Let's talk about defining a price for one-time payment products.

When I saw that @gumroad supported Pay What You Want, I had no doubt that this would be the pricing strategy for CSS Scan.

I'd always recommend PWYW with a minimum price instead of a fixed pricing. Why? [...]

It turns out that some people just value your product more than others!

👉 With PWYW you're not only receiving the value that you expected but also donations for a good work.

Plus, with a minimum price, you'll at least earn the same amount you were supposed to if it was fixed.
💡 You only need 1 person paying more to already make it worth.

It's not easy, though. CSS Scan started at $1.99. It was selling like water, so I raised the price to $2.99, and after that, $3.99 - in about 3 days.

❗️ What I didn't expect was that 30% of people were paying more!
I realized that the price could still be higher by looking at the average of the sales prices. E.g., when it was $3.99, the average price of it was actually at $4.69!

I left it at $3.99 for 3 months. Based on the $4.69 average, 1 week ago I decided to raise it again to $4.99.
🧐 Now let's look at the data!

📈 Previous conversion rate: 6,5%
📉 Current conversion rate: 5,7%

It received 1403 views this month. Doing math:
(1403*6,5%)*3,99 = $363
(1403*5,7%)*4,99 = $399

🤔 So there's actually a growth in revenue
⬆️ $363 to $399
🎉 +$36 or +10% per month
About 30% of the people pay more for CSS Scan.

😀 76 paid more than $5
😮 63 of it paid $10 or more
😱 5 of it paid more than 5x the price ($20)

👼 And there's 1 person that was a true angel and paid $25 when the price was at $3.99 - that's ~630% more!
Based on the pricing at $3.99, the countries that PWYW worked more, by average price paid were:

1. 🇿🇦 South Africa: $5,09
2. 🇦🇺 Australia: $5,05
3. 🇺🇸 USA: $4.91
4. 🇫🇷 France: $4,52
5. 🇩🇪 Germany: $4.51
6. 🇮🇪 Ireland and 🇧🇬 Bulgaria: $4,49
Nowadays, it's $4.99 and the average price is at $5.69 so there may be still space for raising it, but anyway I think it has achieved a fair price. What do you think? Should I raise it? Let me know by replying this thread!
🙌 Lessons learned:

- PWYW can be a great pricing strategy for one-time payments

- A lot of people are willing to pay more for your work

- I think initially underpricing could work more than overpricing it bc lowering the price after people already paid more it's unfair IMHO
- If you're using PWYW, take a look at the averages to know if you can still raise the price 👀

💫 That's all for today!

🇧🇷 I'm a Brazilian indie maker and If you want to stay updated on my journey, follow me here, I'll launch a new product next month: Beachguide! 🚀
👉 CSS Scan is a browser extension to instantly check or copy the computed CSS of any particular element you hover over.

🙋‍♀️ More than 1288 developers are already using it!

🌟 Check it at:
https://t.co/qmNzkkHSIk

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From day 1, I intended to build @shoutoutso_ in public, and part of it is to be transparent with numbers, talk openly about our highs and lows, and share lessons as we grow!

I have been doing individual posts on numbers every week so wanted to one big thread with all updates 👇🏽

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There are some amazing founders and indie hackers that have made 🤯-worthy progress this last year.

The stuff you can do in a year is seriously astounding 👇

👉 @TransistorFM reaching $22k MRR in one year:
https://t.co/BuKmXEeEtH

I was one of their first customers and the progress @mijustin and @jonbuda have made working mostly part-time has been crazy.

Now both are full-time. Follow them on @buildyoursaas

👉 @talk2oneup reaching $10k MRR in one year: https://t.co/SOoGkKA19r

@daviswbaer joined as a co-founder and through many different marketing tactics, pricing changes, and product updates, they've managed to carve out a niche market in a really competitive industry.

👉 @hostifi_net $9k MRR in one year: https://t.co/TknroGZWoK

After getting fired from his full-time job, @_rchase_ embarked on a year focused on building products to replace his salary in a year.

The dude seriously SHIPS and even took investment from @earnestcapital


👉 @ClosetTools $11k MRR WHILE WORKING FULL-TIME AND WITH A FAMILY: https://t.co/pKQ7pFvpZY

With a strong product, continuous improvement, and SEO, @unindie has really been inspirational.

There are no excuses.

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1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.