much promise we are never going to do a BlackBerry app.

~~~
contextual
I can pretty much promise I'll never use Trello again.

~~~
mafuba
Wow, that was a quick reversal.

------
ulisesrmzroche
2 years of people clamoring for better labels, and instead they go with these
useless, tacky stickers?

