
How much should startups charge? - benhoyt
http://blog.micropledge.com/2007/07/how-much-should-startups-charge/
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Tichy
If you are keeping money until the project is done, couldn't you just make
money by investing the money for the time you are keeping it? Also, the people
giving you money are already paying that price, because they can't invest the
money elsewhere.

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benhoyt
True, and that's definitely one of our ideas. But mynameishere's right -- it's
very hard to make ends meet with just interest on funds held. Unless you
happen to get really popular really fast. But in that case you'll probably
need more staff or resources, and then you're back to square one.

As far as people paying that price, our thoughts are that we're a
"collaborative funding" service, not just a bank, so people will be okay with
paying a small cut for the service. (Except for open source: there our
philosophy is "you're helping the world, so we'll help you".) We'll find out
soon enough if they aren't, I guess. :-)

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ivan
This is also an interesting article (book summary) about prices Ben, created
by yc.user davidw I think:
[http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/7/information-rules-a-strategic-guide-
to-...](http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/7/information-rules-a-
strategic-guide-to-the-network-economy)

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davidw
Thanks:-)

The economists' answer is doubtless, "what the market will bear", which is of
course of no practical use. Thanks to the web, you could do some trial and
error - some users get different prices, or you can run promotions, stuff like
that, so you can see how people respond.

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benhoyt
Your "some users get different prices" is a quirky but interesting idea. Neat.
I'll keep it in mind.

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davidw
It might not be ideal for what you guys are doing, but think about a site with
many users buying many different things. It's easy to sneak some changes in
there to see how people respond to differential pricing.

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benhoyt
From your squeezedbooks summary: "Many web sites, especially airlines, and
even amazon.com, change prices for each individual on the site based on their
behavoir." Huh, I didn't know that. The plot thickens ... I'm going to be
really careful with my mouse movements next time I book a flight. :-)

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ph0rque
Yes, it's really annoying to be shopping for an airline ticket, make a
significant amount of requests (10-20) with different parameters (dates,
airports, etc) only to see your first quote rise when enter it again :-/.

