One of the most crucial aspects of any startup is to figure out how to make money. Oddly, this is a very overlooked and misunderstood element in startups with many deciding to put it off until later; but often later is too late. Or they just copy 37Signals pricing...
Finding out how your customers buy (what channels they go through), what they'll pay, and how they will pay are very important to understand early. You can build the greatest product that meets the requirements of your target market, but if your pricing is off, your distribution methods are misaligned with your market, or your customers simply cannot pay you, it doesn't matter. Since Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Web Apps have inbuilt support for e-commerce and pricing metrics, knowing all of this early in the process will ensure you've built a product that will adequately support your customer base in all areas.
To that end, I have been invited (on very short notice) to moderate a Pricing roundtable discussion by SaaS and Web App founders and CEOs this coming Tuesday 4/27/2010 at 10AM. The event is in actually in England but I will be joining via a teleconference link at the Tandberg offices in Dallas, Texas. There is room for 6 people to join me and to participate in the event. There is no charge to attend this event.
If you are in Dallas, are currently involved in a post-beta (ie. in the market) startup or later-stage SaaS or Web App company and would like to discuss your Pricing and Distribution strategies while learning from others experience as well, please RSVP here.
Be sure to sign-up for our mailing list so you'll be the first to know when our next workshop is and to be the first to get the next version of our "The Reality of Freemium in SaaS" paper, updated for 2011. We'll be releasing it in November.
Author: Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy on Twitter)