We're thinking three things, although the details will likely change as we're 100% focused on building the product currently.
1. Freemium model - always free and anonymous for anyone to use without any restrictions. Then paid pro plans with extra features for teams/professionals and developer use, including paid APIs and developer tools.
2. Business/enterprise use - Andi could act as a front end to both public and organizational data (the API approach and question answering could both work well with that.
3. Possibly some other options to consider like anonymous referral link attribution. We won't let commerce influence search results, so that rules out most things that aren't paid plans, APIs, licensing.
That's our thinking so far. Our main focus is on coding and keeping it improving, but we know this is an important issue so it is something that we'll think carefully about once Andi is further along.
Honestly, I wish you could've found some way to start your business without taking VC money. I don't see how any of those strategies will be as profitable as as inline search ads, and your funding model pretty much forces some kind monetization scheme as the end game.
A better search provider starts with a non profit company, I think.
I think there is huge potential for a freemium approach. And it means that searchers are the customer not the product. We went a long time with no funding and living off toast and vegemite to survive, so we're incredibly grateful to have some support to help us pay for food and API and model training costs now.
We've received backing and funds from YC and angels so far. We're lucky that we're a small team of 2, and we're frugal about things, so we've tried to come up with cost effective ways of building Andi.
My own feeling is that search is such a huge problem, and the more people trying different things, different approaches, commercial and non-commercial, the better for the whole world. It's really exciting to see projects like https://search.marginala.nu/ popping up and getting lots of interest and support as well. It has to be good for everyone to have some innovation in search after so long as a tired monopoly.
